Building Good Kids: How Twentieth-Century Jewish Culture Tried to Save the World One Child at a Time

Professor Miriam Udel, Emory University, will deliver the 12th Annual Maurice Amado Foundation Lecture in Jewish Ethics on Dec. 2, 4:00-5:15, in Johnson Auditorium. In the early decades of the twentieth century, a lively, multifarious literature for children sprang into being across four continents in the Jewish hybrid language of Yiddish. The cultural and educational leaders who created this canon had an overarching goal, across various political ideologies, of raising “mensches”: future adults who would act ethically to create a shenere un besere velt, a more beautiful and better world. How did they imbue children’s reading material with their ethical vision, and how did they make their ethical commitments palatable for young readers?