discussion
2025 Summer Program Advanced Level Information Session – Live on Zoom
Are you thinking of returning to the Summer Program to continue your advanced studies? Join Summer Program faculty and staff for a brief information session about YIVO’s advanced levels. Open to graduates of YIVO’s intermediate levels and those with comparable proficiency, this session will cover the structure of YIVO’s advanced levels, the online and in-person formats, admissions process, and more, with time for questions from prospective Summer Program students.
The session will be conducted in Yiddish and is entirely optional (prospective students are not required to attend).
Learn more about the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.
Ticket Info: Free; registration is required.
Presented by:
discussion
theatrical performance
The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher - In-person Event
Leo Baeck Institute is proud to present the North American premiere ofinterdisciplinary performance The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher. The performances will take place February 24, 25, and 26 at the Center for Jewish History.
When the last person who remembers is gone, whole worlds disappear forever. Israeli/American artist, choreographer and performer Neta Pulvermacher situates her riveting one woman show, The Archive, inside this perforated post-memory landscape. Exploring her German-Jewish family history, she constructs a jarring, funny and deeply moving performative journey that follows the traces to Frankfurt and Berlin – once her family’s home.
Pulvermacher sifts through documents, old pictures, and personal artifacts, conjuring up fragmented narratives, voices, and characters that emerge briefly, only to fade back into oblivion. Through research and memory, she combines real and imagined sites and events, blurring the lines between past and present, battling the gradual disappearance of memories.
For a moment, this pursuit of traces materializes in the Great Hall of NYC’s Center for Jewish History, a place of remembrance itself. As Pulvermacher navigates this layered landscape, she invites the audience to join her as she attempts to reconstruct a lost world. Especially in times of crisis, the questions of memory and history and their significance for understanding our world(s) become relevant and urgent.
Originally commissioned as a site-specific work for a quartet of dancers at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, The Archive was reimagined as a one-woman show for the KFW Stiftung Villa 102 in Frankfurt Germany (March 2024) and the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv (June 2024). Following this North American premiere at the Center for Jewish History, Pulvermacher invites the audience to an artist talk.
Made possible in part by support from the Arnhold family and Mary and Saul Sanders.
Ticket Info: LBI/CJH/Partner Members, Students, Seniors: $15; General: $25-$40
Presented by:
theatrical performance
book talk
Russia’s Jews in World War I – Live on Zoom
When World War I began, the Russian Empire was home to more than 5.7 million Jews, the most densely settled Jewish population in the world. Thirty years later, by 1945, only remnants of this civilization remained. The years of World War I, from 1914 to 1918, launched nearly all the forces that led to this epic destruction.
In A Nation of Refugees: Russia's Jews in World War I, Polly Zavadivker tells how Jewish civilians experienced that war and its epicenter of violence on the Eastern Front. World War I transformed the lives of East European Jews in ways that were second only to the Holocaust in their magnitude. State violence and forced migration determined many aspects of Jewish wartime and revolutionary experience. These policies not only destroyed much of traditional Jewish life but also inadvertently compelled a transformation of Jewish civil society. The collapse of Russian imperialism enabled the growth of an empire-wide humanitarian campaign to rescue the “nation of refugees,” whose plight embodied that of the Jewish nation itself. By exploring this history of Jewish humanitarianism during World War I, Zavadivker provides the origin stories of key leaders and public institutions that served East European Jewry in the interwar years and during the Holocaust.
Join YIVO for a discussion with Zavadivker about this book, led by historian Eliyana Adler.
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
theatrical performance
The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher - In-person Event
Leo Baeck Institute is proud to present the North American premiere ofinterdisciplinary performance The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher. The performances will take place February 24, 25, and 26 at the Center for Jewish History.
When the last person who remembers is gone, whole worlds disappear forever. Israeli/American artist, choreographer and performer Neta Pulvermacher situates her riveting one woman show, The Archive, inside this perforated post-memory landscape. Exploring her German-Jewish family history, she constructs a jarring, funny and deeply moving performative journey that follows the traces to Frankfurt and Berlin – once her family’s home.
Pulvermacher sifts through documents, old pictures, and personal artifacts, conjuring up fragmented narratives, voices, and characters that emerge briefly, only to fade back into oblivion. Through research and memory, she combines real and imagined sites and events, blurring the lines between past and present, battling the gradual disappearance of memories.
For a moment, this pursuit of traces materializes in the Great Hall of NYC’s Center for Jewish History, a place of remembrance itself. As Pulvermacher navigates this layered landscape, she invites the audience to join her as she attempts to reconstruct a lost world. Especially in times of crisis, the questions of memory and history and their significance for understanding our world(s) become relevant and urgent.
Originally commissioned as a site-specific work for a quartet of dancers at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, The Archive was reimagined as a one-woman show for the KFW Stiftung Villa 102 in Frankfurt Germany (March 2024) and the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv (June 2024). Following this North American premiere at the Center for Jewish History, Pulvermacher invites the audience to an artist talk.
