Salvage Poetics Post-Holocaust American Jewish Folk Ethnographies

In a series of brilliant readings of the works of photography, ethnography, and anthropology that emerged from the devastations of the Holocaust and the deracination of assimilation, Sheila Jelen uncovers the 'salvage poetics' that mobilized Jewish cultural fragments against the ruins. Salvage Poetics thus sheds light on both the past and present and how the two are entwined through a Jewish poetics of salvage as well as loss." - Naomi Seidman, author of The Marriage Plot, Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature

"The absence felt noticeable because this stimulating and impressive book has an impact- and deserves to have a readership-far beyond its topic. While Salvage Poetics will primarily and valuably be of use for scholars examining the reconstruction of Jewish cultural life and identity after the Holocaust, it has much to say to folklorists more generally considering the interactive incorporation and adaptive use of literary material in the ongoing shaping of our own disciplinary thinking." - Paul Cowdell, Folklore

"This is a thorough academic work with a fresh approach to our understanding of pre-war Europe. It contains a number of images, beautifully reproduced in color and black-and-white. For academic collections of Jewish history and ethnography" - Beth Dwoskin, AJL News and Reviews