curator's tour
Curator's Tour of Tapestries by Shoshana Comet: From Survival to Strength - In-person Event
Join Curator Ilana Burstein Benson for a guided tour of the exhibition. The five tapestries in this exhibition were created in the late 1960s by psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor, Shoshana Comet (1923 – 2011). Through the lens of these unique works and Shoshana’s story, we explore the themes of Holocaust history and trauma, psychological repair, and affirmation of life.
Ticket Info: Free admission but reservations are required. To attend, please email RSVP@yum.cjh.org and include the date of the tour you are registering for.
Presented by:
curator's tour
film and panel discussion
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg – In-Person Event
Please join us for a remastered version of the acclaimed documentary on the 25th anniversary of the film’s release and the 90thanniversary of Hank Greenberg’s Yom Kippur stand.
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg is a humorous and nostalgic documentary about an extraordinary baseball player who transcended religious prejudice to become an American icon. Detroit Tiger Hammerin’ Hank’s accomplishments during the Golden Age of Baseball rivaled those of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
This compelling documentary examines how America’s first Jewish baseball star was a beacon of hope to American Jews who faced bigotry during the Depression and World War II. Included in the colorful collage of 47 interviews are Hank Greenberg and family members; sports figures Ira Berkow, Ernie Harwell, Joe Falls and Dick Schaap; fellow players Bob Feller, Charlie Gehringer and Ralph Kiner; fans Alan Dershowitz, Congressman Sander Levin and Senator Carl Levin; and actors Walter Matthau, Michael Moriarty, and Maury Povich.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with director, producer, and writer Aviva Kempner, Pulitzer prize-winning sports columnist for The New York Times and editor of Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life, Ira Berkow, and Hank Greenberg’s son, Stephen Greenberg. The discussion will be moderated by Rebecca T. Alpert (Temple University).
About the Speakers:
Washington, DC based filmmaker Aviva Kempner makes award winning documentaries about underknown Jewish heroes for 44 years. Kempner just completed A Pocketful of Miracles: A Tale of Two Siblings (2023), which chronicles the heroism of the two Ciesla Foundation namesakes, Helen Ciesla Covensky and David Chase—siblings who survived the Holocaust separately and managed to reunite after the war. She co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced Imagining the Indians: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting (2022), adocumentary on the movement to remove Native American names, logos, and mascots from the world of sports. Her The Spy Behind Home Plate (2019)is about baseball player and OSS spy Moe Berg. Kempner launched the SEW: Sports Equality for Women website which strived to amplify the stories and voices of women in sports.
Kempner made Rosenwald (2015), a documentary about how philanthropist Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington in establishing over 5,000 schools with African Americans in the Jim Crow South. She also made Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (2009), about Gertrude Berg who created the first television sitcom. She also wrote and directed the short film Today I Vote for My Joey (2002), a tragic comedy about the 2000 Presidential Elections in Palm Beach County. Kempner directed the Peabody awarded The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (1999), about the Hall Famer slugger who faced anti-Semitism during the 30s. It is being rereleased this September for its 25th anniversary. She also produced the award-winning Partisans of Vilna (1986), about Jews fighting the Nazis, whose entire interviews are being digitized by the USC Shoah Foundation.
She is presently finishing a film on famous screenwriter and journalist Ben Hecht, who as an activist exposed the horrors of the Holocaust to the American public and advocated to bring more Jews to US shores. Kempner is also making Pissed Off, a documentary short exploring the struggles faced by female lawmakers in Congress who advocated for potty parity in the United States Capitol.
Ira Berkow earned his BA in English Literature at Miami University, and his MA from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. He was a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, a syndicated features writer, sports and general columnist, and sports editor for the Newspaper Enterprise Association.
From 1981 to 2007 he was a sports reporter and columnist for The New York Times and has written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Art News, Seventeen, Chicago Magazine, The Chicago Tribune Magazine, National Strategic Forum Review, Reader's Digest, and Sports Illustrated, among others.
He shared the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his article "The Minority Quarterback" in The New York Times series “How Race Is Lived in America.” His work has been reprinted or cited over six decades in the annual anthologies Best Sports Stories and its successor Best American Sports Writing, and a column of his was included in Best American Sports Writing of the Century (1999). The novelist Scott Turow wrote, "Ira Berkow is one of the great American writers, without limitation to the field of sports." He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, "For thoughtful commentary on the sports scene."
