Sasha Senderovich 🌻

@returnstosender

𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘵 𝘑𝘦𝘸 𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘢𝘥𝘦 (Harvard, 2022) | 𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘵 (Stanford, 2026) | he/him | Opinions my own | My website: sashasenderovich.weebly.com

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Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· 1d

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· 10d

August is Women in Translation Month! Introducing Dina Kalinovskaya (1934-2008), translated into English for the first time by Harriet Murav & me for our new book with @stanfordpress.bsky.social. She was from and wrote about Odesa; I especially loved working on this paragraph about the Odesa harbor.

Excerpt from Dina Kalinovskaya’s “The Picture in the Teacup” included into “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union.”

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· 11d

August is Women in Translation Month: one of the writers Harriet Murav & I translated for our new book is Rivka Rubin--a Soviet Yiddish author now published in English for the 1st time. We have two stories of hers in the book; here's an excerpt from "That Kind of Day.” @stanfordpress.bsky.social 1/2

An excerpt from “That Kind of Day” by Rivka Rubin, translated by Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Jul 8

Looking forward to talking about “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union” at the University of Konstanz tomorrow, July 9 at 18:00! www.literature.uni-konstanz.de/slavistik/ak... @stanfordpress.bsky.social

The short fiction collected in In the Shadow of the Holocaust recovers a range of compelling voices that had been scarcely known or translated.
Jewish authors from Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Belarus — some writing in Yiddish and others in Russian — tell stories of ordinary people living on after the massive devastation of the Holocaust on Soviet territory, depicting memory, conflict, love, and loss.

Sasha Senderovich is Associate Professor of Slavic, Jewish, and International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, United States. With Harriet Murav, he translated David Bergelson’s Judgment: A Novel (2017) and In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union (2026). He is the author of How the Soviet Jew Was Made (2022).

Donnerstag, 9. Juli um 18 Uhr in G 306

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Jun 24

Ah, yes, losing to another Jewish challenger in the most Jewish congressional district in the whole of these United States is antisemitism, per antisemitism expert.

Tweet by Deborah Lipstadt, “Eloquent… he was up against a tidal force….” commenting on Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), in concession speech after being defeated by Brad Lander: “Jews have given back so much to this country. As history has taught us, antisemitic tropes and stereotypes, some of which I heard personally on this campaign, will ultimately be the undoing of our democracy if we all don’t lean in and speak out — even if it’s not politically expedient.”

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Jun 22

Today is the 85th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Mobile killing units followed the troops, rapidly murdering Jews in areas of Eastern Europe that had been part of the USSR since 1922 or more recently annexed through Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939. 1/3

Cover of “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union” edited and Translated by Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Jun 13

Gut shabes with the latest issue of @jewishcurrents.bsky.social that has finally made it to the West Coast earlier today. Jon Danforth-Appell’s essay on (not having) Jewish trauma is excellent.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Jun 3

If you’re up for a virtual book talk with Harriet Murav and myself this coming Sunday, we’ll be speaking about “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” on June 7, 1-2:30 pm Pacific “at” the New Lehrhaus based in the Bay Area. Registration required. newlehrhaus.org/program/sovi... @stanfordpress.bsky.social

In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Soviet Jewish Writers
Sunday, June 7 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm Pacific Time Virtual Program
Total Program Fee: $18.00
Course Summary for Search and Accessibility
This course, In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Soviet Jewish Writers, is an Educational Program offered by New Lehrhaus. It is scheduled to take place on 6/7/2026 from 1:00pm to 2:30pm Pacific.

The total registration fee is $18.00. The course is conducted Online via Zoom and focuses on Jewish life and culture in the Soviet Union, and Holocaust literature beyond the Western European experience.

Discover the recovered voices of Jewish authors from Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Belarus. In this session, translators Sasha Senderovich and Harriet Murav present their groundbreaking work, In the Shadow of the Holocaust, a collection that restores a vital missing chapter to the global Jewish canon. Moving between Yiddish and Russian sources, these stories document how ordinary people navigated the devastation of the Holocaust on Soviet territory—exploring not just how they died, but how they continued to live, love, and make meaning in the aftermath of genocide.

