Ellen Kellman

Associate Professor of Yiddish

Departments/Programs

Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Degrees

Columbia University, D.Phil.
University of Michigan, M.Phil.
Columbia University, M.A.
University of Michigan, M.A.
Goddard College, B.A.

Expertise

Yiddish language
Modern Yiddish literature
Yiddish Press and Cultural Movements
Modern Jewish literature
Jewish Graphic Novels

Profile

Ellen Kellman teaches courses in Yiddish language, literature and culture and modern Jewish literature at Brandeis. She has many years of experience as a teacher of Yiddish at the university level.

She has particular expertise in the classic Yiddish writers, the history of the Yiddish press and the Yiddish book. Her longstanding research interest focuses on the history of fiction in the Yiddish periodical press. More recently, she has published research on Yiddish cultural movements in 20th century Eastern Europe.

In recent years, she has developed undergraduate and graduate-level courses in Modern Jewish Literature, an advanced readings course in Yiddish, and a course on Jewish graphic novels.

Courses Taught

NEJS	158b	Yiddish Literature and the Modern Jewish Revolution
NEJS	176b	Jewish Graphic Novels
NEJS	221a	Reading Yiddish Literary and Historical Texts
YDSH	10a	Beginning Yiddish
YDSH	20b	Continuing Yiddish
YDSH	30a	Intermediate Yiddish
YDSH	40b	Advanced Intermediate Yiddish

Awards and Honors

Brandeis Genesis Institute Faculty Research Grant (2016)

The Drench Memorial Fellowship and the Tendler Endowed Fellowship in American Jewish Studies, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2016-2017. (2016 - 2017)

Center for German and European Studies Research Grant (2012)

Scholars Working Group on the Jews of New York (Sponsors: The Center for Jewish History and New York University) (2012 - 2013)

Scholars Working Group on the Jews of New York (Sponsors: The Center for Jewish History and New York University) (2010 - 2012)

Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Award (2009)

Posen Summer Seminar Award (2009)

Emanuel Patt Visiting Professor, YIVO Institute (2008 - 2009)

Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Research Grant (2008 - 2009)

Scholarship

Kellman, Ellen. "The Kultur-lige's Efforts to Cultivate a Transnational Yiddishist Organization (1921-1924)." East European Jewish Affairs 50 nos. 1-2. Yiddish in the City, a special double issue (2020): 95-114.

Bergelson, David; Ellen Kellman, translator. ""On the Eve of Battle"." Have I Got a Story for You. First ed. Ed. Ezra Glinter. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2017. 212-232.

Kellman, Ellen. "Constructing the East European Past in Post-Holocaust Children's Literature (1950-1975)." Reconstructing the Old Country: American Jewry in the Post-Holocaust Decades. First ed. vol. 1 Ed. Eliyana Adler and Sheila Jelen. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017. 173-198.

Kellman, Ellen. "Goles Varshe (Exile in Warsaw): The Kultur-Lige in Poland, 1921-1924." Polin Studies in Polish Jewry 28. (2016): 459-479.

Kellman, Ellen. "Aiding the Female Immigrant Reader or Entertaining Her?: The Jewish Daily Forward and its ‘Gallery of Missing Husbands’ (ca. 1908)”." New York and the American Jewish Communal Experience. Ed. Fruma Mohrer. New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2013

Kellman, Ellen. "Faint Praise: the Early Critical Reception of Joseph Opatoshu’s Historical Novel In poylishe velder (In Polish Woods)." Joseph Opatoshu: a Yiddish Writer, Thinker and Activist. vol. Studies in Yiddish series, vol. 10 Ed. Gennady Estraikh, Mikhail Krutikov and Sabine Koller. London: Legenda, 2013

Kellman, Ellen. "“The Pregnant Bride from Suffolk Street: Intraethnic Class Conflict in a Yiddish Serial Novel (1931)”." The Serial Novel in U.S. Minority Press, 1820-1920. Ed. Patricia Okker. New York: Routledge Press, 2012

Kellman, Ellen, ed. "The Brief Afterlife of the Kultur-Lige in Interwar Poland" in Jews and Slavs. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, vol. 22 2010.

Kellman, Ellen. "Der Groyser Kundes and its Polemic with Abraham Cahan over shund (Yiddish)." Tsukunft (2008).

Kellman, Ellen. "Abraham Cahan and the Newspaper Novel in Forverts (Yiddish)." Forverts June 1, 2007: 12.

Kellman, Ellen. "Creating Space for Women in Interwar Jewish Vilna: the Role of the Froyen-fareyn." Jewish Space in Central and Eastern Europe: Day-to-day History. Ed. Jurgita Verbickiene and Larisa Lempertiene. Cambridge: Centre for Studies of the Culture and History of East European Jews, 2007

Kellman, Ellen. "Entertaining New Americans: Popular Fiction in the Forverts (1910-1930)." Jews and American Culture. vol. 2 Ed. Paul Buhle. Westport and London: Praeger, 2007

Kellman, Ellen. "Feminizm i literatura." Midrasz (2007).

Kellman, Ellen. "Uneasy Patronage: Dovid Bergelson's Years at the Forverts (1922-26)." David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism. Ed. Joseph Sherman and Gennady Estraikh. London: Legenda, 2007

Kellman,Ellen. "Les romans-feuilletons dans la presse yiddish américaine (1870-1900) (Serialized Fiction in the American Yiddish Press [1870-1900]." Au bonheur du feuilleton: Naissance et mutations d'un genre (Etats-Unis, France, Grande-Bretagne. XVIII°-XX° siècle). Ed. Marie-Francoise Cachin and Claire Parfait. Paris: Créaphis Press, 2007

Kellman, Ellen. "Feminism and Fiction: Khane Blankshteyn's Role in Interwar Vilna." Polin 18. (2005): 221-239.

Kellman, Ellen. "The Early Period of I. J. Singer's Career at the Forverts." Bilgoraj, czyli raj... Rodzina Singerow i swiat , ktorego juz nie ma. Ed. Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska and Boguslaw Wroblewski. Lublin: Marie Curie-Sklodowska University Press, 2005

Kellman, Ellen. "Power, Powerlessness and the Jewish Nation in Sholem Asch's Af kidesh haShem." Sholem Asch Reconsidered. Ed. Nanette Stahl. New Haven: The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Yale University, 2004

Kellman,Ellen. "The Yiddish Book Sounds the Alarm!: Toward the History of Yiddish Reading in Interwar Poland." Polin 16. (2003).