A Chosen Calling: Jews in Science in the Twentieth Century by Noah J. Efron
A Chosen Calling: Jews in Science in the Twentieth Century by Noah J. Efron
Mark Zelcer
ABSTRACT
1920s United States saw the publishing of numer- ous popular science textbooks in Yiddish, like Z. P. Nathans’ Populere erḳlerung fun Aynshṭayn’s relaṭiṿiṭeṭ ṭeorye (Popular Explanations of Einstein’s Theory of Rel- ativity) and Yiddish translations of scientific classics like Darwin’s The Descent of Man1. These were geared toward a largely bilingual Jewish audience that had strong cultural ties to Yiddish (the language of Eu- ropean Jewry) and also to science. But what does it mean for an ethnicity to have strong cultural ties to science and how did it get that way in this case? Put another way, why put all this effort into producing Yiddish texts for an audience, part of which could get by in English and part of which was not particu- larly well educated enough to appreciate them? Why would Jews put such a Jewish spin on science?
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