JEWISH STUDIES

BUILDING THE FUTURE

Jewish Immigrant Intellectuals
and the Making of Tsukunft

When Di Tsukunft was first published in 1892, the founding editors were optimistic that their sophisticated new monthly would enlighten the masses of Jewish immigrants and surpass, in political savvy and intellectual content, the numerous Yiddish newspapers already in existence.

The journal was initially the official organ of the Socialist Labor Party in the United

The present collection gathers together articles from the journal's inception through 1914, representing the work of the first two generations of Jewish immigrants to America. This volume provides us with an invaluable account of American Jewish intellectual thought at the turn of the century, allowing us to trace the process by which this intellectual elite, with its imported Russian cultural identity, adjusted to the ever-evolving milieu of a new nation.

"This anthology of the Tsukunft 1892–1918 fills in a badly neglected chapter in American intellectual history—introducing the first Yiddish immigrant writers and thinkers who pioneered 'Jewish progressivism' in all its varieties, and anticipated many of the arguments of later generations of Jewish socialists, anarchists, feminists, and liberals. Here is an excellent new resource for teaching and understanding the turn of the American twentieth century as it was being shaped in New York City."
—Ruth Wisse, Harvard University

“Professor Cassedy introduces his readers to the intellectual elite of Yiddish immigrant writers and thinkers whose progressive ideas and insights concerning the arts, literature, and politics found expression in the pages of the Yiddish language journal, Di Tzukunft.”
—Jewish Book World

Steven Cassedy is professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of several books including Selected Essays of Andrey Bely and, most recently, To the Other Shore: The Russian Jewish Intellectuals Who Came to America.