Our new series, The Yiddishists, celebrates JR’s exclusive publication of the letters of writer Esther Kreitman to her famous literary sibling Isaac Bashevis Singer (read more in the Winter 2024 issue of JR). Taking place over five weeks, the talks will focus on the vibrant contributions of Yiddish speakers and writers to culture around the world. This series is run in partnership with the Lyons Learning Project.
Events begin at 7.30pm (BST). Streaming links will be sent out shortly before each event. See below for full details.
*If you booked your ticket and have not received the link by 5pm on the day of the event, please check your spam folder and, if it's not there, email programming@jewishrenaissance.org.uk.
JR has an ethical ticketing policy and is offering free tickets to the lectures, but if you can afford it, please donate to support our work. We are proposing denominations of 18 – the numerical value of the Hebrew word 'chai', meaning 'life'.
Past events
Wednesday 13 March
The Writings of Esther Kreitman
To kick off the first in our Yiddishists series, we look to Esther Singer Kreitman. Her haunting novels, short stories and translations have always received less attention than the work of her brothers, Israel Joshua Singer and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Now, a stash of letters from Kreitman to Bashevis Singer have been translated into English and published for the first time by Jewish Renaissance. Explore Kreitman’s life and work with writer, translator and scholar David Stromberg; Dr Jessica Kirzane, assistant instructional professor in Yiddish at the University of Chicago; and Dr Vivi Lachs, social historian, performer and author of Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884–1914. A selection of Kreitman’s writings will be read by actor Susannah Wise (EastEnders, Peep Show, The Enfield Haunting).
Wednesday 20 March
Yiddish Around the World
The Yiddish Book Centre recently launched a landmark new core exhibition, Yiddish: A Global Culture, becoming the world’s only comprehensive museum of modern Yiddish culture. Located in the rolling countryside of western Massachusetts, not far from Boston, the centre launched 45 years ago to recover and preserve the world’s Yiddish books. Since then, it has led the way in digitising Yiddish literature, training new translators and offering a wide range of programmes to celebrate and reenergise modern Jewish history and culture. In this session, we’re joined by David Mazower to explore the centre’s mission and its new exhibition. Mazower is a former senior journalist and editor with BBC News and currently YBC’s research bibliographer, chief curator and writer of Yiddish: A Global Culture, and co-editor of the centre’s award-winning magazine Pakn Treger (The Book Peddler).
Wednesday 27 March
Yiddish Popular Culture from Whitechapel to Broadway
Popular culture at the turn of the 20th century benefited hugely from Yiddish-speaking immigrants. The Yiddish theatres performed traditional as well as home-grown material, and frequently used songs to engage with community life and the challenges of integration. Join us as we travel between London’s East End and New York’s Lower East Side with Dr Vivi Lachs, social historian, performer and author of Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884–1914; and Dr Edna Nahshon, a professor of theatre and drama, and author of New York’s Yiddish Theatre: From the Bowery to Broadway.
Wednesday 3 April
Writing in Yenglish
If you know your kvetching from your kvelling, you’ll understand how Yiddish continues to exert a considerable influence on the descendants of Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants. For this session, two British writers explore the impact of Yiddishisms on their writing in English, with writer, poet, broadcaster and former Children's Laureate Michael Rosen; and artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer.
Wednesday 10 April
Freud in the Yiddish Press
“Psychoanalysis is the disease of assimilated Jews,” wrote Viennese journalist and satirist Karl Kraus of Sigmund Freud’s teachings. “Religious Jews make do with diabetes.” We’ll explore what the popular Yiddish press made of the founder of psychoanalysis during the 1920s and 1930s, from the 'Oedipal Lullaby Contest' in Forward newspaper to the craze for lists of 'famous Jews'. Our guest speaker is Professor Naomi Seidman, Jackman Professor of Arts at the University of Toronto and author of Translating the Jewish Freud: Psychoanalysis and Jewish Languages.
This event will now be commencing at 7pm BST