Who This Is For
Anyone interested in the hidden history of Jewish life and culture in the Soviet Union.
Readers who appreciate powerful short stories of survival, memory, and resilience.
Those looking to expand their understanding of Holocaust literature beyond the Western European experience.

What You’ll Leave With
Literary Discovery: An introduction to "scarcely known" authors like David Bergelson and Shira Gorshman.
Historical Context: A deeper look at the unique challenges of Jewish identity and memory in the USSR.
New Perspectives: A fresh understanding of the act of translation as a form of historical justice.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· May 31

Looks like Mamdani was was the only politician from New York who made the right decision not to participate in parading alongside a génocidaire wanted at The Hague.

@ Haaretz.com Israel Day Parade in NYC: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other far-right Israeli lawmakers and American politicians march on Fifth Avenue

NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani decided to skip the event | @Etanetan23

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· May 28

Oh FFS, make this stop already.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· May 20

UW’s Simpson Center for the Humanities did a lovely write up about the Literary Translator Residency series I’ve been so lucky to get to run for the last three years. I’m especially delighted how much students are centered in the piece. simpsoncenter.org/article/lite...

Simpson Center for the Humanities at the university of Washington, Seattle. The Literary Translator Residency.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· May 18

A local rabid Trumpist, Islamophobe, transphobe, hater of unhoused people—with whom our university president recently met in a forum because “viewpoint diversity”—is having a normal one on the occasion of Peter Beinart’s visit to Seattle tomorrow.

Tweet by Ari Hoffman: “NEW: Why is the Seattle Jewish Film Festival, which is run by the Stroum Jewish Community Center, promoting an event with anti-Israel radical Peter Beinart?”

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· May 12

Stroum Lectures with Rafael Neis begin today at the University of Washington. I hear that we've got about a hundred people registered to attend, but it's still not too late to plan to come. Very much looking forward to learning from Rafe this week. jewishstudies.washington.edu/event/stroum...

Lecture 1: Have ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ Always Existed? What the Talmud Can Tell Us

May 12, 7:00-9:00pm, Kane Hall, Walker-Ames Room 225

We often assume that the categories “man” and “woman” are stable and self-evident. Indeed, ideas about the timelessness of gender may also underpin the refrain that “trans and nonbinary people have always existed.” This framing asks us to support the right of contemporary gender-diverse people to exist and flourish, in part, by recognizing that they, too, have an ancient lineage. In this talk, Professor Rafael Neis presents an altogether different approach to gender. Through a journey into Talmudic texts composed in late ancient Iraq, they invite us to set aside what we think we already know about gender categories. Doing so, Professor Neis argues, will illuminate how the ancient rabbis sought to invent, classify, and make meaning of the diverse plurality of human and other beings.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· May 10

Are we famous or what? Sigh. @cnn.com Despite the nuking of our grant by DOGE—now ruled illegal in the court case by @modernlanguage.bsky.social @acls1919.bsky.social @historians.org— Harriet Murav’s & my book “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” did come out @stanfordpress.bsky.social a few weeks ago.

The judge scrutinized how government officials classified grant projects as DEI and used ChatGPT to target them for funding cuts. In one case, she said officials, using the AI platform, labeled as DEI an anthology titled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union.” She also listed numerous other examples.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· May 3

Pretty much what @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social said.

Not sure what universities are supposed to do to win the respect of the right when we’re 3 years into the SCOTUS ban on affirmative action in college admissions and there are still all these viral stories of “this kid with a 1560 SAT score was forced to go to Duke instead of Harvard because of woke.” Don’t worry guys, we’ll solve this with the next student protestor they throw the book at, the next center for western civilization, the next task force on antisemitism, the next commission on free speech, the next censure of a trans TA for giving a bad grade…

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Apr 20

Zalman Newfield is an excellent reader and generous interviewer; it was great to be interviewed by him, alongside Harriet Murav, about “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” @stanfordpress.bsky.social for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. Listen here or on your podcast app newbooksnetwork.com/in-the-shado...

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Apr 12

Fuck yes! Orban out. One fascist down. Bibi, Putin, Trump next, please. www.bbc.com/news/live/c2...

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Apr 7

I mean, not the biggest issue of the day today given our raving lunatic in chief’s genocidal threat but: what the fuck. Israel destroyed a synagogue in Tehran in a strike.

