Registration has begun for the third annual Yiddish Sof-Vokh (Yiddish Weekend) program in Birmingham. The participants will be able to improve their knowledge of Yiddish through a full three-day immersion in the language. All events, from workshops to dances and nature walks, will be conducted exclusively in Yiddish. The program will be held from June 21 to June 23 at the historical Hillscourt Hotel.
The activist group Yiddish.Berlin celebrated March 8, 2024, the International Women’s Day, by an event highlighting women’s creativity in Yiddish. The participants recited poetry written in this language by women, starting with a poem by the 11-year-old girl Gela, dating back to the beginning of the 18th century. The poets Katerina Kuznetsova (one of the event’s organizers) and Yael Merlini read their own works. The program included a performance of songs written by the famous Yiddish poetess Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (1920-2013). Iryna Zrobok read Celia Dropkin’s poems translated into Ukrainian. All the recited texts are available on the website of Yiddish.Berlin.
Photo by Jake Schneider
The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow opened a new exhibition titled Jewish Avant-Garde. Chagall, Altman, Shterenberg, and Others. After the 1917 revolution, talented Jewish artists and writers from the former Pale of Settlement flocked to Moscow and Petrograd, where they played an extremely important role in the development of both the Soviet avant-garde and Yiddish culture in its various manifestations, including theater. The exhibition features more than 100 paintings and graphic works by such great artists as Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, Alexander Tyshler, Issachar Ber Ryback, etc.
Moishe Dovid Gisser (1893-1952) was born in the Polish town of Radom and published his first poems in Yiddish in 1919. Starting from 1921 he lived in Buenos Aires, where his first collection of children’s poems Flemelekh un fayerlekh (“Little flames and lights”) was published. Later on, he settled in Santiago (Chile). A recording of the event was published by the Leyvik House on YouTube.
Exclusively for our website, the Workers’ Circle shared with us a recording of the popular Soviet song To see so great a snowfall written by Lydia Kozlova and performed by the famous singer Psoy Korolenko. It was translated into Yiddish by Yoel Matveyev who also prepared an English translation, the text of which is available on YouTube.