Lecture on Yiddish and Irish in St. Petersburg
Lecture on Yiddish and Irish in St. Petersburg
On March 13, 2023, before St. Patrick’s Day, the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg hosted a lecture on connections and parallels between the Jewish and Irish culture by the writer and journalist Yoel Matveyev. A particular attention was paid to the development of the Yiddish and Irish language in the 21st century.
At the end of his speech, the lecturer recited his Yiddish translations of William Butler Yeats’s poems. According to Matveyev, Yiddish and Irish share a number of historical and sociolinguistic similarities. He suggests that Yiddishists and Gaelic activists should learn from each other practical strategies for further development of their respective languages. A report on the lecture was published in Yiddish and in Russian by the newspaper Birobidzhaner Shtern.
On March 8, 2023, the famous Israeli actress, radio host, singer and journalist Leah Shlanger passed away at the age of 91. Her Yiddish radio broadcasts were heard for many decades on the New York radio WEVD and the Israeli station Kol Yisrael. During the last years of her life, she published essays in the American Internet magazine Yiddish Branzhe.
The McGill–Queen’s University Press, a Canadian joint venture between McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, has published Dr. Rebecca Margolis’ book “Yiddish Lives On”. The author, formerly an associate professor at the University of Ottawa, is a professor and Pratt Foundation Chair of Jewish Civilisation at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University, Melbourne.
The Yiddish-Russian newspaper Birobidzhaner Shtern has published a