Made possible in part by support from the Arnhold family and Mary and Saul Sanders.
Ticket Info: LBI/CJH/Partner Members, Students, Seniors: $15; General: $25-$40
Presented by:
theatrical performance
theatrical performance
The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher - In-person Event
Leo Baeck Institute is proud to present the North American premiere ofinterdisciplinary performance The Archive by Neta Pulvermacher. The performances will take place February 24, 25, and 26 at the Center for Jewish History.
When the last person who remembers is gone, whole worlds disappear forever. Israeli/American artist, choreographer and performer Neta Pulvermacher situates her riveting one woman show, The Archive, inside this perforated post-memory landscape. Exploring her German-Jewish family history, she constructs a jarring, funny and deeply moving performative journey that follows the traces to Frankfurt and Berlin – once her family’s home.
Pulvermacher sifts through documents, old pictures, and personal artifacts, conjuring up fragmented narratives, voices, and characters that emerge briefly, only to fade back into oblivion. Through research and memory, she combines real and imagined sites and events, blurring the lines between past and present, battling the gradual disappearance of memories.
For a moment, this pursuit of traces materializes in the Great Hall of NYC’s Center for Jewish History, a place of remembrance itself. As Pulvermacher navigates this layered landscape, she invites the audience to join her as she attempts to reconstruct a lost world. Especially in times of crisis, the questions of memory and history and their significance for understanding our world(s) become relevant and urgent.
Originally commissioned as a site-specific work for a quartet of dancers at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, The Archive was reimagined as a one-woman show for the KFW Stiftung Villa 102 in Frankfurt Germany (March 2024) and the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv (June 2024). Following this North American premiere at the Center for Jewish History, Pulvermacher invites the audience to an artist talk.
Made possible in part by support from the Arnhold family and Mary and Saul Sanders.
Ticket Info: LBI/CJH/Partner Members, Students, Seniors: $15; General: $25-$40
Presented by:
theatrical performance
film and discussion
Bau, Artist at War with Writer/Producer Deborah Smerecnik, Clila Bau, Hadasa Bau, and Daniel S. Mariaschin – In-Person Program
Bau: Artist at War is a remarkable film based on the true love story of Joseph and Rebecca Bau, whose wedding took place in the Plaszow concentration camp during WWII, an event immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Using his artistic skills and sense of humor in the camps, Joseph manages to stay alive and ultimately helps hundreds to escape. Years later, when called to be a key witness in the trial of the brutal Nazi officer who tortured him and killed his father, he is thrust back into vivid memories of the Holocaust. Emile Hirsch stars as Joseph Bau.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with writer/producer Deborah Smerecnik andJoseph Bau’s daughters Clila and Hadasa Bau, moderated by Daniel S. Mariaschin.
Watch the trailer here.
Presented with Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme and B’nai Brith International
Part of the Center’s film series Holocaust History on Film: Anne Frank and Beyond in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.
Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor
About the Speakers
Deborah Smerecnik spent 14 years developing and producing "Bau, Artist at War." Her production company has a slate of projects, in different stages of development, including "VOICES", a dystopian sci-fi television series, "Wake-Up", a feature highlighting the sex trafficking industry of Ventura County, California, and a mini-series centered around the diaries of Rebecca Bau. A graduate of Scripps College with a diverse professional background in finance, management, and restaurant ownership, Smerecnik was deeply inspired by the Bau family's story. This project has profoundly impacted her, instilling a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to bring the Bau’s inspiring journey to life.
Clila Bau Cohen is a lecturer and performer. Hadasa Bau is an actress, singer, songwriter, lecturer and graphic artist. They both serve as managers of the Joseph Bau House, a museum focusing on the life and work of Joseph Bau.
Daniel S. Mariaschin is the CEO of B’nai B’rith International. As the organization’s top executive officer, he directs and supervises B’nai B’rith programs, activities and staff around the world. He is the spokesman for B’nai B’rith, interpreting its policies to a variety of audiences, including the U.S. Congress, world leaders, global diplomats and the media, with responsibility for coordinating the organization’s programs and policies on issues of concern to the Jewish community. In the United States and abroad, Mr. Mariaschin has met with scores of heads of state, prime ministers, foreign ministers, opposition leaders, religious leaders and influential members of the media, to advance human rights and to help protect the rights of Jewish communities worldwide as well as to promote better relations with the State of Israel.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; click here to register
Please note that tickets to programs do not include the Anne Frank The Exhibit.
CJH members enjoy 40% off on tickets. Join today.
Presented by:
film and discussion
film and discussion
Here Lived: The Stolpersteine Story with Jane Wells, Emile Schrijver and Ulrika Citron – In-Person Program
Here Lived: The Stolpersteine Story won Best Documentary at the Santa Barbara Jewish Film Festival in 2024 and has been screened at many festivals around the world.