In 2006, he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He holds an honorary doctorate degree from Roosevelt University (Chicago), 2009. Berkow is the author of 26 books including the Edgar Allan Poe Award nominated non-fiction The Man Who Robbed The Pierre: The Story of Bobby Comfort and the Biggest Hotel Robbery Ever.
Stephen Greenberg is the son of Hall-of-Famer Hank Greenberg. He currently serves as Managing Director at Allen & Company, where he focuses on the sports and media industries. Previously, Stephen served as Deputy Commissioner of Major League Baseball and, with his business partner Brian Bedol, co-founded Classic Sports Network (now known as ESPN Classic) and CSTV: College Sports Television (now known as CBS Sports Network). He is on the Board of Directors of the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
Rebecca T. Alpert is Professor of Religion Emeritus at Temple University. She attended Barnard College before receiving her Ph.D. in religion at Temple University and her rabbinical training at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania.
Her major work in the field of religion and sport, Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball, was published by Oxford University Press in June 2011. She is currently the book review editor for the International Journal of Religion and Sport and co-editor of a soon to be published Routledge Handbook on Religion and Sport.
Ticket Info: $15 general; $13 senior/student; $12 CJH members; click here to purchase tickets
Presented by:
film and panel discussion
concert
Romantic Yearnings: The expressive piano trios of Brahms, Mendelssohn, and more – In-Person event and live on YouTube
Join Phoenix Chamber Ensemble pianists Vassa Shevel and Inessa Zaretsky with guest artists Anna Elashvili on violin and Joshua Halpern on cello.
Program:
Joseph Achron: Stimmungen
Bela Bartok: Romanian Dances
Johannes Brahms: Trio in C Major, Op.87
Gabriel Fauré: Élégie, Op.24
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Piano Trio in C minor, Op.66
Founded in 2005 by pianists Vassa Shevel and Inessa Zaretsky, the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble has, over the course of two decades, become a vital part of the New York classical community, presenting more than 70 public concerts at the Center for Jewish History. The ensemble has garnered a devoted following with its innovative programming and sensitive interpretations, earned an international reputation presenting concerts in Russia, Poland, Italy, and other European venues, and collaborated with numerous acclaimed guest artists, including clarinetist David Krakauer, the Grammy-nominated Enso Quartet, the Tesla Quartet, members of the Jasper String Quartet, the New York Little Opera Company, the Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Ballet.
Made possible by the Stravinsky Institute Foundation through the generous support of the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Presented in partnership with the Leo Baeck Institute.
Ticket Info:
In person: $15 general; $13 senior/student; $12 member; click here for tickets
YouTube: Pay what you wish; click here for tickets
Presented by:
concert
curator's tour
Curator's Tour of Tapestries by Shoshana Comet: From Survival to Strength - In-person Event
Join Curator Ilana Burstein Benson for a guided tour of the exhibition. The five tapestries in this exhibition were created in the late 1960s by psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor, Shoshana Comet (1923 – 2011). Through the lens of these unique works and Shoshana’s story, we explore the themes of Holocaust history and trauma, psychological repair, and affirmation of life.
Ticket Info: Free admission but reservations are required. To attend, please email RSVP@yum.cjh.org and include the date of the tour you are registering for.
Presented by:
curator's tour
workshop
Fabric Art Workshop for Adults (ages 14 and up) - In-person Event
Participants will view the exhibition, Tapestries by Shoshana Comet: From Survival to Strength and create a piece of fabric art inspired by a meaningful life event - transition, healing, joy, or hope.
Workshop will be led by fiber artist Heather Stoltz, whose quilted wall hangings and fabric sculptures are inspired by social justice issues and Hebrew texts.
Ticket Info: $12 per person (or per family project)
Presented by:
workshop
conversation
Antisemitism as a Pillar of Fascism - In-person Event
Featuring John Ganz and Gavriel D. Rosenfeld
Hitler’s attempt to wrest control of the German state and end Weimar democracy from the cellar of Munich’s Bürgerbräu beer hall in 1923 failed spectacularly and landed him in prison for the better part of a year. Of course, Hitler also used his trial and imprisonment to raise his political profile. In Landsberg prison, he composed Mein Kampf, full of antisemitic myths about the perfidy of Jewish Bolshevists (not to mention Jewish capitalists) and loathing of democracy.
