While the postwar period for Yiddish became defined by an eventual and dramatic global decline, in the 1950s and ‘60s there was a flurry of publishing activity worldwide. In Poland, the Yidish-bukh farlag (Yiddish-Book Press) emerged as one of the largest postwar producers of books in Yiddish, publishing over 350 volumes, including works for and about children.

Concerned both with cultural inheritance and continuity, as well as with the establishment of new norms in building a new political order, literature for and about children reveals anxieties both about the past and the future. Analyzing this body of work in comparison with Polish-language children’s literature of the same period, this study questions whether or not “little readers” were really its target audience. It seems, rather, that the production of Yiddish children’s literature in the People’s Republic of Poland served other symbolic purposes. Instead of being a means to truly cultivate a new generation of readers, this literature was part of the press’ larger editorial mission to propose and demonstrate new models of Polish Jewishness in line with the political mores of the time.