When conceptual artist Gunter Demnig first conceived the idea of laying Stolpersteine (literal translation: stumbling stones) for Roma, Sinti, and disabled victims of National Socialism (Nazis) in his native Germany, he never imagined his project would grow to become the world’s largest decentralized memorial.
The Stolpersteine he crafted are, in theory, quite simple: concrete blocks measuring 10x10cm, topped with polished brass plates that are hand stamped with the names and fates of victims of Hitler’s reign of terror. These handmade stones are laid into the pavement in front of the last voluntarily chosen residence of those murdered by the Nazis. The stones, requested by surviving family members, represent a deeply personal commemoration to those affected by the horrors of Nazi occupation. Today, Stolpersteine have been placed in 30 countries across Europe, and on May 23, 2023, 3 Generations filmed Gunter Demnig laying the 100,000th Stolperstein.
Against the backdrop of a war in Europe, the perpetual plague of anti-Semitism and racism around the world, and the upcoming 80th anniversary of the Nazi’s defeat, this extraordinary tale of resilience, remembrance, and community deeply resonates with our contemporary moment. Here Lived is a timely and profoundly moving testament to the enduring power of human compassion and solidarity.
The screening will be introduced by Netherlands Ambassador to the United Nations Lise Gregoire-van Haaren and followed by a panel discussion with producer and director Jane Wells, historian Emile Schrijver, and producer Ulrika Citron. The conversation will be moderated by Tracey Petersen, Manager: The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.
Watch the trailer here.
Presented with Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme
Part of the Center’s film series Holocaust History on Film: Anne Frank and Beyond in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.
Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor
About the Speakers
Ulrika Citron, Producer, is the grandchild of Dutch Holocaust victims and the daughter of a hidden child. She was born and raised in Sweden, but has lived and worked in the USA for the last 30 years. In the film, Ulrika journeys to the Netherlands to honor her family and reclaim her Jewish identity.
Lise Gregoire-van Haaren is Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations in New York. Prior to this position, from August 2019 to August 2024, she was Director responsible for European Union affairs at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as deputy Director-General for European Cooperation. From 2016 to 2019 she was (the first female) Ambassador - Deputy Permanent Representative - of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations in New York and one of the two Ambassadors representing the Kingdom in the UN Security Council (2018).
Before joining the Permanent Mission in New York, Ms. Gregoire-van Haaren was Head of the Political Affairs department in the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague, a post she held since 2013. Prior to that, from 2009 to 2013, she was Counsellor (Antici) at the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the European Union in Brussels.
Emile Schrijver is the General Director of The Jewish Cultural Quarter and professor of Jewish Book History at the University of Amsterdam. A world-renowned expert on Jewish history, he explains the horrors faced by Jewish people during the Nazi occupation, as well as his role in the initiative to place 733 stones in his hometown of Haarlem.
Jane Wells, an Emmy-Award nominated filmmaker and activist, is the director and producer of HERE LIVED. Over fifteen years, Wells has produced groundbreaking documentaries chronicling a diverse range of social issues. TRICKED is an unflinching examination of sex trafficking in the United States; The Devil Came on Horseback chronicles the genocide in Darfur. Most recently, HERE LIVED focuses on the families impacted by the Nazis during World War II and the generational trauma that atrocity precipitates. In HERE LIVED, Wells and her team capture the story of the world’s largest decentralized memorial, explore the unknown history of the Netherlands’ hidden children, and give a platform to the relatives of Nazi victims and key figures in the Stolpersteine project to reflect on the meaning of the memorial and its role as a source of healing and reconciliation. As the daughter of Sidney Bernstein, who was responsible for documenting the liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps for the Allies in World War II, Jane knows the power film has to shape history and empower survivors. This history led her to build her own legacy as a filmmaker focused on telling the stories of survivors of crimes against humanity. Over more than 15 years, Wells has produced 50 short films and documentaries. Her projects have been featured in international film festivals, such as Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca Film Festival, NY Jewish Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and Human Rights Watch Film Festival. The films have been recognized by distinguished media outlets, such as the New York Times, the Huffington Post, CNN, and the BBC, among others. Wells wholeheartedly immerses herself in all of her projects. Actively participating in every stage of each production, she ensures her presence on the ground. However, what she holds dearest is the enduring relationships she has fostered with the individuals featured in her films. It is their stories that inspire her and drive her team to continue with their mission and work.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; click here to register
Please note that tickets to programs do not include the Anne Frank The Exhibit.
CJH members enjoy 40% off on tickets. Join today.
Presented by:
film and discussion
panel discussion
Combating Antisemitism on Campus Through K-12 Jewish Identity Education – In-Person Program
This event focuses on the connection between the lack of substantive Jewish history in K-12 education and the rise in antisemitism on college campuses. We’ll probe how last year’s events on campuses are tied to a longstanding gap in understanding Jewish identity within education. We’ll also explore how that gap has influenced broader cultural narratives that limit Jewish history to the confines of the Holocaust.
