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Evelyn Torton Beck
Evelyn Torton Beck (born January 18, 1933) is a retired American academic. Until her retirement in 2002 she specialized in women's studies, Jewish women's studies and lesbian studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Beck has published a number of essays and books on Judaism. She came to wider prominence in 1982 with her book, Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, a compilation of poems, essays, reminiscences and short stories, believed to be the first published collection of works by lesbian Jewish women in the United States.
Evelyn Torton was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Max Torton, her father, came originally from Buchach, a small town which at that time would have been regarded as Polish. (Since 1944 it has been in Western Ukraine.) Her mother, born Irma Lichtmann, was from Vienna. Politics in Austria became increasingly polarised during the 1930s, and around the time of Evelyn's birth the country became a one-party dictatorship. The Austrian government came increasingly under German influence. Following Austria's integration into an enlarged Germany in March 1938, antisemitism became a mainstream element of government policy: in 1938, her father was arrested and taken to the Dachau concentration camp. The rest of the family were obliged to leave their Vienna apartment and move into a ghetto. Here they lived with other families in a multi-occupancy apartment. By 1939, her father had been transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp, and then released under circumstances that never became clear. That year, six-year-old Evelyn, together with her parents and her younger brother Edgar, fled to Italy where the family settled for a couple of months in Milan. It was only possible to obtain four visas, and they had to leave Evelyn's maternal grandmother, who had always lived with the family, behind in Vienna. She would later be deported by the Nazi authorities and murdered. By the time Evelyn reached New York with her parents in June 1940, she was seven. Her father told her that theirs had been the last emigrant ship permitted to leave Italy for the United States. Her younger brother Edgar remained in Europe, but he survived the Holocaust and emigrated to New York after the war.
Evelyn grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class neighborhood. Her father, who had owned his own business in Vienna, now worked in a factory owned by a relative. Here he met up with other Yiddish speaking exiles. Evelyn's mother was not able to settle to their new life so quickly. When news came through of her own mother's murder she suffered a nervous breakdown. Meanwhile, Evelyn joined Hashomer Hatzair, a Socialist-Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement which at the time was strongly focused on preparing young people for emigration to Palestine. In an interview given in 2001 she said that the pioneering spirit and shared objectives which she experienced as a member of Hashomer Hatzair, together with the comradeship and the sense of belonging, did much to form her. She was also impressed by the way that within the movement women and men all did the same work.
Evelyn Torton Beck studied comparative literature and received her BA (first degree) from Brooklyn College in 1954, which was also the year of her first marriage. The next year she received her MA from Yale. Her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison would follow in 1969. Her doctoral dissertation concerned Franz Kafka and the influence of Yiddish theatre on his work.
Starting in 1972 Beck spent twelve years teaching Comparative Literature, German, and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin, becoming an associate professor in 1977 and promoted to a full professorship in 1982. Her study of Kafka for her doctorate had led her to a deepening interest in Jewish literary and cultural heritage more generally. Foreshadowing later trends, in 1972 she founded a section for Yiddish in the Modern Language Association, then as now the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. She introduced Jewish topics and writers, such as Sholem Aleichem, to her teaching program. She translated into English works by Isaac Bashevis Singer (who always wrote in Yiddish). One slightly unexpected product of her work with Singer was her essay, "The Many Faces of Eve: Women, Yiddish, and Isaac Bashevis Singer" (1982).
In the context of what was coming to be defined as second-wave feminism she was one of the first to call for "lesbian inclusion in Jewish circles and for Jewish inclusion in feminist circles". She complained that antisemitism was not taken seriously either among feminist activists or among lesbian activists. In 1982 she published "Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology", a compilation of poems, essays, reminiscences and short stories. A theme of the book is the painful experiences of Jewish lesbians coming up against antisemitism in society, even among lesbian feminists. At the same time the volume proudly celebrates the creative force which the contributing authors can call upon from their own Jewish witness.
In 1984, she returned to the East Coast, accepting an invitation to create and then head up the Institute for Gender studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She also became an associate member of the Faculty for Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature. Retirement of a kind came in 2002, since when she has been Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland and an Alum Research Fellow with the Creative Longevity and Wisdom Initiative at Fielding Graduate University.
