walking tour
Dancing through Yiddish Literary New York: A Guided Tour
This walking tour meets outside of Village East by Angelika, 181-189 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10003, and will run from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.
Explore New York’s Lower East Side through its urban dance spaces. Between 1881 and 1924, 2.5 million East European Jews immigrated to the United States. Like other ethnic groups in New York around 1900, many of these Yiddish speakers spent their leisure hours dancing: in commercial dance halls, neighborhood associations, dancing academies—and in the pages of newspapers, literary fiction, etiquette guides, and the warnings of social reformers. Jewish writers such as Abraham Cahan identified dancing with changes in courtship and gender roles as part of Americanization and American capitalism. Dancing could be a way of showing off physical fitness and disposable income. It was also a sign of shocking new forms of intimacy between men and women. On this guided tour with Yiddish literature and dance scholar Dr. Sonia Gollance, we will visit some key New York dance sites in the footsteps of Yiddish writers and journalists. No knowledge of Yiddish is necessary for this walking tour.
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 Guide
Sonia Gollance is Associate Professor of Yiddish Studies at University College London. Her work focuses on Yiddish and German literature, dance, theatre, and gender. She is the author of It Could Lead to Dancing: Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity (Stanford University Press, 2021), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards. She has taught at the University of Vienna, The Ohio State University, and the University of Göttingen, as well as at klezmer festivals in Europe and North America.
Ticket Info: $30; YIVO members & students: $25
Presented by:
walking tour
open house
YIVO Learning and Media Center Open House
Come tour YIVO’s brand new Learning and Media Center!
YIVO is opening the doors to its new YLMC, a publicly accessible space for visitors to come and explore Jewish history and the YIVO Collections.
The space features a striking welcome vestibule highlighting photographs and objects from YIVO’s storied history, artifact displays from the YIVO Archives and Library, interactive activities like a poster-making station and a touch-screen map featuring hundreds of photos of Jewish life in Eastern European towns and cities, an intimate open-stacks library with Yiddish and English books, multimedia stations for listening to sound recordings and watching videos from the YIVO Collections, and a classroom for lessons that utilize rare archival materials.
During this open house, educators and their families are invited to visit YIVO's Learning and Media Center and take a guided tour of the new space with YLMC Educator Susannah Trubman. If you are a member of the public interested in attending, please register for the August 24, 2025 open house.
Space is limited! Sign up today to be among the first to see the YLMC.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
open house
open house
YIVO Learning and Media Center Open House
Come tour YIVO’s brand new Learning and Media Center!
YIVO is opening the doors to its new YLMC, a publicly accessible space for visitors to come and explore Jewish history and the YIVO Collections.
The space features a striking welcome vestibule highlighting photographs and objects from YIVO’s storied history, artifact displays from the YIVO Archives and Library, interactive activities like a poster-making station and a touch-screen map featuring hundreds of photos of Jewish life in Eastern European towns and cities, an intimate open-stacks library with Yiddish and English books, multimedia stations for listening to sound recordings and watching videos from the YIVO Collections, and a classroom for lessons that utilize rare archival materials.
During this open house, the general public is invited to visit YIVO's Learning and Media Center and take a guided tour of the new space with YLMC Educator Susannah Trubman. Families are welcome! If you are an educator interested in attending, please register for the August 17, 2025 open house.
Space is limited! Sign up today to be among the first to see the YLMC.
Ticket Info: Free; registration required
Presented by:
open house
