Kirzane, Jessica
A literary researcher, a translator from Yiddish literature into English, a Yiddish educator, and a poet, she was born in New Jersey. She studied at Columbia University where she defended her doctoral thesis in the field of Yiddish literature.
Since 2017 she has served as the editor-in-chief of the English-language internet journal for Yiddish studies,
In Geveb (In the Web).
She has translated into English three books of prose by Miriam Karpilove:
Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle against Free Love ( original: Tage-Bukh fun a Elende Meydel, oder der Kampf Gegen Fraye Liebe, 1918, 1928)(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2020), 321 pp.;
Judith: A Tale of Love & Woe (original: Yudes, 1911)(France: Farlag Press, 2022), 146 pp.; and
A Provincial Newspaper and Other Stories (original: A Provints-Tsaytung, 1926)(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2023), 285 pp.
She has also translated stories and poems by Yoysef Opatoshu, Yente Serdotski, and Pesi Hershfeld-Pomerants.
She debuted in print with poems in 2024 in the internet journal
Yidish Branzhe (Yiddish Branch).
Additional poems in print:
“Zunoyfgang” (Sunrise) and “Erev Shabes af a Hoyz Kontsert” in Afn Shvel (On the Threshold) (winter 2024);
“Shneyveyen” (Snowdrifts) in Yidishland.
She lives in Chicago where she teaches Yiddish Studies at the University of Chicago (2026).