Yiddish New York 2024

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9:30am EST

Lecture: Finding Home in Yiddishland - Talk and Discussion

Sunday December 22, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

The term "Yiddishland” is often used to describe the people, projects, and events that make up the contemporary Yiddish cultural scene. In this session, we will explore the different ways that “Yiddishland” has been understood throughout the past century and discuss how we imagine and describe the contemporary Yiddish cultural scene. Is it a nation? A lost homeland? A cultural space? Together we will consider what makes Yiddish a home to so many of us and how the idea of Yiddishland can hold space for diverse expressions of cultural identity while activating networks of solidarity and support.

Speakers

Avia Moore

Avia Moore is the Artistic Director of KlezKanada and has worked extensively as a creative producer with festivals and cultural organizations across North America as well as on individual artistic projects in North America and Europe. Avia holds a PhD in Theatre, Dance, and Performance... Read More →

Sunday December 22, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

9:30am EST

Lecture: Yiddish Screen Confidential - "Secret" Backstories of the Zilberne Kino

Sunday December 22, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Explore little-known revelations surrounding a range of golden-age Yiddish movies and far beyond, featuring a fascinating array of cultural, scientific and political dimensions reflected and refracted onscreen. The origins of "Yidl mitn fidl" correspond not only to Molly Picon's earlier drag roles, but also to a mainstream Central European movie musical of the Weimar era. A lullaby sung (with his own lyrics) by Moishe Oysher was composed to melodically conflate with a 19th-century Polish opera aria. A dialect comedy song quotes Marxist credo in the charming character part played by a star of 2nd Avenue theater. Intriguing new perspectives for films both famous and obscure also focus on little-known production history and censorship sagas, from New York theater union makhers and mishpokhe, to Soviet censorship and post-Stalinist studio thaws.

Speakers

Eve Sicular

Cinema historian/klezmer bandleader Eve Sicular (film) has written and lectured widely on Yiddish and early Russian filmmaking, including The Yiddish Celluloid Closet; Edgar Ulmer’s Canon of Cinema Contagion; her Harvard thesis on pioneering Soviet compilation director... Read More →

Sunday December 22, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid), Film

11:15am EST

Lecture TBA

Sunday December 22, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Sunday December 22, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Lecture: Infinite Fiddlers - Fiddler on the Roof on Vinyl

Sunday December 22, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Fiddler on the Roof is the 20th century’s defining piece of Jewish popular culture for the Jewish and non-Jewish masses worldwide. This international phenomenon spawned untold and uncountable productions, adaptations, translations, parodies and record releases. Join me for a discussion of how a Chagall painting and a Sholem Aleichem story turned into a Broadway musical with an iconic poster, which in turn became hundreds of similar looking album covers. Together we’ll appraise some of these infinite fiddlers on vinyl, from the iconic to the absurd.

Speakers

Aaron Bendich

Aaron Bendich is the founder of Borscht Beat, a Yiddish music cultural organization that operates as a record label, radio show, music archive, social media brand and concert booking and promotion agency. This will be his second year curating the Yiddish New York concert program... Read More →

Sunday December 22, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid), Vocal

2:30pm EST

A History of Modern Yiddish Culture Through 25 Objects

Sunday December 22, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

As an avid zamler of just about everything Yiddish I have amassed a large collection of objects related to the language and culture, from buttons to stationary to posters to pamphlets. A hundred years of Yiddish history in 45 minutes!

Speakers

Itzik Gottesman

Itzik Gottesman, Ph.D.** (folklore, literature) – Internationally recognized as a leading scholar and activist for Yiddish language and culture, Gottesman currently teaches at University of Texas-Austin. He was previously managing editor of the Yiddish Forverts and authored the... Read More →

Sunday December 22, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture TBA

Sunday December 22, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Sunday December 22, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture TBA (MA)

Sunday December 22, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Sunday December 22, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture: Parshe [Parashah] Poetry / דאָס געזאַנג פֿון דער סדרה *IN YIDDISH*

Sunday December 22, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

503 - Hebrew Union College

Even though Modern Yiddish poetry is generally thought of as a poetry created by heretics, atheists and agnostics, the khumesh remains a powerful force in their writings. This year Sheva Zucker undertook to create a blog that offers one or several poems linked to the parshe [weekly Toyre reading]. Sometimes it was the poet’s intent to create a medresh, an interpretation, on the Toyre portion, at other times, the parshe will illuminate the poem. In this class we shall look at a number of poems linked to Breyshis/Genesis by poets such as Malke Heifetz-Tussman, Rokhl Korn, Itsik Manger, Kadye Molodowsky, Avrom Sutzkever, Reyzl Zhikhlinski and others. The texts will be provided in both Yiddish and English.

