Who is behind Pashkevil Press?

Jay Saper is a letterpress printer, zine maker, papercut artist, and Yiddish translator who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Jay engages traditional Jewish art forms to uncover hidden stories from the past that speak to our present. Jay’s work has been supported by the Yiddish Book Center, featured on Democracy Now!, displayed at the Brooklyn Museum, and collected by the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jay has taught Yiddish at Middlebury College and served as artist in residence at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. Through Pashkevil Press, Jay celebrates Jewish print culture as well as supports the work of social movements. Jay’s papercuts of Jewish women in the resistance to the Nazis appear in Cindy Milstein’s There’s Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists (AK Press 2021).

Why are we called Pashkevil Press?

Pashkevil is a Yiddish word for a poster pasted on the walls, seen most typically today in Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods. Having a wide range of functions, they can be used subversively to protest those in power, as well as to share funeral information for the recently deceased. Ultimately, pashkevils convey whatever anyone in the community feels moved to express. Jay Saper founded Pashkevil Press to honor this vibrant Jewish print culture and carry forth the use of wood type in traditional letterpress printing methods. In addition to Jewish artistic traditions, we also draw immense inspiration from the work of Amos Kennedy. We enjoy creating work that engages Jewish history and texts, as well as supports social movements.

Selected Exhibitions

Revenge: History and Fantasy (Jewish Museum Frankfurt, Germany, 2022)

Celebrating All Types (Hamilton Wayzgoose, Two Rivers, WI, 2021)

Power of the Press Fest (Signal-Return, Detroit, MI, 2021)

Annual Member Show (Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York, NY, 2020)

Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall (Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, 2019)

Selected Collections

Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY)

Special Collections, Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT)

Selected Awards

Yiddishkayt Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellowship (Los Angeles, CA, 2022-2023)

Jewish Museum Frankfurt Artist in Residence (Frankfurt, Germany, 2022)

Lithuanian Culture Institute Translation Grant (Vilna, Lithuania, 2022)

Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellowship (Amherst, MA, 2021-2022)