Gender, Language and Territory: The Tsushtayer Literary Journal in Galicia and the Contributions of Yiddish Women Writers

Abstract:This essay examines the problematic intersections of gender, language and territory—in short, the negotiation of belonging—articulated in the pages of the Tsushtayer literary journal (1929–1931) by Yiddish women writers who contributed to the publication. As a noun, tsushtayer means "contribution," but the verb tsushtayern may be used in the sense of "reaching the shore," an intentional polysemy that leads directly to the mission of this journal, published in interwar Poland. Tsushtayer strove to reach beyond reductive discourses of territorialism and nationalism and discuss ways of linguistic non-territorial belonging, representing a literary quasi-territory and also offering a platform for the contributions of women writers. In their essays, reviews and poetic works, Rokhl Oyerbakh, Dvoyre Fogel, Kadya Molodowsky and others pondered issues of gender, especially the challenges faced by Jewish women intellectuals and writers creating space for themselves in Yiddish literature, Jewish culture and broader societal formations.