The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden Yiddish Learning charts Mel Brooks’s meteoric rise

charts Mel Brooks’s meteoric rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts

Hundreds of thousands of Jews began the twentieth century as new arrivals in a foreign land yet soon became shapers and definers of American culture itself

Yet few critics or scholars have considered how he emerged from a unique and vibrant cultural milieu: the New York Jewish intelligentsia

ignited by heavy taxes across the Empire

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden Yiddish Learning charts Mel Brooks’s meteoric riseNational Jewish Book Awards Winner Shortlisted for the Booker Prize Longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize A Best Book of 2024: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time, The Economist, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Kirkus Reviews, The Independent, BookPage, The Sunday Times (London) RemarkableCompellingFine and tautIndelible. The New York Times Moving, unnerving, and deeply sexy. Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with