In this session, the instructor will speak Yiddish and the participants can express themselves in either Yiddish or English.

Speakers

Sheva Zucker

Sheva Zucker was the executive director of the League for Yiddish and the editor of its magazine Afn Shvel from 2005-2020. She has taught and lectured on Yiddish language, literature and culture on five continents andhas taught Yiddish for over two decades in the Uriel Weinreich Program... Read More →

Sunday December 22, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
503 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid), In Yiddish

9:30am EST

Lecture: Omer habokher hazetser - Tales of Yiddish Printers Past and Present

Monday December 23, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

In this presentation, I will take you through the history of modern and contemporary Yiddish printing through the eyes of a novice—a bokher hazetser, literally a young (unmarried) man-typesetter, the playful if not slightly pejorative term reserved for apprentice typesetters and printers in Yiddish print shops. Drawing on stories and memoirs, I will paint a picture of what life might have been like for these bokhurim toiling away to produce the Yiddish books and newspapers we value so much today. I will show what makes this figure an enduring character in the history of the Yiddish book. I'll also share my own experiences as a self-defined bokher hazetser, and introduce you to the wonderful world of Yiddish letterpress arts and artists today.

Speakers

Caleb Sher

Caleb Sher holds an interdisciplinary humanities degree from the University of King's College, Halifax, as well as an MA with a certificate in Jewish studies from the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto. Following his MA, Caleb began a degree in information... Read More →

Monday December 23, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

9:30am EST

Lecture: Yiddishland Cultural Producers Mutual Aid Society

Monday December 23, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Calling all Yiddish cultural organizers and program curators! Join Avia Moore, Artistic Director of KlezKanada, for a discussion about the art of bringing people together through Yiddish cultural events. Together we will talk about envisioning the event, setting goals, program curation, the importance of in-between spaces, and strategies for community building through programming. Whether you are dreaming of putting a program together for the first time or are an experienced organizer, let’s build and strengthen our beautiful international Yiddish arts network together.

Speakers

Avia Moore

Monday December 23, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Lecture: A Saint Against the State? The Contemporary Revival of a Jewish Miracle Worker

Monday December 23, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

This lecture focuses on an emergent, transnational Hasidic revival movement centered around the Kerestirer Rebbe, Yeshaya Steiner (“Shayele”), a Hungarian “miracle-worker” who lived in Hungary from 1851-1925. His iconic portrait is commonly associated with mystical protection against the infestation of rodents in Jewish homes and businesses. I reveal how this is only one small piece of his broader populist appeal, however. I do this by interweaving hagiographic texts, Hasidic social media, and ethnography with anthropological theory and political theology on hospitality, sovereignty, and patronage.

This talk is open to all (specialists and non-specialists alike)!

Speakers

Sam Shuman

Sam Shuman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and a core faculty member in the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Virginia (UVA). Shuman researches Hasidic Judaism within a global context to rethink larger questions in political theology about race... Read More →

Monday December 23, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Lecture: Jews in the Groove - The Great Mid-Century Jewish Record Labels

Monday December 23, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

From the advent and popularization of vinyl records in the late 1940s to the early 1950s, a handful of eccentric amateur businessmen ventured to use this unprecedented new and accessible mass media technology to commercialize and distribute Jewish music. Today we are left with hundreds of dusty records from a small handful of iconic and idiosyncratic mid-century Jewish record labels. This talk will give a broad introduction to the “major” Jewish record labels of the mid-20th century, and a glimpse into their storied discographies.