Recent years have seen an intensification of old debates about whether fascism is a useful category to apply to contemporary political movements centered around personality cults, a restoration of past greatness, and disillusionment with democracy. While no such movement has succeeded in dismantling the administrative state or procedural democracy in the United States, some astute observers have pointed out that the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 rhymes historically with the failed putsch of 1923 as a premature grasping for power by a movement that might still prevail.
As co-editor of the volume Fascism in America: Past and Present, historian Gavriel Rosenfeld has made a critical intervention in this debate by focusing on the actual history of fascist groups in the interwar United States. In several books focused on counterfactual history, most recently, The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from WWII to the Present, he has also examined how fear of Nazism still functions in our politics and discourse. The writer John Ganz has also engaged with the concept of fascism in contemporary politics on his popular Substack Unpopular Front. His first book, When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s traces the genealogy of America’s current political crises to the supposed populists who arose in US politics after the end of the Cold War. Unsurprisingly, antisemitism plays a significant role in both their studies.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
conversation
book talk
Lessons from Henrietta Szold's Legacy: Author Francine Klagsburn in Conversation with Felicia Herman – In-person Event
Award-winning author Francine Klagsbrun discusses Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream, her new biography of Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah and a Zionist trailblazer, with moderator Felicia Herman in celebration of this book receiving a Natan Notable Book Award from the Natan Fund in partnership with the Jewish Book Council.
Henrietta Szold (1860–1945) was a pioneer who challenged prevailing attitudes of immigrants, Jews, and women to create new educational, health, and Zionist institutions that still exist today. In this new biography, Klagsbrun details the incredible achievements of this extraordinary woman who understood not just the ideals but also the necessary actions—of her and of the world around her—to build a better world for Jews, Americans, and immigrants. The founder of Hadassah–the Women’s Zionist Organization of America–Szold was also a scholar, editor, and translator; an educator who started a night school for new immigrants in Baltimore that became a model for schools across the United States; the director of Youth Aliyah, which rescued thousands of Jews from Nazis; and an advocate for numerous public health initiatives in America and the Yishuv.
In a moment when it feels like the world is in so much turmoil, we are looking to Szold, who mobilized generations of American Jewish women to advocate for the future of America and Israel. We are honored to celebrate her legacy, Francine Klagsbrun’s compelling biography, and the legacy of American Jewish women who have been and continue to advocate for a better tomorrow.
Francine Klagsbrun is the author of numerous books, including the award-winning Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel. She has been a columnist for Jewish Week and Moment, is a contributing editor to Lilith, and is on the editorial board of Hadassah Magazine. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Newsweek, Ms.magazine, and other national publications.
Felicia Herman is Managing Director, North America, of Maimonides Fund and Associate Editor of SAPIR: Ideas for a Thriving Jewish Future. She joined Maimonides in 2021 after 16 years as Executive Director of Natan, a giving circle/grantmaking foundation focused on supporting Jewish and Israeli social innovation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she also served as Director of the Aligned Grant Program of the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund. Felicia sits on the boards of the American Jewish Historical Society, DreamStreet Theatre Company, and Natan, as well as on the advisory boards of two initiatives launched by Natan: Shomer Collective and Amplifier, both of which she founded. She holds a Ph.D. in Jewish History and an M.A. in Jewish Women’s Studies from Brandeis University, and she is a proud recipient of the Jewish Funders Network’s JJ Greenberg Memorial Award.
This program is in partnership with the Natan Fund, the Jewish Book Council, and Hadassah: The Women’s Zionist Organization of America.
Ticket Info: Free with RSVP
Presented by:
book talk
book talk
Liberty Street: A Savannah Family, its Golden Boy, and the Civil War - Live on Zoom
Join us online for a discussion with author Jason K. Friedman and moderator Laura Arnold Leibman!
As Jason K. Friedman renovated his flat in a grand townhouse in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, he discovered a portal to the past. The Cohens, part of a Sephardic community in London, arrived in South Carolina in the mid-1700s; became founding members of Charleston’s Jewish congregation; and went on to build home, community, and success in Savannah.
