Preservation of Yiddish Culture

Preservation of Yiddish Culture and Heritage

Сохранение культуры идиша

אָפּהיטן אונדזער ייִדישע קולטור־ירושה

לשמור על תרבות היידיש

4th Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

4th Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

4th Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

From October 22 to 24, 2024, the 4th annual Yiddish Festival was held in Birobidzhan and several other localities of Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region. Dozens of festive activities included concert programs, workshops, exhibitions, etc.

The coverage of these events in the local weekly TV program Yiddishkeit was combined with another exciting achievement: a children’s animation in Yiddish recently produced in Birobidzhan. It is based on a poem by Chaim Beider and is recorded in his original voice from historical Soviet-era radio archives.

Chaim Beider (1920–2003) was a Soviet Yiddish poet, journalist and literary historian. Since 1996 he was living in New York where he also played an important role in the delelopment of the American Yiddish literary scene.

Yiddish in Berlin

Yiddish in Berlin

Yiddish in Berlin

The 4th Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Literature in Berlin is being held at the Free University of Berlin from August 12 to 30, 2024. The pedagogical team under the direction of Prof. Yitskhok Niborski offers intensive language courses, lectures, film screenings and various workshops.

At the same time, Yiddish.Berlin, an informal group of artists, scholars and activists dedicated to Yiddish, celebrate its 5th anniversary. As one of its recent activities related to this celebration, from August 15 to August 28, the group is presenting the exhibit NATO in Yiddishland by Yevgeniy Fiks, which satirizes the dangerous pathos of fervent nationalism and militarism. The exhibit’s organizers believe this pathos has no place in Yiddisland — the virtual and extraterritorial country of Yiddish.

Yiddish.Berlin

Tevye at Tel Aviv University

Tevye at Tel Aviv University

Tevye at Tel Aviv University

On July 21, 2024, Tel Aviv University celebrated the conclusion of the recent Sholem Aleichem studies sponsored by the Rosa Lubin Scholarship program, created by Dr. Mark Zilberquit, the founder our website. This program, founded in 2023, will be continued in the upcoming school year.

Before the event, Dr. Yair Lipshitz and Dr. Ruthie Abeliovich who led the studies and performances related to Sholem Aleichem’s famous story series Tevye the Dairyman, expressed their gratitude to Dr. Zilberquit:

 

Dear Mark,

We had a wonderful time, and the students were exceptionally enthusiastic and devoted to the materials. Their love for Yiddish culture was felt throughout the process, and we are deeply grateful to you for the opportunity to cultivate it with them.

Due to the war and the current situation in Israel, our final event will be rather intimate in nature. Our students will present their responses to the materials through analytical papers and performances, and we very much look forward to see what they will bring.

We are attaching the poster for the event, and do hope that we will have the opportunity to have you with us in future years’ concluding events!

Thank you again for your generous support,

Yair and Ruthie

Hasidic Yiddish Studies in Europe

Hasidic Yiddish Studies in Europe

Hasidic Yiddish Studies in Europe

From July 12 to July 18, 2024, a special educational program dedicated to today’s Hasidic Yiddish was held at the campus of the University of Vienna. A similar course will be offered from July 23 to August 4 during the Yiddish Summer festival in Weimar, Germany. Its organizers explain that although academic programs typically only teach standard literary Yiddish, this year they decided to do something new: to focus on the Hasidic variants of Yiddish spoken as a daily language by around one million people across the world.

The teaching team includes both native speakers of Hasidic Yiddish and expert researchers who are members of the innovative Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish group at UCL (University College London). Both the Vienna and Weimar programs cover such diverse subjects as modern Hasidic fiction, traditional and pop music, dances, film, and more.

Linguist’s Review of Beregovsky’s Index

Linguist’s Review of Beregovsky’s Index

Linguist’s Review of Beregovsky’s Index

Opera Musicologica, the academic journal of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, has published a review of the book Moisei Beregovsky: Biobiographical Index produced under the auspices of our project. Beregovsky (1892 – 1961) was a great Soviet Jewish folklorist often considered the foremost ethnomusicologist of Eastern European Jewry.
The reviewer, Dr. Larissa Naidich, is a professor of linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The book’s compiler, Dr. Evgenia Khazdan, is a well known musicologist based in St. Petersburg.
The review’s author notes that the book contains convenient indexes, and that its significance goes far beyond the biobiographical material on the life and work of one individual musicologist. Naidich writes: “One can say with confidence that today no researcher of the Ashkenazi Jewish musical tradition will pass by this Index compiled by Evgenia Khazdan.”
Dr. Naidich emphasizes that the book can also be useful for linguists studying the Yiddish language. We are happy to remind our readers that the electronic version of the bilingual (Russian and English) book on Moisei Beregovsky is publicly available on our web portal and, thanks to the availability of the entire text in English, is accessible to a wide readership in different countries.

June 6, October 7… Again June 6

June 6, October 7… Again June 6

June 6, October 7… Again June 6

Exactly one year ago, on June 6, 2023, a monument to the great Jewish classic writer Sholem Aleichem was erected on the grounds of Tel Aviv University. This brilliant author wrote in his native language, Yiddish, demonstrating the uniqueness of its culture by his genius style, humor and subtle depictions of the shtetl characters.

The idea of ​​creating and installing the monument stemmed from Dr. Mark Zilberquit’s vision of promoting Yiddish culture. It was implemented by the foundations he created: The Heritage Projects Foundation (USA) and Yiddish Culture Preservation Foundation (Israel). The monument’s opening ceremony had an important symbolic meaning: it also opened the project “Sholem Aleichem’s Year at TAU”. In those days, big plans were made and the project’s program was discussed. In particular, it was planned to hold an academic conference and a festival of Yiddish culture in October 2024, and to begin a systematic study of various Yiddish materials discovered by Dr. Zilberquit in the archives of several countries.

TAU Vice-President Amos Elad, Julia Zilberquit, Mark Zilberquit, TAU President Prof. Ariel Porad, Leonard Blavatnik

On October 7, 2023, the Israeli-Hamas war began, disrupting the regular civil life in Israel. Unfortunately, this situation affected the project as a whole. The plan to hold a Yiddish conference and a festival is postponed at the moment. Nevertheless, under the leadership of Prof. Yair Lipshitz and Dr. Ruthie Abeliovich, the students research work is still carried out as planned. Despite the enormous difficulties of wartime, the university continues its artistic and research activities, including in such an important field as the study of the Yiddish language and its great culture.

TAU students are working on archival materials related to Sholem Aleichem.