This talk will look at a group of young, rowdy and iconoclastic artists that gathered in Warsaw in the early 20’s intending to revolutionize Yiddish culture. Calling themselves “The Gang”, they staged futuristic takeovers of synagogues in which they read poetry instead of the torah. They aspired to bring into Yiddish culture the horrors that they experienced as veterans of WWI and of the Russian revolution and civil war. For many, they were shocking and obscene, for others they were the voice of a generation. I will discuss the relationship of two members of “The Gang”: the poets, Peretz Markish and Uri Tsevi Greenberg. By reading their poems, I will show how Markish and Greenberg, through their use of shocking imagery and violent irreverent language, imagine an alternative community that served as a safe space were the members of the lost generation of Yiddish could intimately talk.