Journey Through the Spanish Civil War by S. L. Shneiderman and Translated by Deborah A. Green
Recognized by Kirkus as one of the Best Indie History Books of 2024!
Description of the book:
In 1936, when civil war broke out in Spain between Republican and Nationalist forces, thousands of Jews streamed into the country to fight for the elected Republican government. One of these arrivals was S. L. Shneiderman— although he did not come to fight. Shneiderman (1906– 1996) was a poet, translator, and literary journalist whose coverage of the Spanish Civil War earned him the moniker “ the first Yiddish war reporter.” With the collaboration of his wife, Eileen, and photographs by his brother-in-law David Seymour (known professionally as Chim), Shneiderman’ s dispatches from Spain made him one of the most influential Yiddish journalists of the century. Almost a century later, his book on the Spanish Civil War, published in 1938 as Krig in shpanyen: hinterland and now translated for the first time into English by Deborah A. Green, remains a vivid ground-level record of the conflict through a uniquely Jewish lens.
What people are saying about Deborah A. Green’s translation of Journey Through the Spanish Civil War:
“Deborah Green has done a wonderful service to make this book available to so many. Shneiderman writes with heartfelt emotion, and Green is outstanding in her ability to convey his many wonderful, flowing, liquid descriptions. Whether it is the horror of war and abject poverty or the heady scent of roses and oranges, Green makes us visualize the scenery and action with her excellent command of the English and Yiddish languages.” – Amazon Review
“Green begins her remarkable translation of S.L. Shneiderman’s intimate reporting on the Spanish Civil War with a concise and cogent introduction to the events and personalities that led to this tragic war. Her book is a real page-turner, and the reader never feels deprived of reading the original Yiddish. Her translation is pitch perfect, evoking the passions, heroism, and deep suffering among the ordinary people fighters. Shneiderman brilliantly contrasts the poetic beauty of the Spanish landscape with the menacing sounds of war and death. Green captures the zeitgeist of the age in her masterful translation. But most of all, this book provides a unique window into the haunting Jewish presence in Spain, both past and present. His reporting of conversations with Jewish men and women who had left their homes and professions in Europe to join the battle against fascism is spellbinding. The reader gains an insight into the dark cloud of German Naziism and the fate of European Jews.” – Amazon Review
“Timely is the emergence of this wonderful translation into our own troubled world. The concise world history provided by Deborah Green is a prologue that opens the door into Schneiderman’s time. It also serves as a reminder of how wasteful the irrelevant use of words such as ‘fascist’ by the uninformed as the reader’s present has already borne witness to the horrors of the future, which Schneiderman forbodes. Deborah Green has unlocked Schneiderman’s Yiddish and converted it into wonderful English prose… It is an easy read, well worthwhile, and recommended without reservation….” – Amazon Review