Speakers

Aaron Bendich

Monday December 23, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid), Instrumental

2:30pm EST

Lecture: Edith Segal - My First Dancing Teacher

Monday December 23, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

In this talk, Alixe will be remembering jewels from Edith Segal's repertoire of dances choreographed to Yiddish folk songs, labor songs, and songs that reflected the lives of Ashkenazim in the old country and the new. Edith Segal began dancing at the time that modern dance and progressive politics were growing together. She shared her vision with the hundreds of children and adults in Camps, especially Kinderland, and the Shules.

Speakers

Alixe Dancer

Alixe Dancer (aka Renee Rapaport) began dancing at her aunt's wedding in 1944 and met Edith a year later. A dance professional all of her life she lives and gardens on a collective in Oregon where she still teaches International Folk Dance, English Country Dance, and Aging Gracefully... Read More →

Monday December 23, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture TBA (MA)

Monday December 23, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Monday December 23, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture: Khanike minhogim funem shtetl / Hanukkah Customs of the Shtetl

Monday December 23, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

503 - Hebrew Union College

In the East European shtetl, the winter holiday of Khanike was a time of liberation (no "cheyder" for the kids) and creativity. Looking at the traditions across a broad territory in Yiddishland we will survey Khanike songs, annual customs, foodways and folk beliefs. The unusual interaction with the Christian in the shtetl at this time is also to be covered.

Speakers

Itzik Gottesman

Monday December 23, 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

Lecture: Yiddish to the Core - Wedding Music and Jewish Identity in Postwar New York City

Monday December 23, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

If you went to a typical American Jewish wedding in the 1950s, you’d probably notice some new “rituals,” like photographers buzzing around the rabbi, floral wedding canopies, or “kosher style” catering. But while weddings transformed and modernized, one thing remained certain: if the wedding was Jewish, you danced the hora. American Jews abandoned many traditional wedding rituals, but they held on to Jewish dance music as an essential expression of their Jewish identity. This lecture explores the evolution of Jewish wedding music in postwar New York City. We will discuss the work of Jewish wedding musicians, the diverse wedding musical repertoires (including klezmer, Israeli folk song, and Latin dances), and how they all related to American Jewish identity.

Speakers

Uri Schreter

Uri Schreter is an interdisciplinary musicologist, composer, keyboardist, and filmmaker. He is currently completing his PhD in historical musicology at Harvard University, where he researches Jewish music and klezmer during the postwar period. Prior to Harvard, he studied at Tel Aviv... Read More →

Monday December 23, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

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 Freidberg

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)

9:30am EST

Lecture: Arbeter Froyen and Antifascism - Jewish Women Workers and Internationalism in the 1930s

Wednesday December 25, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Women of the Yiddish left played a key role in building the international anti-fascist movement in the 1930s. In these two talks, we will look at the life stories of women such as Clara Bodian, a worker in the feather industry who was elected as a delegate to the World Congress of Women against War and Fascism in Paris in 1934, and June Croll, a leader of the Anti-Nazi Federation in New York in 1935. As committed Communists and internationalists, these Jewish women dedicated themselves to building international solidarity networks with anti-fascist women’s groups across Europe, while at the same time deepening their commitments to fight racism and anti-Semitism in the United States.

Speakers

Jennifer Young

Jennifer Young currently serves as Education Program Manager at the Yiddish Book Center, and formerly served as the Director of Education at the YIVO Institute. She has worked as a writer, editor, and walking tour guide, and as a museum educator at the Tenement Museum and the New-York... Read More →

Wednesday December 25, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

9:30am EST

Lecture: Sofia Magid’s Collection - The Missing Link in Eastern European Jewish Music

Wednesday December 25, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

In his talk, Dr. D. Zisl Slepovitch will introduce the figure of Sofia Magid (1892—1954), an eminent Soviet Russian ethnomusicologist and linguist who, among a small handful of scholars, documented the last moments of the vibrant Jewish musical tradition in Ukraine and Belarus shortly before World War Two. Dr. Slepovitch will discuss the uneasy fate of Sofia Magid’s scholarly legacy, as well as its life on the arts scene and academic work in the 1990’s through the present day, including Slepovitch’s own work with these unique materials.

