Yiddish @ Sydney

The second of the Modern-day Yiddish conferences is taking place as we read this in Ann Arbor, Michigan (the first was in Haifa in December). Convened by Prof. Anita Norich, this conference's emphasis is on Yiddish culture: klezmer, theatre, literature.

Article is here

In 1934, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin announced the creation of the USSR's Jewish Autonomous Region, Birobidzhan on the Manchurian border. This secular, humanist region's official language was Yiddish: newspapers, street signs, school materials were all in Yiddish. After the Holocaust and the purges of Stalin's regime, Yiddish all but disappeared from the streets of the JAR.

This summer, the Birobidzhan Far Eastern State Academy for Humanities and Social Studies, with the guidance of Prof. Kotlerman of Bar-Ilan University, has established the "International Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Culture."

See the entire article, here.

To see the program's prospectus and perhaps apply, go to the Summer Yiddish program in Birobidzhan site.

Later this year will see the launch of an Online Digital Sound Archive funded by the Corners Fund for Traditional Cultures, Living traditions.

You will be able to search over 3,000 Klezmer and Yiddish songs as collected by the Associate Director of KlezKamp, Sherry Mayment.

For more information, go to the website.