In Liberty Street: A Savannah Family, Its Golden Boy, and the Civil War Friedman takes the reader on a personal journey to understand the history of the Cohens. At the center of the story is a sensitive young man pulled between love and duty, a close-knit family straining under moral and political conflicts, and a city coming into its own. Friedman draws on letters, diaries, and his experiences traveling from Georgia to Virginia, uncovering hidden histories and exploring the ways place and collective memory haunt the present. At a moment when the hard light of truth shines on gauzy Lost-Cause myths, Liberty Street is a timely work of historical sleuthing.
Ticket Info: Free with RSVP
Presented by:
book talk
conversation
"As a Jew" – Identity, Conflict, and Politics - In-person Event
Featuring Philipp Nielsen and Emily Tamkin
On the eve of WWI, German Jews had enjoyed full civil rights for at least a generation but found their place in society was still contested. Sensing an opportunity for full integration, many enthusiastically pledged their support to Kaiser and Fatherland. By 1916, when Prussian military officials demanded a census of Jewish soldiers to prove their suspicion that they were shirking combat duty, it was clear that the Jews might be blamed for a military defeat. And the “stab-in-the-back” myth that held Jews responsible for Germany’s catastrophic defeat in 1918 proved one of the most enduring tropes of the fascist movement.
As historian Philipp Nielsen has shown, however, not all German Jews perceived antisemitism as the greatest threat to their position in society in this period. Some during WWI viewed Germany as a potential liberator of their brethren in the East from the oppression of the Czar. After the war, many of those who resented the denigration of their war service by antisemites still saw a greater threat in Bolshevism. Some defended their belonging in the German polity by drawing careful distinctions between themselves and Zionists, Socialists, and new Jewish immigrants from the East.
In her survey of inner-Jewish conflicts over the last century in America, Bad Jews, Emily Tamkin has outlined how groups of American Jews have staked out analogous positions, both in the same period and up until the current day. While the context was different in the early 20th century and has only transformed since, many of the same divisions – between left-wing Jews and right-wing Jews, Zionists and non-Zionists, secular Jews and religious Jews – are recognizable.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
conversation
lecture
Two Revolutionary Jews: Leon Trotsky and Chaim Zhitlowsky - In-person Event and Live on Zoom
What role should Jews play in revolutionary movements? Should they act collectively on their own behalf or as indistinct individuals within majority populations in the interest of universalistic ideals? Or was this a false dichotomy? These questions have defined the basis of left-wing Jewish politics since the 19th century.
In this lecture, Tony Michels will discuss two different approaches to revolutionary Jewish politics, as defined by Leon Trotsky and Chaim Zhitlowsky. Both were Russian-born Jews who played seminal roles in the Russian revolutionary movement. Both also came to be seen as embodiments of the modern Jewish experience. However, they gave radically different answers to the predicament of modern Jewry.
This evening’s program is the first in a series of programs held in conjunction with YIVO’s current digitization of the Jewish Labor and Political Archives (JLPA). Consisting of nearly 200 collections encompassing 3.5 million pages of archival documents that were collected by the Bund Archives, the JLPA forms the world’s most comprehensive body of material pertaining to Jewish political activity in Europe and the United States.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
About the Speaker
Tony Michels teaches American Jewish history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also serves as director of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. He is author of A Fire in Their Hearts: Jewish Socialists in New York, editor of Jewish Radicals: A Documentary History, and co-editor of The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume Eight: The Modern World, 1815-2000.
Ticket Info: Free; registration is required.
Presented by:
lecture
conversation
Fighting Back – Jewish Responses to Antisemitism - In-person Event
Featuring Michael Brenner and Jane Eisner
In 1932, Germany’s leading Jewish civil rights organization, the Central Association of German Jews, or Centralverein, published a brochure entitled We German Jews. 321–1932. The dates in the title made explicit reference to the documented presence of Jews in the Roman provinces in the Rhineland for over 16 centuries to refute the antisemitic view that Jews were an alien presence in Germany.
The Centralverein represented the broad middle of German-Jewish society, and since the late-19th century, it had documented and fought antisemitism through various methods – in the courts, through political lobbying, and through publications like We German Jews. Yet each of these defenses against antisemitism had its pitfalls. Court trials often gave antisemites a platform for spreading their propaganda and rarely resulted in significant punishments. Even friendly political parties failed to take strong action out of fear that being perceived as a “Jewish Party” would have negative electoral consequences. And the apologetics typified by the 1932 brochure convinced too few among the public.