Speakers

Zisl Slepovitch

D. Zisl Slepovitch, a native of Minsk, Belarus (in US since 2008) is a musicologist his primary field of interest being Jewish music in Eastern Europe (Ph.D., Belarusian State Academy of Music,), klezmer, classical, and improvising multi-instrumentalist musician, conductor / music... Read More →

Wednesday December 25, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid), Instrumental

11:15am EST

Lecture: Banjew - A Century of the Banjo in Klezmer Music

Wednesday December 25, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

The mass emigration of Eastern European Jews to the United States in the late 19th century occurred while the banjo was a dominant force in popular music. And, while Jews did not become involved in the older, more established worlds of minstrel banjo or of the later classic fingerstyle banjo, the newly emerging worlds of ragtime and jazz – and the brash new instrument, the tenor – offered an unfettered ground floor for this new collaboration.

Starting in 1925, recordings by Alexander Olshanetsky's Orchestra, Joseph Cherniavksy's Hasidic-American Jazz Band, Abe Schwartz, Dave Tarras, and more, reveal how the banjo not only became a mainstream Jewish presence in the Yiddish theater but also how traditional old-time klezmer bands adapted traditional rhythmic figures onto it.

The talk will also cover my reintroducing the banjo in the mid-1970s klezmer “revival” and its subsequent worldwide renaissance today, featuring the music of Mark Rubin, Andy Rubin, Jerry Wicentowski, Nefesh Mountain, Dobronotch, and myself.

Speakers

Henry Sapoznik

Wednesday December 25, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Lecture: “Shelter Books” - Yiddish and Ukrainian Children’s Literature in Times of Violence

Wednesday December 25, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Books offer their readers a portable shelter in times of crisis, helping families to frame and process trauma and furnishing resources for building resilience. With an eye toward the current war in Ukraine, we will examine a trove of Yiddish and Ukrainian children’s books that cut across a century of violent upheaval, beginning with the Holodomor and the Holocaust, and continuing into the present. As scholars of children’s literature and culture, we will discuss the meaningful points of connection between the Yiddish and Ukrainian projects of healing and cultural preservation.

Speakers

Emily Finer

Emily Finer is Associate Professor in the School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She researches transnational and multilingual interactions between English, Polish, Ukrainian, Yiddish and Russian language cultures, specialising in children’s literature... Read More →

Miriam Udel

Miriam Udel is associate professor of German Studies and Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute of Jewish Studies at Emory University, where her teaching focuses on Yiddish language, literature, and culture. She is the editor and translator of Honey on the Page: A Treasury... Read More →

Wednesday December 25, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

2:30pm EST

Psoy and his Yiddish Kite: A Conversation with Psoy Korolenko

Wednesday December 25, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Pavel Lion, a.k.a. Psoy Korolenko, is a renowned poet-singer/songwriter, scholar, journalist, and musician. In Russia, Korolenko gained notoriety by creating a unique multilingual cabaret, combining traditions of Russian and European (especially French) popular and urban folk song, as well as Yiddish folk and theater song, with elements of rap, sound poetry, and other forms of free-style poetry. Now living in the US, Korolenko's work has turned more deeply towards Yiddish. He performs with Hamburg-based Yiddish singer/songwriter Daniel Kahn in several projects, including the Brothers Nazaroff, recorded for Smithsonian Folkways and featured in the Hungarian-made film Soul Exodus. Psoy stars in Yiddish Glory, a Grammy-nominated program led by historian Anna Shternshis, presenting anti-fascist songs and music documenting Nazi atrocities discovered in a former Soviet archive. He is also the Artistic Director of the annual JetLAG Festival, the largest music festival in the US for emigre families from the former Soviet Union. Recently, he has been teaching Jewish folklore at Dartmouth College. In this special YNY program, Korolenko will be interviewed by long-time collaborator Daniel Kahn.

Speakers

Daniel Kahn

Daniel Kahn (vocals) is a Detroit-born troubadour, translator, multi-instrumentalist, and theater artist, now harboring in Hamburg. His work crosses many borders, linguistic and otherwise.

