Khesbn (Reckoning)
Khesbn (Reckoning), 1946-2008
Cover of the first volume of Khesbn, 1946
In the late 1930s and 1940s, the Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club grew considerably, as a wave of new Yiddish writers, artists and performers settled in the city. The Club relocated to a new building at 3038 Sunset Blvd. in Silverlake, where they hosted dozens of concerts, art exhibitions and readings by local authors, including founding members Henry Rosenblatt, Peretz Hirschbein, Esther Shumiatsher, Shia Miller, and H. Goldovsky. They also hosted visitors to Los Angeles at the Club, including writers like Rudolf Rocker, William Nathanson, and Melech Epstein, intellectuals like David Pinski and Moyshe Olgin, and stars of the Yiddish stage like Molly Picon and Maurice Schwartz. While the Culture Club remained a strictly non-partisan organization, their cultural events helped to raise money to support the city’s network of Yiddish schools and the new local offices of YIVO, the Jewish Scientific Institute, located nearby. In 1939, the Culture Club also supported its own monthly literary-cultural journal, Undzer Vort (“Our Word”), but the publication soon collapsed due to lack of funds.
LAYCC Headquarters on Monroe Street, 1946
In 1946, the Culture Club erected a large new headquarters on Monroe Street in Hollywood near the campus of Los Angeles City College and began publishing another journal, Khesbn (Reckoning), with Henry Rosenblatt, Isaac Friedland, and Elia Tenenholtz, all of whom were founding members of the Club, serving as editors. And this journal was a smashing success, owed to both the Club’s expanded membership and an increasing local interest in Yiddish culture in the wake of the destruction of Yiddish culture in Europe. Khesbn served as a forum for the founding members of the Club and other writers of their generation as well as the new crop of younger Yiddish writers who came to Los Angeles in the postwar years, including Sarah Fell-Yellin, Isaac Ronch, Zusman Bunin, and long-time Culture Club President Lilke Majzner. In 1985, Warsaw-born Moshe Shklar (Moyshe Szklar), a prize-winning Yiddish poet who had been active in the Culture Club since his arrival in Los Angeles in the 1960s, took over as editor of Khesbn, contributing dozens of his own works and serving in the post until publication ceased in 2008.
Unlike Pasifik and the Culture Club’s other publications, the readership of Khesbn was global, as were its contributors, which included an international roster of the greatest literary and intellectual Yiddish luminaries of the day such as Avrum Sutzkever, Chaim Grade, Abraham Golomb, Aaron Tseitlin, Alex Robin, Melech Ravitich, and Bella Schaechter Gottesman. Khesbn was also one of the most enduring Yiddish literary journals in the world, with 150 issues published between 1946 and 2008. With the generous support of the UCLA/Mellon Program, the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language (CIYCL) digitized all 150 issues of the journal and they are now available online.
Here, we offer selections from the first issue of Khesbn from 1946, translated by Mark L. Smith, Ph.D., who had the privilege of delivering invited lectures at the Yiddish Culture Club during its final years. You can view the entire issue in the original Yiddish here.
Cover of the first volume of Khesbn, 1946
In the late 1930s and 1940s, the Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club grew considerably, as a wave of new Yiddish writers, artists and performers settled in the city. The Club relocated to a new building at 3038 Sunset Blvd. in Silverlake, where they hosted dozens of concerts, art exhibitions and readings by local authors, including founding members Henry Rosenblatt, Peretz Hirschbein, Esther Shumiatsher, Shia Miller, and H. Goldovsky. They also hosted visitors to Los Angeles at the Club, including writers like Rudolf Rocker, William Nathanson, and Melech Epstein, intellectuals like David Pinski and Moyshe Olgin, and stars of the Yiddish stage like Molly Picon and Maurice Schwartz. While the Culture Club remained a strictly non-partisan organization, their cultural events helped to raise money to support the city’s network of Yiddish schools and the new local offices of YIVO, the Jewish Scientific Institute, located nearby. In 1939, the Culture Club also supported its own monthly literary-cultural journal, Undzer Vort (“Our Word”), but the publication soon collapsed due to lack of funds.
