In this episode we speak with Miriam Borden, a doctoral candidate in Yiddish studies at the University of Toronto and contributor to the summer 2024 volume of Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, which is devoted entirely to the field of Jewish education. Miram chats with host Jonathan Slater about her article, "Joshua, King David, and the Flying Nun: Doodles and Reader Annotations in Post-Holocaust Yiddish Primers for Children," which unpacks what the (often vulgar) marginalia that kids left behind in those textbooks reveals about the relationship between the Yiddish language and Jewish identity in a postwar Canadian context. 

Click here to read Miriam's essay. The entire summer 2024 volume is free to read on our website.

This episode was produced and edited by Michelle Chang. Original music is by J. K. Bradley. Our executive producers are Joshua Tapper and David Koffman.  

Please visit the website of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies to learn more about its work, how it supports the research and study of Canadian Jewish life, and how you can contribute. The entire catalogue of Canadian Jewish Studies, an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal devoted to original scholarship that illuminates any and all aspects of the Canadian Jewish experience, is free to read online. The Association for Canadian Jewish Studies is based at the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York University, in Toronto, ON. 

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