Preservation of Yiddish Culture

Preservation of Yiddish Culture and Heritage

Сохранение культуры идиша

אָפּהיטן אונדזער ייִדישע קולטור־ירושה

לשמור על תרבות היידיש

Soviet Tzaddik

Soviet Tzaddik

Soviet Tzaddik

The Moscow publishing house Kuchkovo Polye released a new Russian book titled The Soviet Tzaddik. Stories about the Ribnitzer Rebbe: from the Dniester to the Hudson River, edited by Dr. Valery Dymshits, Dr. Maria Kaspina and Dr. Alexandra Poljan. Rather than focusing on the Ribnitzer Rebbe as a historical personality, the monograph explores the rich folkloric material surrounding this figure, largely collected from contemporary Hasidic materials written in Yiddish. It is the first major academic study of this subject.

Chaim Zanvl Abramowitz (1902 ? – 1995), known as the Ribnitzer Rebbe, is considered one of the greatest 20th century Hasidic leaders, reputed as a miracle worker who maintained an extraordinary ascetic lifestyle. He managed to live a fully Jewish religious life in the USSR; soon after his emigration to Israel in 1970 and a few years later to the United States he became a living legend among Yiddish-speaking American Hasidim. The Ribnitzer Rebbe’s legacy remains a rich source of contemporary Yiddish folklore.

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.

Little Fairy Tales by Itsik Kipnis

Little Fairy Tales by Itsik Kipnis

Little Fairy Tales by Itsik Kipnis

The St. Petersburg publishing house Jaromír Hladík Press published two children’s books by Itsik Kipnis, Little Fairy Tales and A Bear Flew, translated from Yiddish into Russian by a number of local translators and edited by the renowned literary scholar Valery Dymshits. The books contain the original illustrations by Sarah Shor, Mark Epshteyn and Nisson Shifrin.
Itzik Kipnis (1896-1974) was one of the central figures in Soviet Yiddish literature who authored many short stories, several novels and plays. He also translated numerous Russian and Western European literary works into Yiddish. In 1948, he was arrested on charges of “bourgeois nationalism”. After his release from the Gulag in 1954, his house in Kyiv once again became a major informal center of Jewish culture in the USSR. Kipnis’s children’s fairy tales combine fantasy, traditional folklore and elements of Soviet life.