lecture
Genealogical Research at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research - In-person Event and Live on Zoom
The archives and library of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research contain the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of materials on Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish history and culture. They include a wealth of sources for genealogical research. YIVO archivist Hallel Yadin will review the different kinds of documents available at YIVO, including pre-war community records, immigration case files, yizkor books, landsmanshaftn records, and more. She will also discuss how to effectively search YIVO's online catalogs and how to access its holdings remotely.
Ticket Info: Free; registration is required
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lecture
conversation
At Lunch with Maira Kalman – Live on Zoom
Julie Salamon (New York Times best-selling author) sits down with artist and illustrator Maira Kalman. Kalman illustrated William Strunk Jr’s classic The Elements of Style and is the author of My Favorite Things, Principles of Uncertainty, and And the Pursuit of Happiness. She is also the author/illustrator of numerous children’s books, and her artwork has graced a dozen covers of The New Yorker. Her watches, clocks, accessories, and paperweights have been featured at the Museum of Modern Art store. Her latest book Still Life with Remorse is now available where books are sold. She lives in New York City.
Ticket Info: Free; register online for a Zoom link
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conversation
lecture
A Very Jewish Christmas: Jewish Sitcom Characters Navigate December - In-person Event and Live on Zoom
Gertrude Berg, the woman widely credited with creating the first sit-com (The Goldbergs) appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1959 to talk about children wanting a Christmas tree for Hanukkah. This navigation of "The December Dilemma" has been a challenge for many American Jewish families, and as such has been plumbed for comedic effect throughout the history of television comedy.
Join YIVO for a very Jewish Christmas celebration featuring a talk by Jennifer Caplan on Jewish television characters managing (or not) to make it through the holidays. A kosher Chinese food dinner will follow the presentation.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Ticket Info: In Person: $15; YIVO members & students: $10
Zoom Livestream: Free; registration is required.
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lecture
concert
Hanukkah Concert 2024 - The Andy Statman Trio - In-person Event
Andy Statman is the virtuoso klezmer clarinetist that violinist Itzhak Perlman chose to lead his klezmer album, In the Fiddler's House. Statman’s virtuosity is “stunning.” He considers himself lucky, as he is “from the last generation that had a chance to learn from the greats.” He is a disciple of the legendary master klezmer clarinetist Dave Taris, “the most successful immigrant-era Yiddish musician." Tarras, who died in 1989, bequeathed his clarinets to Andy, his greatest protégé – and made him the next link in the chain. Hence, Statman became known primarily as one of the key klezmer revivalists of the '70s and early '80s, among the musicians who launched a great wave to reclaim the music of the Old World.
Much more than a one-genre performer, Statman thinks of his own compositions and performances as "spontaneous personal, prayerful Hasidic music, American-roots music and by way of avant-garde jazz." He is a modest man that takes for granted that a performer might embody several worlds in his art and seems humbled by the fact that his music, like his own story, is extraordinary.
Join the American Society for Jewish Music and YIVO for this year's Hanukkah concert featuring The Andy Statman Trio.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Ticket Info: $18; YIVO & ASJM members: $12; Seniors & students: $9
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concert
book talk
Closing Borders: Immigration and World War I - In-person Event
The rise of the United States and Israel as centers of Jewish life is closely tied to immigration. Yet the success story of Jewish immigration obscures the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe who were displaced during and after the First World War. Wherever they turned they faced closed doors. The United States shifted to a restrictive immigration regime in 1921, implicitly targeting Eastern European Jews. Most other countries also restricted immigration. Many Jews who were stranded in permanent transit after 1918 perished in the Holocaust because they could not reach safe havens.
In his new book "Between Borders: The Great Jewish Migration from Eastern Europe" Tobias Brinkmann (Penn State Univ.) sheds light on the journeys of Jewish migrants and refugees before and after the First World War. He argues that the experience of permanently displaced Jews after 1918 deserves more attention and shows parallels to the situation of unwanted refugees and migrants today.