Join us when historian Michael Brenner and journalist Jane Eisner will discuss what lessons these Jewish responses to antisemitism offer for today’s world.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
conversation
curator's tour
Curator's Tour of Tapestries by Shoshana Comet: From Survival to Strength - In-person Event
Join Curator Ilana Burstein Benson for a guided tour of the exhibition. The five tapestries in this exhibition were created in the late 1960s by psychotherapist and Holocaust survivor, Shoshana Comet (1923 – 2011). Through the lens of these unique works and Shoshana’s story, we explore the themes of Holocaust history and trauma, psychological repair, and affirmation of life.
Ticket Info: Free admission but reservations are required. To attend, please email RSVP@yum.cjh.org and include the date of the tour you are registering for.
Presented by:
curator's tour
lecture
In Search of Greener Fields: Rurality, Nostalgia, and Ideology in Yiddish-American Folksong - Live on Zoom
This presentation by Zeke Levine considers themes of rurality in 20th century Yiddish-American folksong. On one hand, the "fiddler on the roof" image of Yiddish rurality served as a nostalgic salve for American Jews attempting to negotiate their place in post-WWII United States. On the other, contemporary rural Yiddish life, expressed through songs such as "Dzhankoye," carried a radical ideological valence, symbolizing a Soviet-aligned return to the land that broke from the Tsarist past.
Through the analysis of musical performances, liner notes, and concert programs, this lecture unpacks the multitude of meanings of rurality within Yiddish-American folksong, linking this musical tradition not only with Eastern European antecedents but also with the burgeoning American folk revival.
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: Free; registration is required.
Presented by:
lecture
book talk
The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen - Live on Zoom
As a linguistic carrier of a thousand years of European Jewish civilization, the Yiddish language is closely tied to immigrant pasts and sites of Holocaust memory. In The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen: Dybbuks, Demons and Haunted Jewish Pasts, Rebecca Margolis investigates how translated and subtitled Yiddish dialogue reimagines Jewish lore and tells new stories, where the supernatural looms over the narrative. The book traces the transformation of the figure of the dybbuk—a soul of the dead possessing the living—from folklore to 1930s Polish Yiddish cinema and on to global contemporary media. Margolis examines the association of spoken Yiddish with spectral elements adapted from Jewish legends within the horror genre. She explores how all-Yiddish prologues to comedy film and television depict magic located in an immigrant or pre-immigrant past that informs the present. Framing spoken Yiddish on screen as an ancestral language associated with trauma and dispossession, Margolis shows how it reconstructs haunted and mystical elements of the Jewish experience.
Join YIVO for a discussion with Margolis about her book, led by Olga Gershenson.
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: Free; registration is required.
Presented by:
book talk
book talk
Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe - Live on Zoom
Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of Eastern Europe. Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine. Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and peddlers, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas. Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support. Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them, many also qualified as doctors. At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts.
In A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe, Marek Tuszewicki studies manuscripts, printed publications, and memoirs to tease out therapeutic advice, recipes, magical incantations, kabbalistic methods, and practical techniques, together with the ethical considerations that such approaches entailed. His research fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in Eastern Europe, shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture, and on how the need to treat sickness brought Jews and their neighbors together.
Join YIVO for a discussion with Tuszewicki about this book, led by cultural critic and playwright Rokhl Kafrissen.
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: Free; registration is required.
Presented by:
book talk
book talk
Soviet Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction – Live on Zoom
Join Soviet Born author Karolina Krasuska in discussion with moderator Josh Lambert.
In 2010, when The New Yorker published a list of twenty writers under the age of forty who were “key to their generation,” it included five Jewish-identified writers, two of whom—American Gary Shteyngart and Canadian David Bezmozgis—were Soviet-born. This publicity came after nearly a decade of English-language literary output by Soviet-born writers of all genders in North America. Soviet-Born: The Afterlives of Migration in Jewish American Fiction traces the impact of these now numerous authors—among others, David Bezmozgis, Boris Fishman, Keith Gessen, Sana Krasikov, Ellen Litman, Gary Shteyngart, Anya Ulinich, and Lara Vapnyar—on major coordinates of the Jewish American imaginary.
Entering an immigrant, Soviet-born standpoint creates an alternative and sometimes complementary pattern of how the Eastern and Central European past and present resonate with American Jewishness. The novels, short stories, and graphic novels considered here often stage strikingly fresh variations on key older themes, including cultural geography, the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, communism, gender and sexuality, genealogy, and finally, migration. Soviet-Born demonstrates how these diasporic writers, with their critical stance toward identity categories, open up the field of what is canonically Jewish American to broader contemporary debates.
