Preservation of Yiddish Culture

Preservation of Yiddish Culture and Heritage

Сохранение культуры идиша

אָפּהיטן אונדזער ייִדישע קולטור־ירושה

לשמור על תרבות היידיש

Yiddish Album Top-Rated in Europe

Yiddish Album Top-Rated in Europe

Yiddish Album Top-Rated in Europe

The music album “Silent Tears”, just released earlier this year, has won the highest rating on World Music Charts Europe at the beginning of April 2023. The chart was compiled by major national broadcasters including the BBC, RFI France, ORF Austria and German Public Radio.

The Silent Tears project began when Dr. Paula David launched a poetry program to help Holocaust survivors at Toronto’s Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care deal with long term trauma from horrific crimes such as sexual violence, human experimentation and forced sterilization. The album also includes five works based on Holocaust survivor Molly Applebaum’s diary and memoir entitled “Buried Words”. As a child, to hide from the Nazis, she was buried underground in a terribly cold and filthy box full of insects.

The performers are the Payadora Tango Ensemble (Toronto), Olga (Avigail) Mieleszczuk, Lenka Lichtenberg, Aviva Chernick, Marta Kosiorek and other renowned musicians.

Alexander Gorodnitsky in Yiddish

Alexander Gorodnitsky in Yiddish

Alexander Gorodnitsky in Yiddish

On March 18, 2023, the well-known singer and musician Psoy Korolenko performed in the USA two songs by the Soviet and Russian poet Alexander Gorodnitsky translated into Yiddish. The translations were made exclusively for the author’s 90th birthday by the Yiddish writer Yoel Matveyev. As a special contribution for our website, Korolenko shared a recording of Gorodnitsky’s song “Snow” (“Shney” in Yiddish), which he performed at the Spring MusArt Fest in Sunnyvale (California).

Alexander Gorodnitsky is a world-famous geologist, one of the founders of the Soviet “bardic” song genre (independent singer-songwriters’ style somewhat similar to American folk music revival of the 1960s). The asteroid 5988 Gorodnitskij is named after him. His songs about expeditions to the Arctic are based on personal field experience. Gorodnitsky considers Yiddish, the language of his ancestors, a very important part of his personal cultural heritage.

Website Dedicated to Yiddish Songs

Website Dedicated to Yiddish Songs

Website Dedicated to Yiddish Songs

The Workers’ Circle has launched a new website that features lyrics and freely downloadable audio recordings of more than 400 Yiddish songs from Yosl and Chana Mlotek’s anthology. It’s called Yiddishsongs.org. All songs are also accompanied by Roman letters transcription and English translation.

Chana Mlotek was a renowned researcher and collector of Yiddish songs, while her husband Yosl was a prominent Yiddishist activist. For decades the couple ran the popular Forverts column “Pearls of Jewish Poetry”. The new project was carried out by the son and grandson of these authors, Moish and Elisha Mlotek.

18th Issue of Yidishland

18th Issue of Yidishland

18th Issue of Yidishland

On March 31, 2023, the 18th issue of the literary quarterly magazine Yidishland was released in Israel and in parallel circulation in Sweden.

The magazine opens with the memoirs of the Jewish Soviet writer Noyakh Lurye (1885 – 1960) who describes the terrible months he spent in Stalin’s prison. This unique material was published for the first time. Modern poetry is represented in the new issue by Velvl Chernin’s, Felix Khaimovich’s and Boris Karloff’s poems.

One author, Yaad Biran, made his first appearance as a Yiddish prose writer. Biran is mainly known as a film director and translator of Yiddish literature into Hebrew. Academic materials related to Yiddish culture, presented in the fall of 2022 at the 25th Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany, comprise a large section of the magazine. Elena Sarashevskaya’s essay on the Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan, which took place last autumn, is illustrated with color photographs of this important major event.

New Issue of Iberzets

New Issue of Iberzets

New Issue of Iberzets

In March 2023, the Iberzets Magazine, entirely devoted to literary translations from Yiddish into Hebrew, has published its 3rd issue. The periodical is edited and produced by the Tel Aviv University’s students specializing in Jewish literature. The new issue includes translated works of Sholem Aleichem, Aaron Zeitlin, Jacob Glatstein, H. Leivick, Anna Margolin, Ber Horowitz, Benjamin Harshav and Yossel Birstein.

Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim Dies

Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim Dies

Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim Dies

On March 22, the Yiddish poetess Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim passed away.

She was the last surviving member of the literary group Yung Yisroel (Young Israel). Born in 1925 in the Lithuanian town of Ukmergė, called Vilkomir in Yiddish, she graduated from high school before the Holocaust, then survived the Vilna ghetto and the Kaiserwald concentration camp, where she started writing poetry.

In 1947, Rivka Basman immigrated to the Land of Israel and took part in the War of Independence. In the 1950s, she began publishing her poems, which first appeared in periodical. Her first poetry collection, “Toybn baym brunem” (“Doves at the Well”) was published in 1959. Rivka Basman Ben-Chaim remained an active author until the last years of her life. May her memory be blessed!