Dineh- An Autobiographical Novel by Ida Maze - 1939-translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub - 2022 with “Russia and Beyond: On the Art and Life of Ida Maze” An Afterword by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

 

Dineh- An Autobiographical Novel by Ida Maze - 1939-translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub - 2022

with “Russia and Beyond: On the Art and Life of Ida Maze” An Afterword by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Gateway to Yiddish Literature on The Reading Life 

Dineh was completed in 1939 but first published in 1970 in Yiddish 

The Jewish Women’s Archive Biography of Ida Maze

Ida Maze

Ida Zhukovsky

July 9, 1893

Ugli, Belarus, Russian Empire

In 1907 with her family she emigrated to New York City, in 1908 they relocated to Montreal where she spent the rest of her life.

Died June 13, 1962 in Montreal

Dineh- An Autobiographical Novel by Ida Maze - 1939-translated from the Yiddish by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub - 2022

with “Russia and Beyond: On the Art and Life of Ida Maze” An Afterword by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Dineh was completed in 1939 but first published in 1970 in Yiddish 

Ida Maze

Ida Zhukovsky

July 9, 1893

Ugli, Belarus, Russian Empire

In 1907 with her family she emigrated to New York City, in 1908 they relocated to Montreal where she spent the rest of her life.

Died June 13, 1962 in Montreal

Dineh is set in what Is now Belarus in the 1910s.  Told in the first person it Is a bildungsroman of a young girl growing up in a Jewish community.  It is deeply felt account of her love for her family, nature and expanding her knowledge of Jewish tradition, normally more considered a subject for boys.  

In a way it Is a tale of dreams and dread of emigration to America.  Things get increasingly worse for Jews with pograms, a ban on landownership.  The turning of some toward anti-Tsarist ideology leads to executions, Siberia and ever increasing fear of the future.  One tragic thing after another does happen.  People emigrate to New York City, some prosper, some hate living there and return home.  Letters from emigres are a very big factor in the novel.

“Born Hayeh Zukofsky in 1893 in the village of Ugli, White Russia, Ida Maze emigrated ca. 1907 and eventually settled in Montreal, Quebec. She was renowned for her work on behalf of other Yiddish writers. In addition to Dineh, Maze authored four books of poetry, A mame (A Mother; 1931), Lider far kinder (Poems for Children; 1936), Naye lider (New Poems; 1941), and Vaksn mayne kinderlekh: muter un kinder-lider (My Children Grow: Mother and Children's Poems; 1954), which was awarded the prize in children's literature by the Congress for Jewish Culture in 1955. Ida Maze died in 1962.

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is the author of The Insatiable Psalm (Hershey, Pa.: Wind River Press, 2005). His English and Yiddish poems, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize,have appeared in numerous publications, including The Forward, Kennesaw Review, Lily, and Prairie Schooner. He was honored by the Museum of Jewish Heritage as one of New York's best emerging Jewish artists. A longtime resident of Brooklyn, New York, he now lives in Washington, D.C. “ from   Amazon 

Dineh is a valuable edition to Yiddish literature.

Mel Ulm