Israeli Military Says It Regrets Damage to Iran Synagogue From Airstrike (Wall Street Journal headline)

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 28

The denouement of Korney Chukovsky’s “The Giant Cockroach” (1921) involves a teeny tiny sparrow just swallowing the damn insect who assumed himself a dictator of the animal kingdom (after all the big animals groveled before him with deference and obeyed in advance). Go get ‘em, folks. #NoKings

Stills from the Soviet cartoon based on Chukovsky’s “The Giant Cockroach” showing a sparrow encountering and then eating the cockroach.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 27

Last post about Ruth Wisse speaking the other night at the “Trump and” Kennedy Center on the literal eve of its shattering and while promoting the “in god we trust” message on our currency on the literal eve of Dear Leader’s strong masculine scrawl being added to dollar bills. An incredible timing!

Last post about Ruth Wisse, I promise. Two pieces of news yesterday make me think again about Ruth Wisse's talk at the "Trump and" Kennedy Center the day before. The first piece of news: yesterday layoffs at the Kennedy Center were announced, signaling Trump's shutting down of the venue for "renovations" (though, more likely, because its tickets sales after Dear Leader's takeover have collapsed). So, Ruth Wisse was literally the last act before the shuttering of this national treasure, a real koved! And also: in her lengthy gloss on Avrom Sutzkever's poem "Ver vet blaybn," Wisse emphasized the endurance of God's centrality in Jewish experience -- and from this built a message to the Americans, who, she said, already know this from what it says on our dollar bills: "may God in whom we trust become the true coin of this realm." And so the second piece of news yesterday: our currency, it was announced, will now, for the first time in U.S. history, bear the signature of our president. And so: it's fitting that Wisse contrived that particular message literally on the eve of Dear Leader's strong masculine scrawl announced as joining the God, in whom we trust, on our money. 🤦‍♂️

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Reposting this thread on Ruth Wisse’s big lecture at the “Trump and” Kennedy Center last night as the honoree of the Trumpified National Endowment for the Humanities. I went back to the video to get my notes right on the 2nd of her three points, which is a chilling, fascist view of higher ed.

ICYMI. Also, I went back to the video to check my notes. Ruth Wisse's second message "from 'the blue and white' in 'the red, white, and blue'" is terribly sinister and downright authoritarian: she presents the Shema (the prayer) as the central scene of instruction of sorts, which, taken as a message to the American values she wants to see perpetuated, presents the following as the scene of instruction at American universities, which, she says, "had given up on transmitting the joys the blessings of the teachings of citizenship." "My second message arriving from millennia of [Jewish] textual transmission," Wisse says, "is that if there is to be a government of, by, and for the people, the people would have to be instructed and reminded to respect and confidently to perpetuate their precious inheritance." From her reading of Jewish values to her fascist view of higher education as needing to instill "gratitude" (another word she used in proximity to all this) in the citizenry -- that's Ruth Wisse the ideologue in a nutshell.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Comment 9, and curtain.

Okay, after this, I must add: one student of Ruth’s — much more faithful to her politics than I ever was and with whom I am no longer on speaking terms — has occasionally chastised me for calling Ruth out in public over this kind of bullshit. In making me feel bad about speaking about Ruth as a fascist ideologue that she is, this person has appealed to my sense of empathy for an elderly infirm lady that I am to imagine her as. At 89, she seems to be going as strong as I remember seeing her last (at maybe 75 or so); neither the voice nor the posture nor the appearance project any frailty, and the message is just as strident as ever before. She was building up this speech to be a message in support of the current war in Iran — which she weaseled her way out of naming just as she has managed not to invoke Trump by name when she endorsed him for reelection in 2020, probably because she knows that history will not, in fact, judge her kindly and is probably doing her best to avoid simple keyword search detection.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Comment 8, containing the third lesson from the Jewish people (here conflated with Israelis) to America: an apparent endorsement of the war with Iran.

35 or so minutes in: we come to Israel and what it has to teach Americans. [...] This is a long-winded bit with a lot of popularized version of Zionist mythology but the main issue she works toward is this: America needs to learn from Israel how to fight, including -- she is heavily implying though not quite saying it directly -- now in Iran (this section ends around 50 minutes in).

