News from Birobidzhan

On October 13, 2023, the state TV channel Bira in Birobidzhan, Russia, showed an episode of the weekly program Yiddishkait, in which Yoel Matveyev, a Yiddish writer, poet and literary translator based in St. Petersburg, spoke about women’s poetry in Yiddish from the 16th century to the present day. His recent Yiddish publication in the newspaper Birobidzhaner Shtern was devoted to this topic as well. During the TV program, Alexandra Glebovskaya and Olga Anikina, who also reside in St. Petersburg, read Anna Margolin’s poems in the Yiddish original and in their Russian translations.

The Jewish Autonomous Region of the USSR was established in 1934. A series of celebrations dedicated to the region’s 90th anniversary are expected to be held in Birobidzhan during the upcoming year. On October 18, Birobidzhaner Shtern published an interview with Yoel Matveyev who recently translated Buzi (Boris) Miller’s play He is from Birobidzhan from Yiddish into Russian. This unique translation was specially dedicated to the region’s anniversary. Born in Ukraine, Miller (1913-1988) lived in Birobidzhan and for many years was the newspaper’s editor-in-chief.