The panel will feature Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a history professor at The New School, author of Classroom Wars, and the senior academic advisor to the NYC DOE overseeing the K-12 Jewish studies curriculum; Karen Marder, a teacher and academic dean at Hillcrest High School in Queens; political scientist, Professor Ester Fuchs who co-authored Columbia's report on antisemitism; and JCRC CEO Mark Treyger, who will moderate the conversation.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; register here
Presented by:
panel discussion
concert
Andrzej Cieplinski Plays Jewish Clarinet Masterworks – In-person Event and Live on Zoom
Distinguished Warsaw-based clarinetist Andrzej Cieplinski will appear in a rare American recital performing Jewish classical music masterworks. This program will feature Alexander Krein's two suites of "Jewish Sketches" for Clarinet and String Quartet which take inspiration from Yiddish folksong and Klezmer music and Joseph Achron's Kindersuite, a collection of character pieces inspired by Hebrew cantillation for clarinet, string quartet, and piano. The program will also feature a new work by YIVO's own Alex Weiser and selections from Cieplinski's Limanowa project which features recently discovered pre-Holocaust Jewish music found in a small town in Southern Poland. Sergei Prokofiev's beloved Overture on Hebrew Themes completes the program. Cieplinski will be joined by cellist Julian Schwarz, pianist Marika Bournaki, violinists Peter Sirotin and Daniel Kurganov, and violist Colin Brookes.
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
memorial
Family and Friends Remembering Lore - In-person Event & Live on Zoom
Please join us remembering Lore Segal, novelist, essayist, short story writer, translator and children's book author.
Family and friends will remember Lore and celebrate her life well-lived, with words, film and music on March 9th from 2-4 pm.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
memorial
panel discussion
Yiddish Tangos and Klezmer Mambos – Live on Zoom
This panel discussion will explore the remarkable influence of Latin American music and dance on the culture of Yiddish speaking communities in the United States. Ronald Robboy will discuss Latin American musical influences upon Yiddish theater composers, including Sholom Secunda, Abraham Ellstein, and Alexander Olshanetsky; Sonia Gollance will discuss the popularity of dances like the Tango and Mambo in the Borscht Belt, as exemplified by movies like Dirty Dancing and Mamboniks; and Josh Kun will discuss the influence of Latin American music on post-war Jewish music and the influence of Jewish music on U.S. Latino/a artists.
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:
panel discussion
concert
A Night in Vienna With Gottlieb Wallisch: Three Composers at the Dawn of Modernity - In-person Program
The Leo Baeck Institute New York and Elysium – between two continents are excited to welcome the established Austrian pianist Gottlieb Wallisch for an enchanting evening dedicated to the rich musical heritage of early 20th-century Vienna.
This recital features a remarkable selection of works by three distinguished composers: Arnold Schönberg, the groundbreaking innovator of modern music; Egon Wellesz, one of Schoenberg’s earliest and most passionate scholars; and Wilhelm Grosz, one of the most versatile talents known for blending classical and jazz influences.
Join us for a captivating program that includes Wellesz’s evocative Der Abend, Schoenberg’s iconic Klavierstück, op. 11/2 (arranged by Ferruccio Busoni) and Grosz’s impressive Symphonic Variations.
Program:
Egon Wellesz (1885-1974): Der Abend, op.4
- Pastorale
- Angelus
- Dämmerstunde
- Wind auf der Heide
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951): Klavierstück, op.11/2 (arr. Ferruccio Busoni)
Wilhelm Grosz (1894-1939): Symphonische Variationen über ein eigenes Thema, op. 9
In the season 2024-25, we are commemorating anniversaries of two Viennese champions of 20th century music: Arnold Schoenberg, the "Godfather" of Modern Music, who would have turned 150, and Egon Wellesz, one of his earliest and most affectionate scholars, who died in Oxford in 1974. Wellesz's first cycle for piano solo, "Der Abend" (1909/10), shows various stylistic influences, with scents of fin de siècle and impressionism. Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11, have reached an almost iconic status in the piano literature, being an outstandingly expressive and cogent example of the master’s atonal phase. Here, the rarely heard "concert version" by Ferruccio Busoni of the second piece is played, over which a lively debate developed between the two eminent composers in 1910.
Wilhelm Grosz was born in Vienna, also studied composition with Franz Schreker. He later settled for four years in London in 1934 and arrived in the United States in 1938. His musical path has taken quite different directions than the two others’, and his enormous talent is reflected in his activities as a composer, pianist, arranger, conductor, and music producer. In the early 1920s, he was among the first Austrian composers to incorporate jazz idioms into his works. The Symphonic Variations, Op. 9 from 1920, are a monumental piece that combines a post-Mahlerian musical language with highly imaginative pianism.
Gottlieb Wallisch is currently recording Grosz's Complete Piano Musicfor Grand Piano Records, with the first CD released in November 2024 to great critical acclaim.
