Question is: what happens when this occurs? The prominent worry, for this particular landsmanshaft, is what will happen to the cemetary? Who will take care of the plots? Etc.
]]>Never mind that they had not contacted any of the members of the Australian Friends of Yiddish (in Sydney), nor answered my emails in response to a query (to a second and third party, not to me) about interest in "hundreds of books no longer wanted". The fact that the organisation wanted to send (at their own expense) these historical artefacts out of Sydney was a shame. One of the daughters of a donor/sponsor of the collection approached them about the possibility of taking her late father's personal library, and she was told of the upcoming dispatch. She contacted me and AFOY's president and we immediately set about organising transport and the above temporary shelter for the collections. With the help of Dr Marianne Dacy of the Archive, we were ready to go within a week.
On moving day, it became clear that 2,000 books (about 100 boxes we were told) was more like 4,000. It took three trips in a hired van to shift the lot. Students of the Yiddish course met the boxes (when they weren't in class) at the Archive and shoved them on to shelving.
The collection houses some fascinating titles (we've managed to unpack and shelve about 25 boxes to date), including: a pack of playing cards to learn about Yiddish literature; a pocket Harkavy Jewish-English dictionary (think early 20th century, really tiny print); Partizner geyen! from Kaczerginski; The history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1948-- Buenos Aires); and Wiesel's original Un di velt hot geshvign (the abridgement and translation is called La Nuit/Night). Those are just the titles I remember off hand.
Plus there are translations into Yiddish of Shakespeare, Chekov, Somerset-Maugham, Ben-Gurion and Leon Uris.
Yes, seriously. In Israel, in the height of the anti-Yiddish polemic, a three-part translation of Exodus was published. One year after its appearance in the States. And its better than the original.
So, stay tuned to this blog for up-dates on the collection, including (mirtsashem= G-d willing) the inventory of the collection on the Heurist system. Seeing as the only inventory we have is from hand-written cards (author/title only, and sometimes not even that) that stopped about five years ago, it should prove interesting.
]]>The campaign for and against Wal-Mart ran in Yiddish:
Wal-Mart also hired a firm to send mailings in Yiddish to local homes, asking residents to suggest ways the company could improve the area.“A lot of us sent the mailing back to them with the words, ‘No, thanks,’ written at the top,” said a 36-year-old Hasidic man who has lived here for 18 years and who requested anonymity to keep with his religious tradition of modesty.
Then, the community hit back. Residents joined union workers for a rally in December 2006, and circulated petitions and ran ads in Yiddish and English every week for 32 weeks in a local newsletter, Community Connections.
Wal-Mart will not be going to Monsey. The developer pulled out.
]]> The article in its entirety is here (you may need to login):A Stand Against Wal-Mart and, For Now, Victory]]>While investigating the 4,700 documents included in the “The Argentina Declassification Project,” Carlos Osorio, director of the Southern Cone Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, found a handwritten letter from 1979. The letter, written in Yiddish explains the plight of Héctor Catovsky who went to work one day and never returned.
To read more... click on the link above.
]]>This year's weekend will take place from May 2 to May 4th -- the group meet before dinner on Friday night and leave after lunch on Sunday. The venue is comfortable and attractive - Chestnut Hill Lodge in Kallista in the Dandenongs, a 1 hour drive from central Melbourne.
For more information, contact me.
]]>Corman was interviewed by the Forward for this article:
Introducing a New Graphic Novel
What? You haven't read it yet? Seriously? Well, then, I bet you haven't read his Pulitzer Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay either.
By the way, it is not an "anti-Zionist" book as purported in the Iranian (yes, Iran) press. Alternate Universe (AU for aca/fans), yes, but not anti-Zionist.
]]>The Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, in cooperation with the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, has pleasure in announcing the first of a proposed biennial conference in the field of Modern Yiddish
literature to be held in Heidelberg, 1-3 December 2008. The theme of this year’s inaugural conference — “Yiddish Poets and the Soviet Union, 1917-1948” — aims to be as inclusive and wide-ranging as possible.
The mapping of Yiddish-Russian Jewish literature in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Russia/Soviet Union demands re-evaluation in the light of recent historical research. Integrally part of this reassessment is the work
of those Yiddish poets in the Diaspora who had strong ideological ties with the Soviet Union. Their poetry reflected a Utopian belief in the world’s first socialist state which was also committed to supporting and promoting
Yiddish language and culture. Until ideological pressures under Stalin prevented it, Soviet Yiddish poets also interacted with their Yiddish peers abroad as well as with Russian/Soviet poets. The history of theses cross-
cultural relationships has yet to be written. These complex and often neglected interactions are an essential part of the literary history of modern Yiddish poetry.
Papers are therefore invited that examine Yiddish poetry in its varied and multifaceted experimental years, its modernistic approaches and reworking of aesthetic influences and modes, its debts to Russian/Ukrainian and, more
generally, to modern European poetry and prose, its themes and their elaboration in a time of upheaval, change and destruction. The theoretical foundation of Yiddish poetry in this period, as it appears in writings by
both Yiddish poets and literary critics, is equally important and invites closer research, as does the role and predicament of Yiddish poets in Soviet society.
A volume of selected and peer-reviewed papers which will include an updated biographical and bibliographical section will be published by the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien.Those interested in participating should submit a brief abstract of their papers (200 words) by 31 May 2008. Once the proposals have been received, further details will be sent to participants.
Papers can be delivered in English, Yiddish and German.