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Evelyn Torton Beck
Evelyn Torton Beck (born January 18, 1933) is a retired American academic. Until her retirement in 2002 she specialized in women's studies, Jewish women's studies and lesbian studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Beck has published a number of essays and books on Judaism. She came to wider prominence in 1982 with her book, Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology, a compilation of poems, essays, reminiscences and short stories, believed to be the first published collection of works by lesbian Jewish women in the United States.
Evelyn Torton was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Max Torton, her father, came originally from Buchach, a small town which at that time would have been regarded as Polish. (Since 1944 it has been in Western Ukraine.) Her mother, born Irma Lichtmann, was from Vienna. Politics in Austria became increasingly polarised during the 1930s, and around the time of Evelyn's birth the country became a one-party dictatorship. The Austrian government came increasingly under German influence. Following Austria's integration into an enlarged Germany in March 1938, antisemitism became a mainstream element of government policy: in 1938, her father was arrested and taken to the Dachau concentration camp. The rest of the family were obliged to leave their Vienna apartment and move into a ghetto. Here they lived with other families in a multi-occupancy apartment. By 1939, her father had been transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp, and then released under circumstances that never became clear. That year, six-year-old Evelyn, together with her parents and her younger brother Edgar, fled to Italy where the family settled for a couple of months in Milan. It was only possible to obtain four visas, and they had to leave Evelyn's maternal grandmother, who had always lived with the family, behind in Vienna. She would later be deported by the Nazi authorities and murdered. By the time Evelyn reached New York with her parents in June 1940, she was seven. Her father told her that theirs had been the last emigrant ship permitted to leave Italy for the United States. Her younger brother Edgar remained in Europe, but he survived the Holocaust and emigrated to New York after the war.
Evelyn grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class neighborhood. Her father, who had owned his own business in Vienna, now worked in a factory owned by a relative. Here he met up with other Yiddish speaking exiles. Evelyn's mother was not able to settle to their new life so quickly. When news came through of her own mother's murder she suffered a nervous breakdown. Meanwhile, Evelyn joined Hashomer Hatzair, a Socialist-Zionist, secular Jewish youth movement which at the time was strongly focused on preparing young people for emigration to Palestine. In an interview given in 2001 she said that the pioneering spirit and shared objectives which she experienced as a member of Hashomer Hatzair, together with the comradeship and the sense of belonging, did much to form her. She was also impressed by the way that within the movement women and men all did the same work.
Evelyn Torton Beck studied comparative literature and received her BA (first degree) from Brooklyn College in 1954, which was also the year of her first marriage. The next year she received her MA from Yale. Her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison would follow in 1969. Her doctoral dissertation concerned Franz Kafka and the influence of Yiddish theatre on his work.
Starting in 1972 Beck spent twelve years teaching Comparative Literature, German, and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin, becoming an associate professor in 1977 and promoted to a full professorship in 1982. Her study of Kafka for her doctorate had led her to a deepening interest in Jewish literary and cultural heritage more generally. Foreshadowing later trends, in 1972 she founded a section for Yiddish in the Modern Language Association, then as now the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature. She introduced Jewish topics and writers, such as Sholem Aleichem, to her teaching program. She translated into English works by Isaac Bashevis Singer (who always wrote in Yiddish). One slightly unexpected product of her work with Singer was her essay, "The Many Faces of Eve: Women, Yiddish, and Isaac Bashevis Singer" (1982).
In the context of what was coming to be defined as second-wave feminism she was one of the first to call for "lesbian inclusion in Jewish circles and for Jewish inclusion in feminist circles". She complained that antisemitism was not taken seriously either among feminist activists or among lesbian activists. In 1982 she published "Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology", a compilation of poems, essays, reminiscences and short stories. A theme of the book is the painful experiences of Jewish lesbians coming up against antisemitism in society, even among lesbian feminists. At the same time the volume proudly celebrates the creative force which the contributing authors can call upon from their own Jewish witness.
In 1984, she returned to the East Coast, accepting an invitation to create and then head up the Institute for Gender studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She also became an associate member of the Faculty for Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature. Retirement of a kind came in 2002, since when she has been Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland and an Alum Research Fellow with the Creative Longevity and Wisdom Initiative at Fielding Graduate University.