Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and Yiddish literary translator. His works of fiction are Beloved Comrades: a Novel in Stories (Quanah, Texas: Anaphora Literary Press, 2020), second place (silver) winner of a CIPA EVVY Award (LGBTQ Fiction) and named a finalist for a Foreword/INDIES Award (Religious (Adult Fiction)) and Prodigal Children in the House of G-d: Stories (London; Cambridge; New York; Sharjah: Austin Macauley, 2018), winner of two CIPA EVVY Merit Awards (LGBTQ Fiction and Religious/Spiritual Fiction) and named a finalist for a Foreword INDIES Award (Religious (Adult Fiction)). He is the author of six books of poetry: A moyz tsvishn vakldike volkn-kratsers: geklibene Yidishe lider/A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (Tel Aviv: Bibliotek fun der haynttsaytiker Yidisher literatur/Library of Contemporary Yiddish Literature, 2017), The Education of a Daffodil/Di bildung fun a geln nartsis (Saarbrucken, Germany: Hadassa Word Press, 2017), Prayers of a Heretic/Tfiles fun an apikoyres (Austin, Tex.: Plain View Press, 2013), Uncle Feygele (Austin, Tex.: Plain View Press, 2011), What Stillness Illuminated/Vos shtilkayt hot baloykhtn (West Lafayette, Ind.:Parlor Press, 2008), and The Insatiable Psalm(Hershey, Pa.: Wind River Press, 2005). Tsugreytndik zikh tsu tantsn: naye Yidishe lider/Preparing to Dance: New Yiddish songs is a CD of nine of his Yiddish poems set to music composed by Michał Górczyński and performed by Malerai–Goldstein–Masecki (Poznan, Poland: Multikulti Project, 2014).
Honored by the Museum of Jewish Heritage as one of New York ’s best emerging Jewish artists, Taub has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. In June 2012, Uncle Feygele was included by poet and editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly Kim Roberts on her “Recommended Reads: Recent Books of Note by and About GLBTQ Poets with Strong DC Ties.”Three of Taub’s poetry books were selected by the critic Amos Lassen for his “The Best in LGBT Literature of 2011: a Personal List.” His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including This Is What America Looks Like: Washington Writers’ Publishing House Anthology: Poetry & Fiction from DC, Maryland, Virginia (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2021), Bettering American Poetry, Volume 3 (Bettering Books, 2020); Liberation: New Works on Freedom from Internationally Renowned Poets (Beacon Press, 2015); This Assignment Is So Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013); Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality(Sibling Rivalry Press, 2011); Trot bay trot: haynttsaytike Yidishe poezye/Step By Step: Contemporary Yiddish Poetry(Verbarium/Quodlibet, 2009); and The Prairie Schooner Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Writing (University of Nebraska Press, 1998). Taub has completed artist residencies at A.I.R. Studio Paducah (Paducah, Ky.; 2018), the now shuttered Rivendell Writers’ Colony (Sewanee, Tenn.; 2016), The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (Eureka Springs, Ark.; 2015), and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (Amherst, Va.; 2014).
Taub is a translator from the Yiddish. He is currently translating Durkhgelebt a velt: zikhroynes by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (1893-1973). Blessed Hands: Stories, Taub’s translation of Gebenshte hent: dertseylungen by Frume Halpern (1881-1888(?)-1965) is forthcoming from Frayed Edge Press. Dineh: an Autobiographical Novel, his translation of Dineh: oytobiografishe dertseylung by Ida Maze (pronounced MAA-zeh; also rendered as Maza and Massey; 1893-1962) was published by White Goat Press of the Yiddish Book Center in March 2022 and was awarded a CIPA-EVVY Award (silver; second place) in the category of Women’s Fiction. As a 2018 Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellow, he translated three memoirs—Di vos zaynen nisht geblibn/Those Who Didn’t Survive, Di antloyfers/The Fugitives, and Fun gsise tsum lebn/From Agony to Life—by Rachmil Bryks (1912-1974). The translated memoirs were published in May 2020 by Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, in its Lexington Studies in Jewish Literature series, under the collective title, May God Avenge Their Blood: a Holocaust Memoir Triptych. A paperback version was released in December 2021. With co-translator Ellen Cassedy, Taub was awarded the 2012 Yiddish Book Center Translation Prize and the 2014-2017 Fenia and Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies for Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories by Blume Lempel (1907-1999) (Mandel Vilar Press and Dryad Press, 2016). Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories underwent a second printing in March 2022. He appears in, edited the English subtitles for the Yiddish dialogue, and received an additional writing credit for Divan (Zeitgeist, 2003), a documentary film by Pearl Gluck. He served as a creative consultant for Ms. Gluck’s narrative short films Where is Joel Baum (2012) and Summer (2017).
Taub is a member of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) and is active in the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL), the professional organization of Hebraica and Judaica librarians. He is currently the President of AJL’s Research, Archive, and Special Collections (RAS) Division. In February 2022 he completed a term as the president of the Association of Jewish Libraries/Capital Area Chapter (AJL/CAC). He was a co-chairperson of “Yovel/Jubilee: 50 Years of AJL!” the June 2015 conference celebrating the Association’s fiftieth anniversary. He has served as Chairperson of the Fanny Goldstein Merit Award Committee, which honors outstanding contributors to the field of Hebraica and Judaica librarianship, and was a founding member of the AJL Jewish Fiction Award Committee. He edited the exhibition catalog, Mattityahu Strashun (1817-1885): Scholar, Leader, and Book Collector (New York, N.Y.: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2001).
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub was born and raised in an Orthodox community in Philadelphia, Pa. He received his secondary education at the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia and the Mechina High School of the Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Md. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Temple University, where he was also named a President’s Scholar. Taub earned a Master of Arts degree in history from Emory University and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from Queens College, City University of New York.
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub lives in Washington, D.C.
AUTHOR PHOTO | PEARL GLUCK
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Yermiyahu Ahron Taub 