Lecture on Taiga in Yiddish Poetry

On February 22, the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg hosted a lecture by the writer, poet and journalist Yoel Matveyev, dedicated to the themes of taiga and tundra in Yiddish poetry. Matveyev demonstrated to the city’s Yiddishists how Jewish folklore and mysticism, especially Hasidism in the 18th-19th centuries, influenced the perception of some Ashkenazi Jews of wildlife and forests as a special sacred space, which was reflected in the works of many Yiddish poets and writers. The event was held entirely in Yiddish.