Psoy Korolenko

Psoy Korolenko (Pavel Lion) is a multilingual singer-songwriter, translator, journalist and scholar, currently a Visiting Lecturer at Dartmouth College, a former scholar/artist-in-residence at Trinity College (Hartford, CT), University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Dickinson College... Read More →

Wednesday December 25, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

A Star from Satmar: An Interview with Riki Rose

Wednesday December 25, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

Yiddish New York features meetings, interviews, and performances by Yiddish speakers from the Hasidic community, both currently and those who were formerly a part of it. This year we are fortunate to present Riki Rose who has burst upon the scene with her original creativity and humor (check her out on youtube!). In this session, Riki will be interviewed by Uri Schreter.

Speakers

Uri Schreter

Riki Rose

Riki Rose is a riveting Yiddish singer, songwriter, musician, comedian, video artist, social media influencer and entertainer. She grew up in a Hasidic family in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her videos on YouTube and other platforms garner thousands of viewers and feature an eclectic mix... Read More →

Wednesday December 25, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

4:15pm EST

Lecture: Klezmer loshn / Klezmer Language *IN YIDDISH*

Wednesday December 25, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

503 - Hebrew Union College

Like many languages, Yiddish has jargons used by various trades, such as butchers. However, Yiddish also has a musicians' jargon, klezmer-loshn, which is best known from Sholem Aleichem's 1888 novel "Stempenyu." Let's get to know this overlooked linguistic code.

Speakers

Paul (Hershl) Glasser

Paul Glasser has a doctorate in linguistics from Columbia University. He reads and writes about a number of languages, above all Yiddish. He is co-editor of the Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary, is a former academic dean at YIVO, and has served on the board of numerous Yiddish... Read More →

Wednesday December 25, 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

The Turkow Brothers and Their Role in Preserving and Building Yiddish Culture After World War II

Wednesday December 25, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

This talk explores the significant contributions of the Warsaw-born Turkow brothers – Zygmunt (1896–1970), Jonas (1898–1988), Mark (1904–1983), and Yitskhok (Yitskhok Ber; alias Grudberg; 1906–1970) – to the preservation and development of Yiddish culture after the Holocaust. The brothers were prominent Yiddish actors, theater and film directors, playwrights, writers, and community activists who worked tirelessly to salvage Yiddish culture during and after the Shoah. I examine the post-war transnational Yiddish arena in Poland, Brasil, Argentina, the United States, and Israel, where the Turkow brothers represented Polish Jewry and contributed significantly to the revitalization of Yiddish culture.

Speakers

Anna Rozenfeld

Wednesday December 25, 2024 4:15pm - 5:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

9:30am EST

Lecture: Arbeter Froyen and Antifascism - Jewish Women Workers and Internationalism in the 1930s

Thursday December 26, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Speakers

Jennifer Young

Thursday December 26, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

9:30am EST

Lecture: Ashkenazi Songs Before Yiddish

Thursday December 26, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

503 - Hebrew Union College

What did the music of medieval Ashkenaz sound like? On many levels, it will always remain a mystery. Indeed, although some form of Jewish-German was certainly spoken there, only two surviving sources of Yiddish writing from before 1400 have survived: a two-line fragment from 1272 and a more complete collection from 1382. Rather than writing in their spoken language, Ashkenazi authors chose Hebrew, writing prolifically, including numerous poems meant to be sung, at least upon occasion. This poetry, in both its form and content, also present a fascinating glimpse into the Jewish-Christian cultural exchange of the time, as well showing the extent of assimilation. Unfortunately, not a single piece has survived with notated music. We will never know the exact melodies to which they were sung, however, with some detective work: by borrowing the melodies used by their Gentile neighbors, or, in some cases, from the rich Jewish oral tradition, a kind of “best guess” solution can be reached, bringing the soundscape of our distant ancestors back to life once more, no matter how imperfectly.

