Kathryn Hellerstein

Kathryn Ann Hellerstein (Yiddish: קאַטרין העלערשטײן; born 1952) is an American academic and scholar of Yiddish-language poetry, translation, and Jewish American literature. Specializing in Yiddish, she is currently a professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures and former Ruth Meltzer Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She is known for her research focus on Yiddish women writers, notably Kadya Molodowsky, Malka Heifetz Tussman, and Celia Dropkin.

Personal life Hellerstein was born in 1952 in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father, Herman Kopel Hellerstein (1916–1993), was a cardiologist born in Dillonvale, Ohio. Her mother, Mary Feil Hellerstein (1922–2011), was a pediatrician born and raised in Cleveland. Hellerstein's father served in the United States Army during World War II and liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She grew up in a Reform Jewish household.

Education

University Hellerstein attended Wellesley College in the early 1970s for two years before transferring to Brandeis University, where she graduated in 1974 with a degree in English. While at Brandeis, she enrolled in courses on Yiddish literature and translation of songs. In 1991, she began to teach English literature and Yiddish language courses at the University of Pennsylvania. She continues to teach Yiddish courses at the university, alongside David Botwinik's son, Alexander.

Ashkenazic Jewry and China In 2000, Hellerstein visited Jerusalem and met Irene Eber, a scholar who was studying Central European Jewish refugees in China from the war period. Eber served as a mentor to Hellerstein on the research focus between Ashkenazic Jewry and China for over a decade.

After working with Eber and visiting the Shanghai neighborhood of Hongkou in 2007, Hellerstein became inspired to research the transculturation of Ashkenazic Jewry and China.

Research, translation, and works In the early 1980s, Hellerstein wrote an essay analyzing the history and purpose of Yiddish women writing, titled "A Question of Tradition: Women Poets in Yiddish." In 2015, the book also won the Fenia and Yaakov Levant Memorial Prize, sponsored by the Modern Language Association.

Hellerstein, with the help of Tussman, translated Moyshe-Leyb Halpern's first book of poetry In Nyu-York (Yiddish: אין ניו־יאָרק, "In New York") into English, which was published in 1982 as In New York: A Selection. This selection was originally adapted from Hellerstein's PhD dissertation and her critical analyses of Halpern's poetry. Chana Bloch was one of two anonymous readers of Hellerstein's manuscript, which was initially rejected. In 2001, Hellerstein co-edited the anthology Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology with Jules Chametzky, John Felstiner, and Hilene Flanzbaum.

Throughout her academic career, Hellerstein has researched and translated poetry of other Yiddish women poets into English, including Irena Klepfisz, Fradl Shtok, Debora Vogel, Celia Dropkin, Anna Margolin, Rachel Korn, She has also conducted research on the Jewish American writer Cynthia Ozick.