Meszo Blemsh is the Dean of the Department of Islo-Preszlic Languages at the University of Ologozeslo in Iddiland, and, though still young, is perhaps the foremost authority on traditional Iddish literature. He received his B.A. in Linguistics at Ologozeslo in 1982, then travelled back and forth between Harvard University and Ologozeslo to complete his Ph.D. in 1990. In addition to the present volume, Blemsh has published his Ph.D. dissertation in book form as Middle Middle Iddish: The Pain Of A Culture Speaks In Its Poetry. While in America, he met his wife, Tricia Stern, herself a Professor of Cognitive Linguistics at Brown University; she too had always been fascinated by Iddish literature, and together they are working on a forthcoming book on the crosslinguistic implications of certain Old and Middle Iddish grammatical constructions. In his spare time Blemsh likes to play chess over the Internet and sail on Ologozesl, the lake from which the University takes its name.