Speakers

Avery Gosfield

Was born in Philadelphia into a music-loving family that produced a composer (Annie Gosfield), a virtuoso steel guitarist (Lucky Oceans), as well as one outlier, political artist Josh Gosfield. Active as a performer, teacher and researcher, she directs the early music group Lucidarium... Read More →

Thursday December 26, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
503 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

9:30am EST

YNY Symposium: The Scorekeepers - Bringing Manuscripts to the Masses

Thursday December 26, 2024 9:30am - 12:30pm EST

506 - Hebrew Union College

What is a “critical edition” and how does it open new vistas for musicians? The symposium follows a pioneering world-wide, crowd-sourced effort by the Klezmer Institute to bring hundreds of newly-discovered musical manuscripts from Ukraine's national library into circulation. Klezmer musicians around the globe are now performing lost melodies collected on An-sky's famed folklore expeditions through Ukraine (1911-1914) and subsequent fieldwork by Soviet-Jewish ethnomusicologist Moshe Beregovsky. Join moderator Mark Slobin (Wesleyan Emeritus) scholars and researcher-musicians involved in this amazing project to get a behind-the-scenes look at its challenges and significance, and listen to some of the musical treasures that have been unearthed.

Speakers

Mark Slobin

Mark Slobin is the Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music Emeritus at Wesleyan University and the author or editor of books on Afghanistan and Central Asia, eastern European Jewish music, film music, and ethnomusicology theory, two of which have received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award: “Fiddler... Read More →

Thursday December 26, 2024 9:30am - 12:30pm EST
506 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Lecture: Memories of the Yiddish Kitchen *ONLINE ONLY*

Thursday December 26, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

Zoom

"Memories of the Yiddish Kitchen” invites you to join our workshop at YNY and contribute to the 5th edition of our collaborative YNY cookbook. The celebrated folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (NYU, POLIN Museum-Warsaw) will get the conversation going with food memories of her own, among them her grandfather’s favorite dish (beef testicles grilled on a hot shovel), her grandmother’s favorite dish (sautéed lung, spleen, and beef cheeks), her mother’s favorite (ptsha: calf’s foot jelly), a family favorite (pickled tongue), her aunt’s speciality (stuffed spleen), her mother’s beloved blote (sour cream and chopped radish, cucumber, scallions, and dill) and shtshav (cold sour sorrel soup), her maternal grandfather’s Passover raisin wine, and our family’s beloved for soup nuts (mandln), eyerlekh, helzl, and potato-nik. These are among the largely forgotten foods of the Yiddish kitchen, to say nothing of the ganef-kneydl (thief’s dumpling) in tsholnt. Other foods continue to be debated with greater or lesser fervor: gefilte fish, latkes, matzoh balls, kugel, bagels, and more. Still others, beloved and remembered, either still grace the table or we wish they did, but have forgotten how to make them from scratch or at all: farfl, kreplekh, rosl, and flodn.
Bring your memories, bring your recipes, and bring your requests!
Please send whatever you can in advance to ynyncoordinator@gmail.com by December 15.
- Use letter size paper, vertical
- Send scans, saved as jpgs, of photos and drawings, recipes (handwritten or typed, your own and any that were handed down to you)
- Send typed texts in Word, not PDFs
Barbara will share her mother’s (vegan) split pea barley soup, tips for making the best old-school potato latkes, the secret to perfect kasha, and more.
This presentation will originate remotely and individuals at HUC are asked to attend on personal devices.

Speakers

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is University Professor Emerita and Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University. She is currently Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Her books include Destination Culture: Tourism... Read More →

Thursday December 26, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
Zoom

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Lecture: “Shelter Books” - Yiddish and Ukrainian Children’s Literature in Times of Violence

Thursday December 26, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

503 - Hebrew Union College

Speakers

Emily Finer

Miriam Udel

Thursday December 26, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
503 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

11:15am EST

Leyenkrayz: Der Abort / Yiddish Literature and Abortion

Thursday December 26, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST

507 - Hebrew Union College

Yiddish writers in the "Old World" and the new made vivid the multiple circumstances women faced when terminating a pregnancy. This leyenkrayz, conducted entirely in Yiddish, will engage with some surprising texts on the subject.

Speakers

Eve Jochnowitz

Eve Jochnowitz, PhD (cooking, language) was a fellow at the Frankel Institute ofAdvanced Jewish Studies at the University of Michigan and currently teaches Yiddish at the YIVO institute and the Workers Circle. She worked for several years as a cook and baker in New York and received... Read More →

Thursday December 26, 2024 11:15am - 12:30pm EST
507 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Lecture (Hybrid)

Yiddish New York 2024

From $11.18