Ticket Info: General: $15; LBI/CJH/Partner Members, Students, Seniors: $10
Presented by:
concert
exhibit opening
The Vienna Model of Radicalization - In-person Program
On March 12, 2025 at 6:30 PM, LBI will open the exhibit The Vienna Model of Radicalization. This new exhibition, on show for the first time in the United States, explores the significance of the Holocaust in Austria and highlights the role of Vienna as gateway for the radicalization of antisemitic policy in the Nazi State. The opening will take place on the anniversary of the Anschluss, the date of the German annexation of Austria in 1938.
The opening will include a talk by Michaela Raggam-Blesch and a Q&A with a Holocaust survivor from Vienna, George Langnas. Attendees will then have the opportunity to view the exhibition.
This event will be held in person at the Center for Jewish History. If you are not able to attend, the talk will be recorded and posted on YouTube.
Speaker
Michaela Raggam-Blesch is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna with the research project “Bonds of Intimacy and Dependency: Survival Strategies of Intermarried Families in Nazi- Dominated Europe” funded by the Austrian Science Fund. She recently submitted her habilitation on “mixed families” during the Nazi period in Vienna.
Dr. Raggam-Blesch has received various fellowships and was awarded the Leon Zelman Award for Dialogue and Understanding in 2022. She was the curator of several exhibitions on the Holocaust – most recently, the exhibit “The Vienna Model of Radicalization: Austria and the Shoah.”
Dr. Raggam-Blesch has focused extensively on the Holocaust in Austria. She co- authored Topographie der Shoah: Gedächtnisorte des zerstörten jüdischen Wien (Vienna 2015) and co-edited Letzte Orte: Die Wiener Sammellager und die Deportationen 1941/42 (Vienna 2021), both of which are now in their second editions.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
exhibit opening
concert
Searching for the Light: Songs of Love, Justice and Peace – In-person Program
Join the American Society for Jewish Music and YIVO for a free concert of Jewish choral masterpieces, featuring the magnificent voices of students from the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion’s Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music and the Jewish Theological Seminary’s H. L. Miller Cantorial School. Joyce Rosenzweig and Cantor Natasha J. Hirschhorn will serve as conductors, with Pedro d’Aquino accompanying the choir on the piano.
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
lecture
DNA of the Ottoman Empire: Crossroads of the Jewish People - In-person Program and Live on Zoom
The Avotaynu DNA Project aims to explore the genetic connections among Jewish communities worldwide, particularly focusing on those that found refuge in the Ottoman Empire during various historical periods. This project highlights the genetic diversity and shared heritage among Jews from different regions, as well as the impact of migration and historical events on their DNA. By analyzing DNA samples from various Jewish populations, Adam Brown and Michael Waas intend to showcase how the genetic markers reveal common ancestry and connections that trace back to the Ottoman Empire, where many Jewish communities flourished. The findings may illuminate the historical movements of Jewish populations, their integration into diverse cultures, and their resilience through centuries of change.
This research not only contributes to the understanding of Jewish genealogy but also provides insights into the broader narrative of the Jewish diaspora, reinforcing the idea that despite geographical and cultural differences, there exists a profound genetic link among Jews worldwide. The emphasis on the Ottoman Empire as a refuge underscores the historical significance of this region in shaping Jewish identity and continuity.
Speakers
Adam Brown was the National Co-Chair of 2017 annual conference of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) in Orlando and is the President of the non-profit Avotaynu Foundation. He is the Project Administrator of the Avotaynu DNA Project, a multi-disciplinary worldwide collaboration to utilize DNA to illuminate known events in Jewish history from the consolidation of the Israelite tribes 3,200 years ago to the present. Adam has been an avid genealogist for more than three decades and has spoken at dozens of conference venues on the subject of Jewish genealogy and history, including 18 Zoom lectures delivered to Jewish Genealogical Societies across the country during the COVID epidemic.
Michael Waas is a professional genealogist and historian, specializing in Sephardic Jewry, with his firm, Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage Services. He received his bachelor’s degree in anthropology with a specialization in Historical Archaeology from New College of Florida and his master’s degree from the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa. The subject of his M.A. thesis was “Istorya i oy: A comparative study on the Development of Jewish Heritage of the former Ottoman Empire.” For the year 2017-2018 he received the Gaon Prize for Outstanding M.A. Thesis research of the Moshe David Gaon Center for Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) Culture, as well as the Prize for Research into the Heritage of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewry, awarded by the Ben Zvi Institute and the Israeli Ministry of Education. Michael is co-administrator of the AvotaynuDNA Project and, since 2023, he has been Associate Director of the Sephardic Researcher Division of JewishGen. In September 2023 he received a 12-month appointment as Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society to survey its archive and collection for Jewish-related materials.
