Site News: New Materials on Anatoli Kaplan

Site News: New Materials on Anatoli Kaplan

Site News: New Materials on Anatoli Kaplan

We are glad to inform our website’s visitors about a significant expansion of the section dedicated to the famous artist Anatoli (Tankhum) Kaplan, whose work is directly related to the Yiddish language and the culture of Eastern European Jews. We are offering you a gallery of Kaplan’s 50 works, photographs of which were kindly provided to us by two Israeli photographers: Tatyana Razumovskaya and Polina Idelson. We also published in English and Russian an essay about Anatoli Kaplan by the art critic and professor Alexander Shedrinsky.

Video Interview with a Veteran of Yiddish Media

Video Interview with a Veteran of Yiddish Media

Video Interview with a Veteran of Yiddish Media

The New York’s Yiddish Forward reported on a historic video interview between the American Yiddish activist Eli Benedict and the archivist Chana Pollack, who has been doing the archival and translation work for this newspaper since 1999. In 2007, she published The Living Lense, an album of historical photographs from the Forward’s archive. The interview has been recently posted on Youtube by the New York-based Yiddish League.

The Yiddish Forward (Forverts) is a legendary newspaper founded in 1897. Since 2019, it has been publishing its materials in Yiddish only online. Among its employees and correspondents were many famous Yiddish writers and poets, including the Nobel laureates Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel.

Rubinlicht Awards and Performance by Evgeny Kissin

Rubinlicht Awards and Performance by Evgeny Kissin

Rubinlicht Awards and Performance by Evgeny Kissin

Two important events took place at the Tel Aviv Yiddish center Leyvik House: the annual Rubinlicht Award ceremony on December 17 and an online live performance by the world renowned pianist Evgeny Kissin, who recited his Yiddish poems on December 21.

The Anna and Leib Rubinlicht Foundation Award was founded in 1986. Its current laureates are the linguist Dr. Ghil’ad Zuckermann, for his research on the profound influence of Yiddish on modern Hebrew, and Shoshana Kroitero, for her active volunteer work in organizing various events at the Leyvik House.

3rd Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

3rd Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

3rd Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

From December 4 to 7, 2023, the 3rd annual Yiddish Festival was held in Birobidzhan. More than 80 events — concerts, workshops, talks with language experts, etc. — were held in the city and several other localities of the region.The program was concluded by the lighting of the first Hanukkah candle and a festive concert. Yoel Matveyev, a Yiddish writer from St. Petersburg, participated in the festival as an honored guest, giving lectures on the spiritual and historical significance of the Jewish Autonomous Region. The festival was attended by Boruch Gorin, director of the Moscow publishing house Knizhniki, who told the Birobidzhan residents about the role of Yiddish in his life and family.

Elena Sarashevskaya, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Birobidzhaner Stern, interviews Yoel Matveyev at the Yiddish Festival. The conversation was held at the publishing house Birobidzhan.

Site News: Collection of Isa Kremer’s Songs

Site News: Collection of Isa Kremer’s Songs

Site News: Collection of Isa Kremer’s Songs

Our site’s editors are pleased to announce a significant addition to our collection of Yiddish music: about 20 songs by the famous singer Isa Kremer. Each song is accompanied by a video clip with historical photographs of her. We would also like to remind our readers about other extensive song collections on our website: songs by Sidi Tal and Nechama Lifshitz.

News from SEFER

News from SEFER

News from SEFER

From December 6 to 8, 2023, the international conference “The Concept of Borders in Slavic and Jewish Cultural Tradition” will be held in Moscow, organized by the SEFER Center of Academic and Humanitarian Jewish Studies, the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Center for Slavic and Jewish Studies.
The evening session on December 7, led by Dr. Valery Dymshits and Dr. Ekaterina Norkina, will cover a number of topics related to the Yiddish language. In particular, the Moscow researcher Galina Eliasberg will talk about cultural boundaries in Sholom Aleichem’s novel “Wandering Stars.”
The SEFER Center was created in 1994 with the goal of promoting scientific research in the field of Jewish studies and teaching Jewish disciplines in Russia and in all post-Soviet countries. The organization conducts language webinars, which include a group for learning Yiddish from level zero, and is currently looking for new students. The group is led by the well known specialist Dr. Ekaterina Karaseva.
SEFER has also informed us about a planned winter school for students and young researchers dedicated to the topic of Yiddish and the Holocaust. The program is still under discussion. The plan includes lectures, seminars, workshops and a cultural program. News about the development of this project will be published on our website.