NYPL Researcher Spotlight: Miriam Schwartz

By Jeanne-Marie Musto, Librarian II
May 31, 2023
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
close-up of Miriam Schwartz outdoors, smiling at the camera, with purple and black hair and wearing a purple shirt and black sweater

This profile is part of a series of interviews chronicling the experiences of researchers who use The New York Public Library's collections for the development of their work.

Miriam Schwartz is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, where she works on Hebrew and Yiddish literature in the twentieth century, focusing on issues of language, translation, and ideology.

Tell us about your research project.

My research project focuses on what I term “dubbed literature” and explores direct speech in Hebrew and Yiddish literature published in the 20th century, in different literary centers. I am researching the noticeable gap between the language as it appears on the page and the language of the story world in those works. Both Modern Yiddish and Modern Hebrew literature in the first decades of the 20th were transnational languages, languages without a home or defined boundaries. This diasporic state of writing created a multilingual literature that is written in a monolingual fashion, or under the façade of monolingualism. The allegedly monolingual texts of modern Jewish literature constantly suppress other languages—languages that do not appear in the text, yet are still present. In my work, I examine the different strategies employed by Jewish authors to signal the inherent multilingualism present in their works. 

Close-up photo, 3/4 view, of the head and shoulders of Rivke Rus. Black and white, grainy image.

Yiddish writer Rivke Rus (1912-1983)

Photo from Rivke Rus, Ahavah ḳetsarah: sipurim (Tel Aviv: Alef, [1982]), p. [7].

What brought you to The New York Public Library? 

I came to NYPL searching for the work of the Yiddish writer Rivke Rus (1912-1983). Rus was born in Galicia, studied in Vienna, and then immigrated to South America where she lived from 1937 until she immigrated once again to Palestine/Israel in 1944. While living in Argentina she started publishing her literary work in local newspapers, and she continued to publish in those newspapers throughout her career. Two of her novels were only serialized in the Buenos Aires-based newspaper Di Idishe tsaytung, and were not published in a book form. The Dorot Jewish Division at NYPL carries a wide selection of Yiddish newspapers, including Di Idishe tsaytung.

What research tools could you not live without? 

The internet. And especially the Yiddish Book Center’s Digital Library and Collections, and the National Library of Israel’s Historical Jewish Press collection.

How do you maintain your research momentum? 

I try to set small achievable goals at the beginning of each week, so I can measure my progress, and keep myself accountable.

After a day of working/researching, what do you do to unwind?

Take long walks, with friends or alone. 

What's your favorite distraction?

Baking and caring for my house plants.