Ticket Info:
In person: $5 general admission; free for JGSNY and CJH members; click here to register
Zoom: Pay what you wish; click here to register
Presented by:
lecture
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
Presented by:
book talk
lecture
A Trip into the Archive: The Case of Otto Schneid – Live on Zoom
YIVO’s Museum of Jewish Art, Judaica, and Art History was initiated in the mid-1930s at YIVO’s Vilna headquarters. Those involved included the well-known artist Marc Chagall and the Austrian-Jewish art historian Otto Schneid. Before Schneid was tapped to spearhead this museum, he had dedicated years of his life to creating a kind of encyclopedia of contemporary Jewish artists, many of them contributors to L’Ecole de Paris and satellites of this avant-garde art movement in cities across Europe. Beginning in 1929, Schneid travelled to view the artwork of over one hundred a hundred Jewish artists such as Chana Orloff, Alfred Reth, Oscar Miestchaninoff, and Henryk Streng. He also corresponded with them by letter, and the artists sent him photographs of their work along with their biographies. Schneid submitted the manuscript of his encyclopedia to his publisher in 1937. Following the Anschluss of March 1938, the Nazis raided the publishing house and destroyed the manuscript. Schneid escaped Europe with the letters and photographs he had gathered with the hope of recreating the book.
Based on her archival work at YIVO and at the University of Toronto’s Fisher Library, Alyssa Quint discusses the lives of Schneid and his artists and uses the case of Schneid to reflect on the allure of and impediments to archival research.
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
performance
The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds – In-person Event
Through his haunting and evocative score, Ofer Ben-Amots offers an operatic retelling of Sh. An-ski’s masterpiece of the Yiddish theatrical canon. Wracked with grief for her beloved, Leah, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, recounts her love of a young scholar who died on learning of her betrothal to another man. On the day of the wedding, she becomes possessed by an evil spirit, known in Jewish folklore as a dybbuk. In order to exorcize the spirit and save Leah’s soul, the village must learn the spirit’s true origin.
Directed by Stephen Brown-Fried and performed by students from Mannes and the College of Performing Arts, this production of the The Dybbuk is certain to excite your spirits!
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; ASJM, YIVO, & LBI members: $12; Seniors & students: $9
Presented by:
performance
performance
The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds – In-person Event
Through his haunting and evocative score, Ofer Ben-Amots offers an operatic retelling of Sh. An-ski’s masterpiece of the Yiddish theatrical canon. Wracked with grief for her beloved, Leah, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, recounts her love of a young scholar who died on learning of her betrothal to another man. On the day of the wedding, she becomes possessed by an evil spirit, known in Jewish folklore as a dybbuk. In order to exorcize the spirit and save Leah’s soul, the village must learn the spirit’s true origin.
Directed by Stephen Brown-Fried and performed by students from Mannes and the College of Performing Arts, this production of the The Dybbuk is certain to excite your spirits!
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; ASJM, YIVO, & LBI members: $12; Seniors & students: $9
Presented by:
performance
panel discussion
Yiddish Studies in the Digital Age: 10 Years of In geveb – In-person Event and Live on Zoom
In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies published its first articles, essays, translations, and teacher resources in August of 2015. In the intervening decade, it has to a large degree achieved its founding goal, to become “a central address for the study of all things Yiddish.” A generation of students, culture producers, and emerging scholars of Yiddish have now come of age with In geveb as a place to publish, to keep abreast of current research around the world, to find new translations to teach, and read reviews of everything from the latest scholarly publications to new Yiddish music, theater, and film. This roundtable brings together a group of scholars who have all been involved with In geveb in a range of roles to reflect on what this “born digital” journal has contributed to the field of Yiddish studies. This panel will also reflect on the state of Yiddish studies more broadly over the past decade. The panel will conclude by asking what the next 10 years will hold for the field of Yiddish studies, and how scholarly and cultural spaces like In geveb will need to adapt to be ready to serve a changing academic and cultural landscape.
Panelists include former Peer Review Associate for In geveb Elena Hoffenberg, founding co-editor of In geveb and past president of In geveb’s board of directors Eitan Kensky, and members of In geveb’s board of directors Eddy Portnoy and Rachel Rubinstein. The evening will be introduced and moderated by chief editor of In geveb Jessica Kirzane and president of In geveb’s board of directors Madeleine Cohen.
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:
panel discussion
book talk
Agunot in the Ashkenazi Realm, 1648-1850 – Live on Zoom
An agunah, literally a “chained woman,” is a woman unable to secure a rabbinic divorce because her husband has disappeared or is unwilling to sign the divorce papers. In The Marital Knot: Agunot in the Ashkenazi Realm, 1648-1850, Noa Shashar sheds light on Jewish family life in the early modern era and on the Jewish legal rulings of rabbis, which determined the fate of these marginalized agunot. How did Jewish society deal with the danger of women becoming agunot? What kind of reality was imposed on women who found themselves as agunot, and what could they do to extricate themselves from their plight? How did rabbinic decisors discharge their task during this period, and what were the outcomes given that the agunot were dependent on the male rabbinic establishment? Shashar reexamines the halakhic activity concerning agunot in the early modern period and proposes a new assessment of the attitude that decisors displayed toward the freeing of these women. This study also fills a void in the scholarship on agunot by describing the lives of these women and of the men who brought this about.
