David Roskies

David G. Roskies (born 1948 in Montreal) is an internationally recognized literary scholar, cultural historian and author in the field of Yiddish literature and the culture of Eastern European Jewry. He is the Sol and Evelyn Henkind Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture and Professor of Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Roskies was born in 1948 in Montreal, where his family emigrated in 1940 from Vilnius.

His grandmother, Fradl Matz, ran the famous Matz Press in Vilnius, a publishing house that produced prayer books, bibles and popular Yiddish literature. His mother Masha (born in 1906 in Vilnius) and her family were forced to flee Europe for Montreal, via Lisbon and New York City in 1940. Her Montreal home became a salon for Yiddish writers, actors, and artists such as Isaac B. Singer, Melech Ravitch, Itsik Manger, Avrom Sutzkever and Rachel Korn.

He is the brother Ruth Wisse, professor of Yiddish at Harvard University.

After learning in Yiddish secular schools in Montreal, Roskies was educated at Brandeis University, where he received his doctorate in 1975.

In the 1970s Roskies was a member of the Havurat Shalom, a small egalitarian chavurah in Somerville, Massachusetts, best known as the first such lay-led Jewish community in the United States.

A prolific author, editor, and scholar, he has published numerous books and received awards. Roskies now resides in New York City.

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