A version of this post appeared in Yiddish [here.][1] On April 24 Yiddish Book Center founder and president Aaron Lansky announced that his organization will receive the National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The award will be presented by First Lady Michelle Obama in a ceremony at the White House on May 8. The…
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here. In 2013, The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., launched an ambitious series of cultural programming aimed at providing an opportunity for young Jews to learn about modern Jewish culture. The weeklong program, “Tent,” brings together 20 young people aged 21 to 30 in order to…
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Over winter break, I didn’t want for activity. There were people to see, films to screen and a wealth of exhibitions to behold, one of the most inventive of which was a modest but arresting show at the Jewish Museum, on until February 3, called “Collection Tableaux.” Taking the…
When Yiddish writer Chaim Grade died in 1982 he was highly regarded in Yiddish literary circles, though less known to English readers. Only a few of his novels had been translated, and hardly any of his poetry. He was also overshadowed by his more famous contemporary, Isaac Bashevis Singer, who won the Nobel Prize in…
On September 4, 1965, Lin Jaldati stepped onto a stage in Pyongyang, North Korea and quite possibly became the first person in Communist North Korea to sing in Yiddish. As I will discuss in a July 13 talk at the Yiddish Book Center’s Paper Bridge Summer Arts Festival in Amherst, Mass., Jaldati and her husband,…
An exhibit at the Israel Museum celebrates German Jewish painter Jakob Steinhardt. The Arty Semite contributor Menachem Wecker looks at a 1979 caricature of Henry Kissinger that was cut from the New York Times. Which Yiddish books would you like to see translated? The Palestinian National Orchestra has its debut. Eilat celebrates the 10th annual…
A new book fails to exonerate Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. What accounts for the enduring fame of Walter Benjamin? And why isn’t Moses Mendelssohn similarly remembered? Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” has won the prize for best film at the European Film Awards, while Samuel Maoz’s “Lebanon” took home two other awards. Read new fiction…
Researchers interested in poking through the library of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris or the Hungarian Jewish Archives in Budapest may no longer have to leave their laptops to do it. The rich cultural heritage of European Jewry was recently recognized by the European Commission with a grant to Judaica Europeana, an organization that…
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