Join YIVO for a discussion with Shashar about this book, led by historian Elisheva Carlebach.
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
Evening of Sephardic Art Song – In-person Event & Live on Zoom
This lecture-recital aims to raise awareness about a unique and rich vocal repertoire within the Western classical medium, one that also offers a window into Sephardic culture and history. In this two-part event, Dr. Lori Sen will present an overview of the history, language, and culture of Sephardim, the development of the Sephardic art song genre, and its musical elements and stylistic features. Zoë Johnstone Stewart (guitar) and Andrew Stewart (piano) will join Lori for the recital portion and will present a variety of songs for voice and guitar, and voice and piano by Alberto Hemsi, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Lazare Saminsky, Joaquín Rodrigo, Joaquín Nin-Culmell, Manuel García Morante, Yehezkel Braun, Jose Antonio de Donostia, Daniel Akiva, Matilde Salvador, Ulrike Merk, among others.
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: $15; YIVO members & students: $10
Presented by:
concert
lecture
The YIVO Sound Archive and the Klezmer Revival – Live on Zoom
YIVO sound archivist Eléonore Biezunski will tell the story of the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of YIVO Sound Recordings in relation to the revitalization of klezmer music since the mid-1970s. The impetus of young folk musicians seeking to reclaim the music of their ancestors, particularly the instrumental genre known as klezmer music, in a general context of “roots movement,” was a major factor in the establishment of the YIVO Sound Archive in the early 1980s. As a sound archivist and Yiddish musician, Biezunski presents the archive not only as a repository of documents, possible sources, but also as a living space – a historical phenomenon in its own right and a dynamic spatialized territory generated by individuals with their own creativity, caught in a web of social and cultural, intellectual and scientific, institutional and artistic contexts.
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
lecture
Two Revolutionary Jews: Leon Trotsky and Chaim Zhitlowsky – In-person Event & 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.
Ticket Info: Free; registration is required
Presented by:
lecture
book talk
Warsaw Testament by Rokhl Auerbach – In-person Event & Live on Zoom
Born in Lanowitz, a small village in rural Podolia, Rokhl Auerbach was a journalist, literary critic, memoirist, and a member of the Warsaw Yiddish literary community before the Holocaust. Upon the German invasion and occupation of Poland in 1939, she was tasked by historian and social activist Emanuel Ringelblum to run a soup kitchen for the starving inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto and later to join his top-secret ghetto archive, the Oyneg Shabes. One of only three surviving members of the archive project, Auerbach’s wartime and postwar writings became a crucial source of information for historians of both prewar Jewish Warsaw and the Warsaw Ghetto. After immigrating to Israel in 1950, she founded the witness testimony division at Yad Vashem and played a key role in the development of Holocaust remembrance.
Join us for a lecture by historian Samuel Kassow about Auerbach’s memoir, Warsaw Testament, which paints a vivid portrait of the city’s prewar Yiddish literary and artistic community and of its destruction at the hands of the Nazis.
Buy Warsaw Testament, translated by Samuel Kassow.
Buy Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto.
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
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
Presented by:
concert
discussion
Person Place Thing with Jonathan Brent – In-person Event & Live on Zoom
Join YIVO for a recording of the public radio show, Person Place Thing, with YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent. Hosted by humorist Randy Cohen, Person Place Thing is an interview show based on the idea that people are especially engaging when they speak, not directly about themselves, but something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing with particular meaning to them.
The conversation will consist of Brent and Cohen discussing three different objects from the YIVO Archives and Library. YIVO’s collections contain 24 million items and 400,000 books, offering insight into centuries of Jewish history. Brent and Cohen will cover topics such as the Holocaust, American antisemitism during the interwar period, and more. Jardena Gertler-Jaffe and Bethany Pietroniro will play selections of music found in YIVO’s collections throughout the event.
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: $15; YIVO members & students: $10
Presented by:
discussion
lecture
The Making of a Historian of East European Jewry and the Holocaust: Lucy S. Dawidowicz and the YIVO in Vilna, New York, and Offenbach – Live on Zoom
This talk by Nancy Sinkoff will explore the influence of the YIVO on Lucy S. Dawidowicz (1915-1990), a postwar American Jewish public intellectual and historian, who was central to the field that is now called “Holocaust Studies.” Witness to the vital Jewish world of pre-war Vilna, shaped by the group of refugee and survivor historians at the New York YIVO during the war, and an activist working with Jewish DPs and salvaging Jewish cultural treasures in Germany after the war, Dawidowicz played a principal role in the construction of postwar American Holocaust consciousness. With The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (1967) and The War Against the Jews: 1933–1945 (1975), a classic of “intentionalist” Holocaust historiography that emphasized the centrality of Hitler’s antisemitic ideology to the Nazis’ “Final Solution,” Dawidowicz became a central authority on East European Jewry, the Holocaust, and antisemitism in the postwar years.
Buy Nancy Sinkoff’s book about Lucy S. Dawidowicz.