Ticket Info: Free; register online for a Zoom link
Presented by:
book talk
film screening and discussion
Joseph Brodsky: Epitaph for a Centaur, Six Years Later - In-person Event
Join YIVO and Poetry in America for a panel discussion and screening of a short film examining the life of Joseph Brodsky, the celebrated Russian-Jewish American writer and Nobel Laureate.
Through analyses of two of Brodsky's evocative poems, “Epitaph for a Centaur” and “Six Years Later,” this 25-minute film encapsulates Brodsky's exploration of identity, belonging, and the passage of time. The film examines the paradoxical relationship between the U.S. and Russia during the Cold War, intricately portrayed through the symbolic figure of the centaur—a representation of Brodsky’s own multi-faceted existence as Russian, American, and Jewish. By delving into the intricate language of Brodsky’s poetry, this short film explores Brodsky’s Jewish identity, his legacy, and the political undertones of his writing.
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: Free; registration is required
Presented by:
film screening and discussion
symposium
Translating Jewishness: Conversations on Culture and Civilization – In-Person Event
Translating Jewishness: Conversations on Culture and Civilization draws on the collection of the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization to engage two key modes of Jewish expression: anthologies and translations. Throughout the centuries, Jews have gathered selections from the storehouse of Jewish culture and civilization into more widely accessible anthologies. In addition, for as long as Jews have lived dispersed across the globe, they have translated their sacred texts into their current vernaculars. As Jews settled in more places and began to speak more languages, the choice of what to translate and make more readily available for contemporary audiences became more complicated. Translation accompanied anthologizing. This symposium explores the dynamics of translating and dimensions of the Jewish anthological imagination.
The symposium is presented in partnership with the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. It is the sixth installment in a larger series of public symposia sponsored by the Center for Jewish History’s Jewish Public History Forum. Organized with support from David Berg Foundation and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
Related exhibition opening:
At 12:00 pm, we will host the opening of Translating Jewishness: Culture and Civilization in the Posen Library. Between 1880 and 1918, around the globe, regimes collapsed, migration and imperialism remade the lives of millions, nationalism and secularization transformed selves and collectives, utopias beckoned, and new kinds of social conflict threatened. Few communities experienced the pressures and possibilities of the era more profoundly than the world’s Jews.
This exhibit focuses on the range of Jewish expression—from mystical visions to political thought, cookbooks to literary criticism, modernist poetry to vaudeville—in English translations in Volume 7 of the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, edited by Israel Bartal and Kenneth B. Moss. It features examples from seven languages drawn from sources at the Center for Jewish History.
Jewish secularism and the resurgence of traditionalism, the remaking of Jews as a modern nation, cultural assimilation and integration, the triumphs of Zionism and its discontents—all have their roots in this era. This exhibit offers an engaging starting point for anyone wishing to understand the divided Jewish present.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; click here to register (all proceeds go to the Center for Jewish History)
Presented by:
symposium
concert
Jewish Songs and Dances for Piano: Joel Engel's "A krants yidishe folksnigunim" (1924) - Live on YouTube
Join us for a performance of Joel Engel’s A krants yidishe folksnigunim (1924): a collection of Jewish folksongs, dances, Hasidic nigunim, and religious melodies in arrangements for piano and four hand piano. Engel’s earlier Jewish Folksongs volumes I, II, and II (featured by YIVO in November 2020 and June 2021) were the first published classical compositions to feature Yiddish folksongs. His use of Yiddish folk music in his compositions proved to be influential and inspired the Society for Jewish Folk Music and the composers affiliated with it to create a vast oeuvre of similar work.
This collection of 29 pieces will be performed by Ryan MacEvoy McCullough and Sahun Sam Hong.
The Sidney Krum Young Artists Concert Series is made possible by a generous gift from the Estate of Sidney Krum.
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: Free; registration is required
Presented by:
concert
book talk
Representations of the Israeli Experience in Yiddish Prose, 1948–1967 - Live on Zoom
Israel's cultural space is frequently studied as if it were synonymous with the Hebrew-Israeli one. But within the borders of Israel, a fascinating culture was (and continues to be) created in many languages other than Hebrew.
