After the overthrow of the tsars in 1917, Eastern Europe witnessed a brief efflorescence of children’s literature in Yiddish, some of it composed by first-rate poets and illustrated by first-rate artists. Even after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, they didn’t interfere with and sometimes even encouraged this new genre. But, by the 1930s, all that changed. Rokhl Kafrissen writes:

At the time of Columbia University’s founding in 1784, notes Meir Soloviechik, the leader of the local synagogue, Gershom Mendes Seixas, was made a member of its board of regents. A Jewish student even gave a commencement address, composed by Seixas, in Hebrew. In the 20th century, Columbia attracted numerous Jews with the relaxation of quotas, and was the first secular university to create a chair in Jewish history. Barnard College, Columbia’s all-women’s school, was itself founded by a Jewish woman, and today has a large number of Orthodox Jewish students.