Fordham-NYPL Lecture Series in Jewish Studies: David Assaf on “Childhood, Diaspora, and Zionism”

David Assaf, a professor from Tel Aviv University, will discuss a treasure trove of some ninety letters written in 1935 by Polish Jewish children, around 12 to 13 years old, who studied in the Tarbut school north of Warsaw to their teacher who immigrated to Palestine. These moving letters of elementary school pupils—not young adults like those who participated in YIVO competitions for autobiographies—offer a very rare glimpse into childhood of Jewish children in interwar Poland.

The lecture, titled “To My Beloved Teacher in Eretz Israel: Childhood, Diaspora, and Zionism in Letters Written by Hebrew School Pupils in Interwar Poland,” is a part of the Fordham-New York Public Library lecture series.