{"product_id":"wandering-soul-safran-9780674055704","title":"Wandering Soul","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe man who would become S. An-sky--ethnographer, war correspondent, author of the best-known Yiddish play, \u003ci\u003eThe Dybbuk\u003c\/i\u003e--was born Shloyme-Zanvl Rapoport in 1863, in Russia's Pale of Settlement. His journey from the streets of Vitebsk to the center of modern Yiddish and Hebrew theater, by way of St. Petersburg, Paris, and war-torn Austria-Hungry, was both extraordinary and in some ways typical: Marc Chagall, another child of Vitebsk, would make a similar transit a generation later. Like Chagall, An-sky was loyal to multiple, conflicting Jewish, Russian, and European identities. And like Chagall, An-sky made his physical and cultural transience manifest as he drew on Jewish folk culture to create art that defied nationality. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLeaving Vitebsk at seventeen, An-sky forged a number of apparently contradictory paths. A witness to peasant poverty, pogroms, and war, he tried to rescue the vestiges of disappearing communities even while fighting for reform. A loner addicted to reinventing himself--at times a Russian laborer, a radical orator, a Jewish activist, an ethnographer of Hasidism, a wartime relief worker--An-sky saw himself as a savior of the people's culture and its artifacts. What united the disparate strands of his life was his eagerness to speak to and for as many people as possible, regardless of their language or national origin. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this first full-length biography in English, Gabriella Safran, using Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and French sources, recreates this neglected protean figure who, with his passions, struggles, and art, anticipated the complicated identities of the European Jews who would follow him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Gabriella Safran\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0674055705\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780674055704\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Harvard University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/15\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 392\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.53lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.36h x 6.58w x 1.11d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/04\/2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eReference and Research Bk News\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/01\/2011 pg. 221","brand":"Gabriella Safran","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43981081575679,"sku":"9780674055704","price":41.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_e33cb51d-8634-4f23-93c1-3d899bcd7ec1.jpg?v=1683253557","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/wandering-soul-safran-9780674055704","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}