Preservation of Yiddish Culture

Preservation of Yiddish Culture and Heritage

Сохранение культуры идиша

אָפּהיטן אונדזער ייִדישע קולטור־ירושה

לשמור על תרבות היידיש

2024 Yiddish Reading Classes in St. Petersburg

2024 Yiddish Reading Classes in St. Petersburg

2024 Yiddish Reading Classes in St. Petersburg

A new series of Yiddish reading classes for advanced students was launched on early November at the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg. The studies are led by the Yiddish writer Yoel Matveyev.

For the current academic year, the classes’ organizers have chosen Yitzkhok Yoel Linetzky’s semi-autobiographical novel “Dos Poylishe Yingl” (The Polish Lad), considered a masterpiece of Yiddish picturesque satire. While its vitriolic humor is aimed againt Hasidim, this book may help secular readers to understand better Hasidic Hebrew and Aramaic expressions used in Yiddish. Many of these expressions are still in common use. Linetzky (1839–1915) first published his novel in 1867.

Riki Rose’s New Song

Riki Rose’s New Song

Riki Rose’s New Song

Riki Rose, a talented young singer and composer who lives in New York, posted on YouTube a recording of her new Yiddish song “Utem Arein Utem Arois” (“Breathe in, breathe out”), produced and arranged by Shloime Bernstein and mixed by Yanky Cohen. The video clip is accompanied by the song’s lyrics.
Rose was raised in a family of Satmar Hasidim; she is singing in her native Yiddish dialect of Austrian-Hungarian origin. Besides her musical activities, she also writes essays in Yiddish. Her colleagues involved in the this song production grew up in Yiddish-speaking Hasidic communities as well.

4th Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

4th Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

4th Yiddish Festival in Birobidzhan

From October 22 to 24, 2024, the 4th annual Yiddish Festival was held in Birobidzhan and several other localities of Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region. Dozens of festive activities included concert programs, workshops, exhibitions, etc.

The coverage of these events in the local weekly TV program Yiddishkeit was combined with another exciting achievement: a children’s animation in Yiddish recently produced in Birobidzhan. It is based on a poem by Chaim Beider and is recorded in his original voice from historical Soviet-era radio archives.

Chaim Beider (1920–2003) was a Soviet Yiddish poet, journalist and literary historian. Since 1996 he was living in New York where he also played an important role in the delelopment of the American Yiddish literary scene.

Yiddish at Nizhny Novgorod Gala

Yiddish at Nizhny Novgorod Gala

Yiddish at Nizhny Novgorod Gala

On October 24, 2024, a gala concert, which included the Russian opera award ceremony “Casta Diva”, took place at the Opera and Ballet Theater of Nizhny Novgorod. Among other music compositions presented at this prestigious event was the Yiddish song “Yosl and Sore-Dvoshe”, arranged by the composer Leonid Desyatnikov and performed by the international award-winning opera singer Maria Kalinina.

Previously, on June 9, 2024, Kalinina had performed in Nizhny Novgorod Desyatnikov’s entire song cycle Yiddish, of which “Yosl and Sore-Dvoshe” is the 4th part. The cycle is based on early 20th century cabaret repertoire transformed into opera pieces.

Yiddish at Yale University’s New Exhibition

Yiddish at Yale University’s New Exhibition

Yiddish at Yale University’s New Exhibition

On September 26, 2024, the opening reception of the exhibition In the First Person was held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, marking the 45th anniversary of the The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Yiddish dominates prominently among several other languages that appear in the displayed books, pamphlets, manuscripts, documents and other items. It is probably the largest exhibition in the history of this Ivy League institution devoted to such a great extent to Yiddish and Yiddish culture.

The exhibition’s opening featured performances by Zisl Slepovich and Sasha Lurje, renowned performers and researchers of Jewish music who have collected at least three series of Yiddish songs from the Fortunoff Video Archive. Created in 1979, its collection contains over 4,400 videotaped interviews with witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust. Much of this material was recorded in Yiddish. It’s worth a note that Yale University, among its diverse academic programs, also offers Yiddish courses.

Photo: Nick S. Porter

Theater of Sholem Asch

Theater of Sholem Asch

Land of My Soul:

The Theater of Sholem Asch

On September 19, 2024, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York hosted the one-person performance Land of My Soul: The Theater of Sholem Asch by the actress, translator. theater director, writer and Yiddish activist Caraid O’Brien who performed some excerpts from the most successful and controversial dramas by Sholem Asch, including the monologues from his plays God of Vengeance, Motke Thief and The Dead Man translated by O’Brien for the first time into English.

The performance was followed by a talkback with Asch’s great-grandson David Mazower and Lisa Newman, the heads of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. The event was also streamed live online. Caraid O’Brien, born in Ireland, is based in New York and is best known for her work with material originally written in Yiddish.