I Am Your Dust: Representations of the Israeli Experience in Yiddish Prose, 1948–1967 expands the boundaries of current studies of Israel's cultural history by presenting and analyzing Yiddish-Israeli prose written during the country's first two decades as an independent state. It offers a comprehensive study of that unique, and hitherto little understood, literature, a detailed historical documentation of the contexts of its production, and an eye-opening comparison of its themes to the more familiar outputs of Hebrew-Israeli prose.
I Am Your Dust is the first socioliterary investigation of Yiddish-Israeli culture, and it explores how Yiddish-Israeli writers played a vital role in shaping the country's cultural identity in its early years.
Join YIVO for a discussion of the newly published translation of this book with author Gali Drucker Bar-Am, led by Barbara Mann.
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: Free; registration is required.
Presented by:
book talk
concert
'Tefilatah' (Her Prayer): The Female Experience Through the Eyes of Male Composers - In-person Event
This program offers a beautiful and culturally rich experience of how various male composers from different eras captured the female experience. It presents a rich tapestry of Jewish American and Israeli classical songs composed by male composers yet uniquely crafted from a female perspective and intended for the female voice.
Spanning various epochs and musical styles, the repertoire celebrates the profound tradition of Jewish music and literature, emphasizing the distinctive contributions of these composers. Each song serves as a narrative milestone within this genre, offering compelling stories that resonate deeply. The themes explored within the songs are diverse, ranging from the struggles of battered women to the yearnings for love, homeland, wealth, and stability—themes that often come with a high emotional cost.
Performed by soprano Ronit Widmann-Levy, this concert includes music by Kurt Weill, Menachem Wiesenberg, Daniel Akiva, Maurice Ravel, Sasha Argov, Oded Lerer, and Leonard 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: Free; registration is required
Presented by:
concert
conversation
At Lunch with Adam Nagourney – Live on Zoom
Julie Salamon (New York Times best-selling author) sits down with Adam Nagourney, national politics reporter for The New York Times. Since joining the newspaper in 1996, he has served as Los Angeles bureau chief, West Coast cultural affairs reporter, chief national political correspondent, and chief New York political reporter. Adam is the author of The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism and co-author of Out for Good, a history of the modern gay rights movement. Adam is our first At Lunch returning guest and will be joining us to discuss the 2024 Presidential Election.
Ticket Info: Free; register online for a Zoom link
Presented by:
conversation
book talk
Yiddish Language During the Holocaust - Live on Zoom
The Holocaust radically altered the way many East European Jews spoke Yiddish. Finding prewar language incapable of describing the imprisonment, death, and dehumanization of the Holocaust, prisoners added or reinvented thousands of Yiddish words and phrases to describe their new reality. These crass, witty, and sometimes beautiful Yiddish words – Khurbn Yiddish, or “Yiddish of the Holocaust” – puzzled and intrigued the East European Jews who were experiencing the metamorphosis of their own tongue in real time. Sensing that Khurbn Yiddish words harbored profound truths about what Jews endured during the Holocaust, some Yiddish speakers threw themselves into compiling dictionaries and glossaries to document and analyze these new words. Others incorporated Khurbn Yiddish into their poetry and prose. In Occupied Words: What the Holocaust Did to Yiddish, Hannah Pollin-Galay uses cultural history, philology, and literary interpretation to explore Khurbn Yiddish as a form of Holocaust memory and as a testament to the sensation of speech under genocidal conditions.
Join YIVO for a discussion with Pollin-Galay about this new book, led by historian Samuel Kassow.
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: Free; registration is required.
Presented by:
book talk
book talk
Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America - In-person Event and Live on Zoom
The American Jewish Historical Society with the Glucksman Ireland House and the Kansas City Irish Center present, Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America with author Hasia R. Diner in conversation with Terry Golway.
Popular belief holds that the various ethnic groups that emigrated to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century regarded one another with open hostility, fiercely competing for limited resources and even coming to blows in the crowded neighborhoods of major cities. One of the most enduring stereotypes is that of rabidly anti-Semitic Irish Catholics, like Father Charles Coughlin of Boston and the sensationalized Gangs of New York trope of Irish street thugs attacking defenseless Jewish immigrants.