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 New Jewish School in Music (1908-1938) as Part of the Jewish Cultural Renaissance – Live on Zoom
The history of the “New Jewish School of Music” began when several music students from the St. Petersburg Conservatory founded the Society for Jewish Folk Music in St. Petersburg in 1908. The end of this movement came with the 1938 invasion of Austria by Germany and the dissolution of the Viennese Society for the Promotion of Jewish Music that same year. The fascinating and dramatic history of the New Jewish School is the subject of From St. Petersburg to Vienna: The New Jewish School in Music (1908-1938) As Part of the Jewish Cultural Renaissance by Jascha Nemtsov. While many other national "schools" of music—such as the Russian, Czech, and Hungarian—were able to develop freely and establish themselves in an environment of cultural transparency, the Jewish school was violently suppressed. From St. Petersburg to Vienna was first published in 2004 in German, focusing on the reconstruction of the Jewish school’s historical development in Russia and, after 1917, increasingly in other Eastern and Central European countries.
Join YIVO for a discussion with Nemtsov about this recently-revised and translated edition of the book, led by YIVO Director of Public Programs Alex Weiser.
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
panel discussion
New Trends in YIVO Scholarship – Live on Zoom
Since 1925, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has been a pioneer in the field of Jewish studies. At the core of YIVO since its founding was its commitment to scholarship which supported the Jewish “folk.” This manifested in a variety of initiatives, including youth autobiography contests and a youth research division (yugfor), an Economic-Statistical section (ekstat), and the establishment of various YIVO branches. These YIVO's activities continue to pique the interests of scholars, who have recently produced new scholarship analyzing these initiatives through the lens of new pioneering research methods.
Join YIVO for a panel discussion sharing new research on these historic YIVO initiatives featuring presentations by William Pimlott, Kamil Kijek, and Nicolas Vallois, followed by a conversation led by Jessica Kirzane.
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:
panel discussion
conference
YIVO in America – In-person Event and Live on Zoom
Join us for a celebration of YIVO’s 100th anniversary with a conference focusing on how YIVO’s founding vision for Jewish social sciences has been realized in America since its headquarters shifted to New York City in 1940.
The destruction of East European Jewry during the Holocaust—including YIVO’s original headquarters in Vilna—challenged fundamental ideas about Jewish peoplehood and the Yiddish language’s role in it that had animated YIVO since its founding. Despite this, YIVO continued to publish scholarly works in America, support the study of Yiddish linguistics and folklore, and serve as a repository documenting East European Jewish history and culture. YIVO also developed new ventures, helping to create the field of Holocaust studies, playing a pioneering role in the teaching of Yiddish as it ceased being the mother tongue of the Jewish masses, and bolstering the development of Jewish studies more broadly.
In this conference, scholars will discuss YIVO’s work since 1940 touching on how YIVO’s purpose shifted in the American context, major achievements of YIVO’s work in America, YIVO’s role in the post-war evolution of Yiddish and Jewish studies, and what work lies ahead for YIVO and Jewish studies more broadly.
Scholars featured in this conference include Jonathan Brent, Leyzer Burko, Deborah Dash Moore, Hasia Diner, Eric Goldstein, Itzik Gottesman, Stefanie Halpern, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Cecile Kuznitz, Rebecca Margolis, Anita Norich, Samuel Norich, Naomi Seidman, Mark Smith, Kalman Weiser, and Steve Zipperstein.
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:
conference
conference
YIVO in America – In-person Event and Live on Zoom
Join us for a celebration of YIVO’s 100th anniversary with a conference focusing on how YIVO’s founding vision for Jewish social sciences has been realized in America since its headquarters shifted to New York City in 1940.
The destruction of East European Jewry during the Holocaust—including YIVO’s original headquarters in Vilna—challenged fundamental ideas about Jewish peoplehood and the Yiddish language’s role in it that had animated YIVO since its founding. Despite this, YIVO continued to publish scholarly works in America, support the study of Yiddish linguistics and folklore, and serve as a repository documenting East European Jewish history and culture. YIVO also developed new ventures, helping to create the field of Holocaust studies, playing a pioneering role in the teaching of Yiddish as it ceased being the mother tongue of the Jewish masses, and bolstering the development of Jewish studies more broadly.
In this conference, scholars will discuss YIVO’s work since 1940 touching on how YIVO’s purpose shifted in the American context, major achievements of YIVO’s work in America, YIVO’s role in the post-war evolution of Yiddish and Jewish studies, and what work lies ahead for YIVO and Jewish studies more broadly.
Scholars featured in this conference include Jonathan Brent, Leyzer Burko, Deborah Dash Moore, Hasia Diner, Eric Goldstein, Itzik Gottesman, Stefanie Halpern, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Cecile Kuznitz, Rebecca Margolis, Anita Norich, Samuel Norich, Naomi Seidman, Mark Smith, Kalman Weiser, and Steve Zipperstein.
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:
conference