For this event Tobias Brinkmann will be joined by José C. Moya (Barnard College/Columbia University), a leading specialist of modern Latina America and global migration.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
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book talk
book talk
Saints and Liars by Debórah Dwork - In-person Event
Saints and Liars is a moving history of American relief workers during the Hitler years who sought to save Jews and political opponents targeted by the Nazi regime. Praised by Publishers’ Weekly as “a gripping study of individuals’ operations in terrible extremis,” and selected by Apple Books as a Winter’s Most Anticipated Book, the story historian Debórah Dwork tells arcs through time, place, and situation. From negotiating with government representatives to doing direct (and sometimes secret) refugee relief, aid workers contended with moral questions and fast-changing historical circumstances in their mission to bring people to safety. Drawing on rich archival sources, Saints and Liarsoffers a glimpse into the lives of people who risked all to help those fleeing persecution.
Author Debórah Dwork, director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center – CUNY, will discuss her book with Marion Kaplan, Skirball Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish History, NYU.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
book talk
book talk
Hollywood's Unofficial Film Corps: American Jewish Moviemakers and the War Effort – In-person Event
Join the American Jewish Historical Society for a book talk on Hollywood’s Unofficial Film Corps: American Jewish Moviemakers and the War Effort with author Michael Berkowitz.
It has long been known that Hollywood was actively involved in shaping US public opinion during World War II. Less well documented are the ways in which Washington sought to work behind the scenes, subtly obliterating the boundaries between “studio” and “government” films. Michael Berkowitz studies the contributions of humorist and best-selling author Leo Rosten (The Joys of Yiddish, The Education of H*Y*M*A*N* K*A*P*L*A*N) and writer, producer, and screenwriter Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront, A Face in the Crowd) in order to examine the elusive story of Jewish Hollywood’s role in World War II.
Hollywood’s Unofficial Film Corps shows that Rosten, Schulberg, and others—including Garson Kanin, George Cukor, Stanley Kramer, and Jules Buck—created movies that were both entertaining and politically expeditious for US war aims. At the same time, in an effort to unify the American public, they avoided focusing on the fate of European Jews, even while addressing racism and antisemitism in the United States. Jewish themes were often downplayed, and Jewish directors, writers, and other contributors frequently went uncredited. As Berkowitz writes, “Rosten’s cohort changed feature films forever.” Thanks to his research, we now have a better understanding of how and why.
Ticket Info: General Admission $10, Students $5
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book talk
book talk
The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai – In-person Event and Live on YouTube
Join us in person and online for a book talk on The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai with co-author Melissa R. Klapper and moderator Zev Eleff. The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai was edited by Dianne Ashton z”l and Melissa R. Klapper and is available from NYU Press.
Emma Mordecai lived an unusual life. She was Jewish when Jews comprised less than 1 percent of the population of the Old South, and unmarried in a culture that offered women few options other than marriage. She was American born when most American Jews were immigrants. She affirmed and maintained her dedication to Jewish religious practice and Jewish faith while many family members embraced Christianity. Yet she also lived well within the social parameters established for Southern white women, espoused Southern values, and owned enslaved African Americans.
The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai is one of the few surviving Civil War diaries by a Jewish woman in the antebellum South. It charts her daily life and her evolving perspective on Confederate nationalism and Southern identity, Jewishness, women’s roles in wartime, gendered domestic roles in slave-owning households, and the centrality of family relationships. While never losing sight of the racist social and political structures that shaped Emma Mordecai’s world, the book chronicles her experiences with dislocation and the loss of her home.
Bringing to life the hospital visits, food shortages, local sociability, Jewish observances, sounds and sights of nearby battles, and the very personal ramifications of emancipation and its aftermath for her household and family, The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai offers a valuable and distinct look at a unique historical figure from the waning years of the Civil War South.
Ticket Info: General Admission $10, Students $5
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book talk
concert
Falafel, Freilach and Frijoles: From Mambo to Borscht - In-person Event and Live on Zoom
Arturo O’Farrill, and his Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, perform a concert that explores the relationship between the Latino and Jewish communities. The evening will feature Jewish and Yiddish classics in Afro Latin big band versions, and Latin classics in Klezmer arrangements. The Orchestra will feature performances by special guests including trumpeter/slide trumpeter, composer Steven Bernstein.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Ticket Info:
In Person: $25; Members (YIVO, Belongó, ASJM, Borscht Belt Museum, LBI): $15; Students: $15
Zoom Livestream: $10
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concert