Yiddish New York 2024

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9:30am EST

Lecture: The Yiddish Memories of Bryna Bercovitch, Writer and Radical Revolutionary

Tuesday December 24, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Bryna Bercovitch (1894-1956) is an unjustly forgotten Yiddish writer whose work appeared regularly in Montreal’s Yiddish daily newspaper, Der Keneder Adler (The Canadian Eagle), recounting memories of her childhood and family in the Ukrainian town of Kherson, her friendships with noted Yiddish writers Melech Ravitch and Isaac Bashevis Singer, and the after-effects of a radical revolutionary life and tumultuous marriage. She also happens to be my great-great aunt. Delving more fully into Bryna’s writings over the past few years, including annual readings of her work at the YNY Literary Salon, was a revelation. As this one-day lecture will demonstrate, here is a vibrant, evocative voice that ranks with the leading Yiddish writers of her day, including Bella Chagall, Esther Kreitman, and Chava Rosenfarb, fully deserving her moment in the literary sun.

Speakers

Sossy Weinman

Sarah Weinman (Sossy af Yiddish) is an author, crime writer, and Canadian living in New York City. Her books include The Real Lolita, Scoundrel, and the forthcoming Without Consent, and she writes the Crime & Mystery column for the New York Times Book Review. She has attended... Read More →

Tuesday December 24, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

9:30am EST

Lecture: Transylvanian Folk Music Ethnography in Cluj, Romania

Tuesday December 24, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

From 2021-2023, Zoë Aqua spent 2 years as a Fulbright research grantee in Cluj, Romania studying Transylvanian folk music pedagogy. In this presentation, she will share stories and insights she gained from working with folk musicians there. Drawing from her experience with both multi-generational musical family dynasties and with revivalists, she'll compare and contrast the musical scene in Transylvania with our klezmer revitalization in North America.

Speakers

Zoë Aqua

Zoë Aqua (violin) is an American violinist currently based in Romania. She was awarded a Fulbright research grant for the 2021-’22 and 2022-’23 academic years to study Transylvanian folk music pedagogy in Cluj, Romania. In September 2022, she released a full-length album of... Read More →

Tuesday December 24, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid), Instrumental

11:15am EST

Lecture TBA

Tuesday December 24, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Tuesday December 24, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Lecture: Yente Telebende - The Bad Girl of the Yiddish World

Tuesday December 24, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Of all the words which have migrated from Yiddish to English, none have the colorful backstory of a fictional woman whose name has come to mean “gossip” but who first found fame in 1913 as a woman who stood up for herself and gave as good as she got.

The whirlwind tour of the massively popular “Yente Telebende” will reveal her brilliant prolific creator. B. Kovner and his one thousand Yente Telebende feuilletons in the pages of the Forward, the numerous stage shows which were among the biggest hits in the history of the Yiddish theater and nearly 100 commercial 78 rpm records issued over nearly half a century all of which bring the presence and power of Yente Telebende back to life. Result? Yente, was no yente.

Speakers

Henry Sapoznik

Henry Sapoznik (history) is an award winning record and radio producer, author, ethnomusicologist in the fields of Yiddish and American popular and traditional culture. Sapoznik, a native Yiddish speaker and child of Holocaust survivors, helped jump-start the klezmer “revival... Read More →

Tuesday December 24, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

2:30pm EST

Lecture: Der Mizrekh-Yiddish Writers Narrate the Arab

Tuesday December 24, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

From the turn of the 20th century onward, many Yiddish writers found significant inspiration in the image of the Mizrekh (Orient). Perhaps no other site in the imagined Mizrekh captivated as many 20th century Yiddish writers as did Palestine and the looming question of Zionism: What was to become of Palestine, what was to become of Zionism, and who exactly are Palestine's inhabitants? This talk will introduce a number of largely untranslated Yiddish writers who dedicated significant attention to the image of Palestine and the Mizrekh in their works. In particular, this talk will showcase stereotypical and exceptional Yiddish-language perspectives on the Arab world, as well as how Yiddish writers related themselves and their identities to Palestine, the Land of Israel, and linguistic differences.

Speakers

Eyshe Beirich

Eyshe Beirich is a Yiddish scholar, teacher, and translator living in New York City. He is a PhD student at Columbia University in the Department of Germanic Languages since 2023, where he works on Yiddish, German, and Palestinian/Israeli literary history. He has taught Yiddish around... Read More →

Tuesday December 24, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture: Der grester Khurbn - Knowledge of the Holocaust in the Americas during the War Period

Tuesday December 24, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Have you ever wondered what Ashkenazi Jews in the Americas knew about the Khurbn (Holocaust) as it was unfolding? What did they know about the mass killings? Did they keep their mouths shut, or did they protest? Were children learning about these atrocities at school? How did the information flow? Contrary to popular belief and to historiographic trends, Jews in the Americas gained detailed knowledge about the fate of their brethren. To debunk the “myth of silence” during the Holocaust and the following years, we have to focus on the language par excellence spoken by Ashkenazi immigrants at that time: Yiddish! We will answer these questions and many more by looking at the Mexican case and various sources and documents in Yiddish.

Speakers

Tamara Gleason Friedberg

Tamara Gleason Freidberg is a historian (MPhil by UNAM, Mexico) and a gerontologist (MSc by King’s College London). She is the author of Di Shvue, los bundistas en México y su participación en la comunidad judía (Mexico City: Palabra de Clío, 2016), a book about the bundist... Read More →

Tuesday December 24, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture: Lid, shir, poezye un gramen af yidish bay hayntike khsidim: leynkrayz mit diskusye / Contemporary Yiddish Hasidic Poetry, from Verse to Verse *IN YIDDISH*

Tuesday December 24, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

503 - Hebrew Union College

Do Chasidim write and publish poetry in Yiddish? The answer is yes – but. Or yes – and. Chasidic Yiddish poetry is different in form, content, style, and language (and in terms of authors and audience) than what readers of modern English-language poetry, or secular Yiddishist poetry, might be used to. But/and that might make it all the more interesting. In this session, we will read and discuss Chasidic verse, mostly on the page but also in poetry-adjacent genres like music, among others. The session will be in Yiddish, and all unfamiliar words will be happily glossed. We’ll also talk about who writes and reads such verse.

Speakers

Zackary Sholem Berger

Zackary Sholem Berger is a poet and translator who works in and among English, Yiddish, and Hebrew. His latest Y/E bilingual book of poetry, Covid: Poems, Impressions, and Testimonies from a Pandemic, came out in 2023, as did his translation of Avrom Sutzkever’s Ode to the Dove... Read More →

Tuesday December 24, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
503 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid), In Yiddish

4:15pm EST

“A grus fun der heym”: Yiddish Radio from Postwar Poland

Tuesday December 24, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

My presentation with the title “A grus fun der heym” (Greetings from home) will focus on Yiddish radio broadcasts on Polish Radio from Lublin from January 1945 and then from Warsaw until 1958. The lecture will be illustrated with archival materials and original Yiddish recordings from the 1940s and 1950s, resulting from my research.

Speakers

Anna Rozenfeld

Anna Rozenfeld is a Yiddish speaker, a scholar of Jewish history and Yiddish culture, and an interdisciplinary artist. A professional Yiddish performer on Polish Radio and at the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. She has studied the history of art, graphic arts and painting, pedagogics, philosophy... Read More →

Tuesday December 24, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

Yiddish New York 2024

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