In Opening Doors, Hasia R. Diner, one of the world’s preeminent historians of immigration, tells a very different story; far from confrontational, the prevailing relationships between Jewish and Irish Americans were overwhelmingly cooperative, and the two groups were dependent upon one another to secure stable and upwardly mobile lives in their new home. The Irish had emigrated to American cities en masse a generation before the first major wave of Jewish immigrants arrived, and had already entrenched themselves in positions of influence in urban governments, public education, and the labor movement. Jewish newcomers recognized the value of aligning themselves with another group of religious outsiders who were able to stand up and demand rights and respect despite widespread discrimination from the Protestant establishment, and the Irish realized that they could protect their political influence by mentoring their new neighbors in the intricacies of American life.
Opening Doors draws from a deep well of historical sources to show how Irish and Jewish Americans became steadfast allies in classrooms, picket lines, and political machines, and ultimately helped one another become key power players in shaping America’s future. In the wake of rising anti-Semitism and xenophobia today, this informative and accessible work offers an inspiring look at a time when two very different groups were able to find common ground and work together to overcome bigotry, gain representation, and move the country in a more inclusive direction.
Ticket Info:
In Person: General Admission $10, Students $5, Admission + Book $35
Online: Free with RSVP
Presented by:
book talk
film screening
Proof of Identity - In-person Event
What does it mean to be a Polish Jew today? How do Polish Jews define their own identity at different stages of life? How do they define their identity when they’re religious or atheist? Writer, reporter and photographer Mikolaj Grynberg seeks answers to these and many more questions in his directorial debut, Proof of Identity.
The interviewees of this poignant documentary represent a variety of Jews residing in Poland today. By interviewing the generation that has had no direct contact with the Holocaust survivors in their families, this film encourages viewers to ponder how Holocaust memory has evolved in Poland. The conversations reveal a vast array of attitudes and experiences, as the protagonists come from both big cities and the Polish province. The audience learns not only about each interviewee's family history, but also about their modern-day encounter with antisemitism in Poland.
Join YIVO for the US premiere of the POLIN Museum's new documentary, followed by a discussion with Grynberg.
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: Free; registration is required
Presented by:
film screening
film screening
Burning Off the Page - In-person Event
This documentary about Russian-born American Yiddish poet and fiction writer Celia Dropkin (1887–1956) celebrates her unabashed writing about the female body and sexual liberation. Considered radical during her lifetime, Dropkin shocked readers around the world with sexually explicit depictions of lust. Her work defied gender norms and complicated traditional narratives and boundaries. Her poems invoked violent and erotic imagery as well as Christian iconography to describe passion, yearning, and death.
Burning Off the Page includes powerful dramatic readings, archival footage, historic recordings, and dazzling animations to bring Dropkin’s pioneering poems to life. Along with her descendants, filmmaker Eli Gorn interviews stars of the Jewish artistic world including writers, Yiddish translators, and musicians.
Join YIVO for the New York premiere of this documentary followed by a discussion with Gorn and poet Edward Hirsch.
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: $10; YIVO members & students: $8; registration is required
Presented by:
film screening
conversation
At Lunch with Shaina Taub – Live on Zoom
Julie Salamon (New York Times best-selling author) sits down with Tony and Obie Award-winning songwriter/performer Shina Taub. Shaina is Artist-in-Residence at the Public Theater, where Suffs first premiered before moving to Broadway. She created and performed in musical adaptations of Twelfth Night and As You Like It at Shakespeare in the Park with the Public Works community that have since been produced by London’s National Theatre, the Young Vic, and hundreds more theaters and schools worldwide. Taub has won a Jonathan Larson Grant, Kleban Prize, and Fred Ebb Award. She performed Off-Broadway in Hadestown, Great Comet (Lortel nom), Bill Irwin and David Shiner’s Old Hats, which featured her songs, and played Emma Goldman in the Ragtime on Ellis Island concert. She wrote the lyrics for The Devil Wears Prada, with music by Sir Elton John, opening in the West End this year. Her three solo albums include Songs of the Great Hill on Atlantic Records. Television songwriting: “Sesame Street,” “Central Park,” “Julie’s Greenroom” starring Julie Andrews, and the Emmy-nominated opening number for the 2018 Tony Awards, co-written with Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban. She co-chairs the NYCLU’s Artist Ambassadors and received the organization’s Michael Friedman Freedom Award for activism.
Ticket Info: Free; register online for a Zoom link
Presented by:
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.
Presented by:
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
Presented by:
concert