New Yiddish Exhibition in Amherst
New Yiddish Exhibition in Amherst
On October 15, 2023, the new permanent exhibition “Yiddish: A Global Culture” opened at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. The main goal of the exhibit is to show the global significance of Yiddish culture in its various aspects, including literature, theater, music, press and even politics. Many prominent political figures, predominantly left-wing, wrote works in Yiddish.
Highlights among the hundreds of exhibited objects include a 60-foot color mural of “global Yiddishland” by the illustrator Martin Haake, a micrographic portrait of the Yiddishist revolutionary Chaim Zhitlowsky, composed of miniature letters from his texts by the Buenos Aires textile worker Guedale Tenenbaum, and a reconstruction of Yitskhok-Leybush Peretz’s apartment in Warsaw, which at the beginning of the 20th century hosted a famous literary salon of Yiddish writers.
The exhibition’s opening was celebrated by performances of several artists, including the actress, playwright and translator Caraid O’Brien who performed a Yiddish monologue of Justyna, a young Polish Jewish woman, from Sholem Asch’s play On the Road to Zion (original title: Moshiyekh’s Tsaytn, The Messiah’s Times). Written in 1905, Ash’s play had been immediately translated into Russian and won great success in St. Petersburg, staged by the famous actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya.
O’Brien, who translated Asсh’s play into English, grew up in Ireland. Her family spoke Irish and was fond of old Irish legends. In her youth she fell in love with the Yiddish language and literature. In May 2023, O’Brien published her trilogy of translated Asch’s plays God of Vengeance, Motke Thief, and The Dead Man, and premiered her radio show of On the Road to Zion. O’Brien’s biography is an excellent example of the new exhibition’s theme: the global importance of Yiddish culture, which attracts enthusiasts from all over the world.
Photo: Official Facebook page of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst
The Kiev publishing house Duh i Litera (“Spirit and Letter”) published a book in Ukrainian titled “Georgy Melsky’s Kievan Jewish theater Mazltov in the memoirs of its participants.” The book’s editor, Svetlana Simakova, compiled the memories of people who participated in this professional stage collective. This theater performed in Ukraine’s capital in Yiddish from 1988 to 1995. Its first production was Sholem Aleichem’s play The Bloody Hoax known in its stage version as It’s Hard to be a Jew. The book is illustrated with photographs of actors, stage scenes and posters.
On October 13, 2023, the state TV channel Bira in Birobidzhan, Russia, showed an episode of the weekly program Yiddishkait, in which Yoel Matveyev, a Yiddish writer, poet and literary translator based in St. Petersburg, spoke about women’s poetry in Yiddish from the 16th century to the present day. His recent Yiddish publication in the newspaper Birobidzhaner Shtern was devoted to this topic as well. During the TV program, Alexandra Glebovskaya and Olga Anikina, who also reside in St. Petersburg, read Anna Margolin’s poems in the Yiddish original and in their Russian translations.
The recent book Women on the Yiddish Stage, edited by Alyssa Quint and Amanda Miryem-Khaye Seigel, covers the history of women’s integration into public Yiddish theatrical performances, starting from the 1870s. Gradually, actresses had become leading stage figures who revolutionized modern Jewish culture. Historically, women were barred from public performances in traditional Jewish communities, while Yiddish-speaking men performed for centuries as singers and entertainers.
Women on the Yiddish Stage presents a diverse array of scholarly essays that challenge the existing historical accounts of modern Yiddish theater. The book highlights many pioneering personalities and maps sources in this area of Yiddish and Jewish history.
On October 7, 2023, Yuval Ben Yakov, a 21-year-old staff sergeant of the IDF, was killed in battle against Hamas militants who unexpectedly attacked Israel.
The third International Nechama Lifshitz vocal competition took place in Vilnius on September 17-18, 2023, Nechama Lifshitz was a famous performer of Yiddish songs who was called the “Jewish Nightingale” during her lifetime. 35 singers from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Israel, Poland, Germany and Bulgaria took part in the competition.