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Comments 6 and 7, bashing Harvard (expected, she’s done this most of the time she was at Harvard) and bemoaning the decline of intellectual traditions.

30 minutes in: now comes the bashing of Harvard (none is new to me, she's published all of this stuff before, maybe I'll summarize) // Bemoans the impoverishment of the Humanities: "Marx for Madison, Lenin for Jefferson" (apparent substitutions leading to the impoverishment of thought, I wrote down this quote precisely though I can’t remember what “Islamic jihad” coming after Marx and Lenin was a substitute for — will I have to rewatch to get the full triad right?). Lionel Trilling once gave the lecture she is now giving -- but shortly after, Trilling would be dethroned as figure of authority by Edward Said (she bemoans).

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Comment 6c which contains the apparent lesson 2 (of three, in this lecture) from the Jewish people to America.

At the start of the second bit of her talk: she reads the Shema and translates it. Some lesson for Americans from the Shema coming shortly (if we are to follow the first twenty minutes and how that panned out) ... 6-7 mins later, she's now explained "phylacteries" (certainly a choice to say this and not tefillin for the goyim?) and also mezuzahs ... Okay, by the end of this bit, the message seems to be: like Shema reminds Jews of daily practice, so must Americans be reminded about the practice of democracy that requires constant work (or something like that)

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Comment 5, which contains the apparent lesson 1 (of three, in this talk) from the Jewish people to America.

The lecture, she says, will be delivering a "Jewish message on staying power" to America on 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence -- an insignificant number, she says, given the long history of the Jews (she says which year it is on the Jewish calendar in what inadvertently reminds me of Leo Tzureff doing the same when speaking to Eli Peck in Philip Roth's "Eli, the Fanatic."

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Comments 3 and 4: on David Wolpe the introduced and on how old America is vs the length of Jewish history.

David Wolpe introducing her, of course: bemoaning the fall of Harvard because Harvard didn't listen to Ruth Wisse the prophet. // The lecture, she says, will be delivering a "Jewish message on staying power" to America on 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence -- an insignificant number, she says, given the long history of the Jews (she says which year it is on the Jewish calendar in what inadvertently reminds me of Leo Tzureff doing the same when speaking to Eli Peck in Philip Roth's "Eli, the Fanatic.”

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

Comments 1 and 2: on apparent empty seats in the audience at the “Trump and” Kennedy Center and the YIVO institute advertising on the livestream just before the talk.

Five minutes before the show, the audience members are invited to move down from the gallery to the seats closer to the stage -- the visual of empty seats must be pretty bad. // Let’s see: who’s advertising on here leading up to the talk? The Tikvah Fund (as expected) but the YIVO Institute? What the fuck? YIVO’s grant was cut by the NEH a year ago along with other grants — is this how they get it back?

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 26

I watched Ruth Wisse’s big lecture for the Trumpified National Endowment for the Humanities at the “Trump and” Kennedy Center. Wisse was one my PhD advisers so, though I’m not surprised, it was nonetheless quite the experience to see her shill for Dear Leader. Reposting my comments in a thread here

By popular request, I’m going to watch this travesty live — streaming now — and live-comment in the comments below. Join me for a drinking game portion of this if you’re able. Ruth Wisse is about to feast on the carcass of the eviscerated National Endowment for the Humanities in giving this talk at the "Donald J. Trump and" John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Michael McDonald -- who signed all of the NEH grant cancellations, including mine, a year ago -- introduces Ruth Wisse by touting a) Trump's garden of the American heroes supported by the NEH -- the definition of a fascist monumental propaganda project in marble and bronze and b) the $10.4 million award to the Tikvah Fund as a sign how in these antisemitic times Dear Leader loves us Jews. That's what Ruth Wisse -- one of my dissertation advisors -- is a poster child for.

Sasha Senderovich 🌻@returnstosender· Mar 19

Off to Madison, Wisconsin — where I’ve not been before! Really looking forward to this conference and my keynote — with thanks for University of Wisconsin graduate students in Slavic for inviting me. (This link instead of alt text: same info here as on the image creeca.wisc.edu/event/wiscon...)