LAYCC Headquarters on Monroe Street, 1946
In 1946, the Culture Club erected a large new headquarters on Monroe Street in Hollywood near the campus of Los Angeles City College and began publishing another journal, Khesbn (Reckoning), with Henry Rosenblatt, Isaac Friedland, and Elia Tenenholtz, all of whom were founding members of the Club, serving as editors. And this journal was a smashing success, owed to both the Club’s expanded membership and an increasing local interest in Yiddish culture in the wake of the destruction of Yiddish culture in Europe. Khesbn served as a forum for the founding members of the Club and other writers of their generation as well as the new crop of younger Yiddish writers who came to Los Angeles in the postwar years, including Sarah Fell-Yellin, Isaac Ronch, Zusman Bunin, and long-time Culture Club President Lilke Majzner. In 1985, Warsaw-born Moshe Shklar (Moyshe Szklar), a prize-winning Yiddish poet who had been active in the Culture Club since his arrival in Los Angeles in the 1960s, took over as editor of Khesbn, contributing dozens of his own works and serving in the post until publication ceased in 2008.
Unlike Pasifik and the Culture Club’s other publications, the readership of Khesbn was global, as were its contributors, which included an international roster of the greatest literary and intellectual Yiddish luminaries of the day such as Avrum Sutzkever, Chaim Grade, Abraham Golomb, Aaron Tseitlin, Alex Robin, Melech Ravitich, and Bella Schaechter Gottesman. Khesbn was also one of the most enduring Yiddish literary journals in the world, with 150 issues published between 1946 and 2008. With the generous support of the UCLA/Mellon Program, the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language (CIYCL) digitized all 150 issues of the journal and they are now available online.
Here, we offer selections from the first issue of Khesbn from 1946, translated by Mark L. Smith, Ph.D., who had the privilege of delivering invited lectures at the Yiddish Culture Club during its final years. You can view the entire issue in the original Yiddish here.
Begin this path: Khesbn (Reckoning)
- The Editors: "An Accounting - Not a Summation"
- Esther Shumyatsher: Congratulations!
- Y. Fridland: Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club, Pt. 1
- Y. Fridland: Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club, Pt. 2
- Israel Osman: Jewish Life in Former Los Angeles
- Itshe Nokhumzon: Los Angeles Jewish Community Council, Pt. 1
- Itshe Nokhumzon: Los Angeles Jewish Community Council, Pt. 2
- Joseph Shpigelman: What Interests Me in Our Club
- W. Ostrowski: Cultural Activity in Los Angeles
- Women's Branch of the L.A. Yiddish Culture Club
- A. Soyfer: Los Angeles and the Yiddish Book, Pt. 1
- A. Soyfer: Los Angeles and the Yiddish Book, Pt. 2
- A. Soyfer: Los Angeles and the Yiddish book, Pt. 3
- Y. Sh. Naumov [I. S. Neumov]: The Yiddish Press in Los Angeles, Pt. 1
- Y. Sh. Naumov [I.S. Neumov]: The Yiddish Press in Los Angeles, Pt. 2
- Y. Sh. Naumov [I.S. Neumov]: The Yiddish Press in Los Angeles, Pt. 3
- Maks Band: On Art and Time
- Eliyahu Tenenholts: Already Twenty Years?
- Peretz Hirschbein: Jews in Los Angeles
- Ber Grinfeld: An Interview with Sholem Aleichem, Pt. 1
- Ber Grinfeld: An Interview with Sholem Aleichem, Pt. 2
- P. L. Alkon: Hollywood and Second Avenue
- Sh. Shulman: Notes from a Former Teacher in the Folk-shul, Pt. 1
- Sh. Shulman: Notes from a Former Teacher in the Folk Shul, Pt. 2
- Leyzer Meltzer: Twenty-Five Years of Arbeter Ring Schools in Los Angeles. Pt. 1
- Leyzer Meltzer: Twenty-Five Years of Arbeter Ring Schools in Los Angeles, Pt. 2
- Sima Goldberg: Twelve Years of the [Women’s] Reading Circles in Los Angeles
- Julius Levitt (Y. Levit): The Communal and Cultural Role of the Arbeter Ring in Los Angeles, Pt. 1
- Julius Levitt (Y. Levit): The Communal and Cultural Role of the Arbeter Ring in Los Angeles, Pt. 2
- A. Babitz: The Jewish National Workers Alliance
- V. Kesner: The YKUF in Los Angeles
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