Daniela Mantovan
Conference Convenor
daniela.mantovan@hfjs.uni-heidelberg.de
16-17 November 2008
New York City
Organized by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University. Supported by The Blavatnik Family Foundation, Corinne P. and Maurice R. Greenberg Foundation, and The Starr Foundation
On November 16-17, 2008, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and New York University's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies are organizing an international
scholarly conference on Soviet Jewish Soldiers, Jewish Resistance, and Jews in the USSR during the Holocaust. This conference will take place in New York City at NYU's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.
Masses of rich material have become available since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, providing new insight into previously under-researched aspects of the Holocaust on Soviet territory. This joint conference will examine the Soviet Jewish experience during World War II and the Holocaust, including but not limited to: Soviet Jewish soldiers at home and abroad; representations of Jewish soldiers in press, literature, and films; contextual issues such as German, Axis, and Soviet policies and attitudes during the Holocaust; Soviet Jewish combatants in the struggle against Fascism; camps and ghettos in the Soviet Union; Soviet Jewish life and culture; collaboration as a Soviet and post-Soviet issue; and the Soviet Shoah and the evolution of Soviet Jewish consciousness.
Proposals are welcome from scholars in all relevant academic disciplines, including advanced graduate students. Applicants interested in presenting a paper should be currently researching or completing projects related to the above or to other themes that shed new light on an under-studied aspect of the Soviet Jewish experience during World War II. Successful candidates will be required to submit a copy of their presentation six weeks in advance of the conference, for circulation among all conference participants.
For applicants whose papers are accepted, the conference organizers will fund conference-related travel and lodging expenses.
The conference will be conducted in English.
If you would like to propose a paper for this conference, please send a cover letter, your curriculum vitae, and a one-page abstract of your proposed paper to: Dr. Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Senior Program Officer, Center
for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2126.
For queries, contact (202) 314-7802.
Application materials may also be emailed to
sbrown-fleming@ushmm.org or faxed to the attention of Dr. Brown-Fleming at 202-479-9726.
The deadline for receipt of proposals is 15 March 2008. Participants will be selected and notified no later than 15 April 2008.
Visit the website at http://www.ushmm.org/research/center
]]>The XIth Symposium for Yiddish Studies in Germany will be held 22-24 September 2008 at the Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf. This annual Symposium is organized alternately by the Yiddish programs at the universities of Trier and Duesseldorf and is intended to offer scholars the possibility to present their research, exchange ideas and put forward questions for discussion.
You are invited to submit abstracts for 20 min. papers until April 1, 2008.
Presentations can be held in Yiddish or German.
We have decided not to devote the symposium to a single topic in order not to exclude any of the fields of research within Yiddish Studies. Interdisciplinary papers with a connection to Yiddish Studies are welcome.
The symposium is open to all those interested in Yiddish Studies. A participation fee of 10 € is to be paid at the symposium itself. We ask participants to register in advance at the address below.
We are happy to answer question by mail, fax or e-mail.
Simon Neuberg (Professor of Yiddish Studies, University of Trier)
Marion Aptroot (Professor of Yiddish Studies, University of Duesseldorf)
Correspondence address:
Abteilung fuer Jiddische Kultur, Sprache und Literatur
Institut fuer Juedische Studien
Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf
Universitaetsstr. 1
40225 Duesseldorf
Email: jiddisch@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de
www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/jiddisch
Vilne -- Yoneshik -- Zhager -- Riga -- Dvinsk -- Kovne -- Vilne
June 22 - July 2, 2008
Price per person: $ 2899
Single supplement: $670
Complete schedule is at the Momentum Tours' site
]]>The collection, which is still growing rapidly and also includes books from other CJH partners, can be found online at: Children's Books Pilot Project
The books were digitized and made available by the Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory, the Center's state-of-the-art in-house digital collections-building facility. In addition to making the children's books available through CJH Digital Collections, the books were also uploaded to the International Children's Digital Library (www.icdlbooks.org), thereby making them even more widely accessible to current and future generations.
The Children's Books Pilot Project at the Center for Jewish History was supported in part by funds from the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) through the New York State Regional Bibliographic
Databases Program. Thanks to the success of this METRO-funded pilot project, the Center has since received a generous gift from the Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund to digitize a further 50 children's books.
The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) welcomes applications from exceptionally well-qualified holders of the Bachelor's or Master's degree for appointment as Belofsky Graduate Fellows in UTD's School of Arts and Humanities. Application from students pursuing the study of the Holocaust or modern Jewish culture or comparative perspectives on the American and European Jewish experience are particularly welcomed.
The School of Arts and Humanities offers Ph.D. degrees in Aesthetic Studies, History of Ideas, and Literary Studies, with each of them emphasizing interdisciplinary study and research. The Holocaust Studies Program In the School of Arts and Humanities spans of a multi-faceted curriculum, and is augmented and supported by the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, the Leah and Paul Lewis Chair in Holocaust Studies, the Burton C. Einspruch Holocaust Lecture Series, and the Arnold A. Jaffe Holocaust Book Collection. Belofsky Fellows will have the
opportunity to pursue doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsvath or Dr. Nils Roemer.
Belofsky Fellows receive 12-month stipends of $20,000 along with complete remission of all UTD tuition and fees for up to five years, subject to satisfactory progress toward the Ph.D. degree. Fellows have no assigned teaching responsibilities or other work assignments, but may petition to teach classes in the latter years of their graduate study.
Applications should comprise a cover letter explaining your intentions, a CV, a sample of your writing, and two recommendation letters. Applications should be mailed to:
Debbie Pfister
The University of Texas at Dallas
Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies
800 W. Campbell Rd.,
Richardson, TX 75080-3021
972-883-2100
holocauststudies@utdallas.edu
Visit the website at http://www.utdallas.edu/holocaust
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