Preservation of Yiddish Culture

Preservation of Yiddish Culture and Heritage

Сохранение культуры идиша

אָפּהיטן אונדזער ייִדישע קולטור־ירושה

לשמור על תרבות היידיש

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.

Yidishland: Issue 24

Yidishland: Issue 24

Yidishland: Issue 24

The 24th issue of the quarterly magazine Yidishland, notable for its exclusively Yiddish material, was published in parallel print runs in Israel and Sweden. It features new chapters of novels by Klara-Bel and Mikhoel Felsenbaum, a short story by Velvl Chernin, several philological and historical research articles. The issue is rich in poetic works and includes poems by Felix Khaimovich, David Omar Cohen, Hillel Kazovsky, Osher Gal, Katerina Kuznetsova, Boris Karloff and Jake Schneider.

The Shvesters Tour New York

The Shvesters Tour New York

The Shvesters Tour New York

The Shvesters, a vocal duo who recently began their music career in Detroit, performed several concerts in New York. On August 22 and 25, 2024, the Museum of Jewish Heritage hosted their performances twice, accompanied by the renowned guitarist Omri Bar Giora. On September 17 the duo had a concert at the Altneu, a relatively new Modern Orthodox synagogue launched in Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 2022.

During the last couple of years, the two singers, Chava Levi and Polina Fradkin, gained their reputation on social media for their perfectly synchronized voices and matching outfits, which resulted in a series of successful concerts in the US and Israel. Levi and Fradkin transform classic Yiddish melodies into sophisticated, contemporary harmonic jazz arrangements. As noted by one of their critics, Tel Aviv-based journalist Blake Flayton, “The Shvesters do not just make us want to move our feet to Yiddish; their music makes us long for Yiddish”.

Sholom Secunda’s Anniversary in New York

Sholom Secunda’s Anniversary in New York

Sholom Secunda’s Anniversary in New York

On September 14, 2024, the Merkin Hall of the Kaufman Music Center in New York hosted the concert Sholom Secunda: A 130th Anniversary Spectacular, staring the Swedish singer Idun Carling, the ex-Soviet singer-songwriter Alexander Gorodnitsky, the jazz band of the Grammy-nominated saxophonist Yaacov Mayman, and other prominent musicians.

Sholom Secunda (1894 – 1974) was an American composer of Ukrainian-Jewish descent, known for some of the most popular Yiddish songs, including “Bay mir bistu sheyn“. Although he emigrated from Russia in 1907, his tunes remain well known in post-Soviet countries as well as in the US, where he is considered one of the greatest 20th century composers of New York’s historical Yiddish Theater District.