Associate Professor @JohnsHopkins. Yiddish and German lit, art. Author of Jewish Primitivism @stanfordpress: sup.org/books/title/?id=3315…
Joined June 2021
- Tweets 4,357
- Following 2,984
- Followers 4,355
- Likes 35,584
475 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
7 Dec 2022
I'm honored & SO happy to share that my book Jewish Primitivism has won MLA's book prize for Germanic languages! It's extra special for me that a book about Jewish lit - in large part about Yiddish - has won this distinction. It means so much. My thanks to the prize committee!
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
12 Apr 2022
Everyone: Passover Haggadah
1785 Haggadah from Berlin:
"Lecture (Vortrag) on the first two evenings of Passover"
(The language is German in Hebrew script not [really] Yiddish)
us.bidspirit.com//ui/lotPage…
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
30 Nov 2022
“Mountain Jews: a Novel,” by Rakhmil Grin, Warsaw 1938. This little-known writer was murdered in the Holocaust, likely in the Lvov ghetto.
His entire immediate family was also murdered possibly excepting his twin children who were hidden.
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12 Dec 2025
“Hey Siri, play Yiddish Chanukah carols.”
And then—a great miracle happened, thanks to @YDesser.
If you love Yiddish and you love Christmas music (who doesn’t?) you have to listen to this album.
music.apple.com/us/album/yid…
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
21 Nov 2025
After 140 years, @MLNJournal will have a regular issue devoted to Yiddish, Hebrew, and other Jewish languages. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited!
Please help us get the word out and please send me your work.
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25 Nov 2025
Want to get a PhD in Yiddish or Hebrew? Or Yiddish AND Hebrew? We are accepting applications for the PhD in Jewish Languages & Literatures! Please help me get the word out! @JHUArtsSciences
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
21 Nov 2025
Someone, somewhere, must have an article on Yiddish & herring. The world needs you to write it now!
21 Nov 2025
After 140 years, @MLNJournal will have a regular issue devoted to Yiddish, Hebrew, and other Jewish languages. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited!
Please help us get the word out and please send me your work.
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27 Oct 2025
If you’re in the area and like cool books… featuring Dr. Mack Zalin of @jhulibraries.bsky.social and yours truly.
events.jhu.edu/form/hopkins-…
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
30 Sep 2025
Day 2 of our expedition to the Jewish Community of Warsaw. 1 additional book from Chachmei Lublin, hundreds of books saved. Now process of fumigation ahead of us.
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
29 Sep 2025
Day 1 of our expedition to the Jewish Community of Warsaw. Among thousands of heavily damaged books discovered in their basement we identified 2 from Chachmei Lublin, books from various Jewish Communities of Poland and fragments of Torah shafts.
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
11 Aug 2025
The main reason I came to Wolsztyn is that it has one of the last scheduled passenger train services in Europe still operated by a steam locomotive. This is not a tourist train or heritage line, it's a regional service just like the one earlier today, with the same fares!
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Samuel Spinner retweeted
14 Aug 2025
This copy of Bet Meir from 1836, Lviv, is beautifully unique! If you look closely you will see hand recreation of the missing pages. YChL call number 12539, today in the holdings of the Jewish Historical Institute.
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12 Aug 2025
They do the same thing on Broadway but it’s even worse—they read other people’s papers. Totally weird waste of time.
11 Aug 2025
Why do academics in the humanities read their papers aloud, word for word, when they give talks at universities or at meetings, while scientists generally speak extemporaneously? If you read, you might as well just hand out the paper. It's a mystery.
whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/…
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6 Aug 2025
What's the best single volume history of the Holocaust to assign as supplementary reading for an undergraduate course?
Suggestions much appreciated.
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29 Jul 2025
“The Case of Mordecai vs. Haman:
A struggle for an independent judiciary
Before the Bar of Universal Justice
Based on a Unique Interpretation of the Book of Esther,” by Rabbi Dr. Solomon M. Neches, 1951.
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29 Jul 2025
Born in Jerusalem in 1891, died in Los Angeles 1954, Neches descended from the Vilna Gaon. Go argue with a Litvak, as Peretz said.
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28 Jul 2025
I spent an amazing few days last week @YiddishBookCtr talking with a group of middle and high school teachers from all kinds of schools around the country about Yiddish Holocaust poetry and how they can incorporate it into their teaching about the Holocaust.
ALT Shelves of Yiddish books.
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28 Jul 2025
Turns out you can get books and Pokémon at the Yiddish Book Center. I got a few of each.
ALT Pokemon at the Yiddish book center.
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