Yiddish @ Sydney

There is an interesting article on the demise of landsmanshaftn -- organisations set up by migrants to help other migrants (and their families) from their hometown/areas. The problem is, as the article points out, many of these organisations' members are dying (or moving to Florida) and their children/grandchildren are not continuing their memberships.

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.

Last Call for Landsmanshaften

New film by Dani Rosenberg, starring Itay Tiran, follows a group of Holocaust refugees as they become soldiers in Israel's War of Independence. Going for realism, the film's dialoguie is in Yiddish.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1014139.html

Wal-Mart had planned to build a new store in Monsey, NY, a small town of approximately 28,000 residents and 200 synagogues. The residents, a good majority of which are ultra-Orthodox Jews, had been dead-set against the proposal, as had the newly elected community supervisor. As a matter of fact, part of his election campaign had been to stop the development which would have caused a number of headaches for Monsey and the surrounding towns.

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.

From the Forward:

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.

Yiddish Sof Vokh (weekend retreat) is an annual event organised by Yiddish Oystralye to provide Yiddish lovers and learners with a Yiddish immersion environment. For two days people of all ages participate in a variety of activities -- lectures, cooking classes, craft workshops, sport, drama and more -- and all in Yiddish.

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.

Remember her? She won a Grammy for her song, "Stay (I Missed You)". Well, she's now an advice columnist for the Forward.

Lisa Loeb says honesty is the best policy

Come and meet with the historians, linguists and folklorists at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute – where Yiddish and other Jewish topics are being taught as part of the curriculum of Vilnius University, Lithuania’s premier center of higher learning. Travel to beautiful Riga and Kaunas, historic shtetls and the forests and fields between. The tour includes expert speakers and intimate, in-depth meetings and discussion with members of the Jewish Communities of Lithuania and Latvia, as well as prominent governmental leaders.

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 Center for Jewish History recently completed a pilot project to digitize and make freely accessible online 40 Yiddish and Hebrew children's books, many of which are richly illustrated, from the
collections of two of the Center's Partners: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the Yeshiva University Museum.

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.

Belofsky Fellowships in Holocaust Studies The University of Texas at
Dallas

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

THE FRIENDS OF THE SECULAR YIDDISH SCHOOLS
IN NORTH AMERICA COLLECTION
At Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections

is pleased to announce that it is accepting applications for its Annual Research Fellowship 2007-2008

The sum of $3-4,000 to be awarded to the applicant who will commit to at least a 2 month in-residence period (of choice) using the impressive multilingual resources (Yiddish, English and Hebrew) of the extensive SYSNA Archival Collection. Fluency in reading Yiddish is required. A substantive publishable paper or project in any of the three languages is one of the goals of this fellowship.

A distinguished panel of scholars in Jewish/Yiddish Studies, Education, Bilingualism and Ethnicity will review all applications.

The deadline for submission of applications (in triplicate) is November 15, 2007.
Notification of award will be no later than December 15, 2007.

For further information contact: Prof. Joshua A. Fishman

Mailing address:
3616 Henry Hudson Parkway #7B-N
Riverdale, NY 10463

UCLA adds a second year to its Yiddish course. Taught by Miriam Koral, who presented at the last Mandelbaum Conference on Yiddish Studies, the expansion of UCLA's program will allow her to include studies in literature and culture. The class is offered via the American Jewish University (known as the University of Judaism back in my day) and UCLA's Cont Ed program. Sh'koyekh to Miriam.

Also in the news: a new, trilingual guide to beating various addictions has been printed in the UK. Targeting Charedi (Hasidic) families, the booklet -- published in English, Hebrew and Yiddish -- attempts to teach Orthodox families how to handle , such as drug addiction, alcoholism and other problems. Feedback, according to the article, has been mostly positive: only one of the three hundred booklets sent out has been returned.

The capital city of Tallinn, Estonia celebrated the opening of a new mikve, "Mey Menahem" recently. This is the first mikve in Estonia since World War II.

A band from Finland helped with the celebration, singing in both Yiddish and English (but not Finnish, Hebrew or Estonian?).

The article is here.

Many of you are aware that three years ago, the LA Jewish school system came up with a plan to introduce Yiddish into the high school curriculum as a foreign language. Aided by funds from Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation, the program has been implemented at the New Community Jewish High School in the San Fernando Valley.

The Foundation's funds were limited, and in recent days a donor came through with a $250,000 gift to ensure that Yiddish continue for at least five more years.

So mazl tov to the LA Yiddish program -- biz hundert un tsvantsik.

Way back in the Dark Ages -- i.e., before most of my students were born, or even thought of -- I worked at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. (It's much prettier now) In my office alone we heard Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, English and Yiddish. Once in a while other languages, but no one made a fuss. No one batted an eyelid if there were tourists mixing with Israelis, khasidim mixing with -- well, anyone else. When they mixed with the animals, then the fuss started.

Not sure why this fusion of languages and sub-cultures is noteworthy noewadays, but it is. This one reporter was bemused by the fact that visitors were speaking Yiddish (and that they don't know a swan from a duck nor a frog from a turtle) and that the families were mixing Ethiopian immigrants, French tourists and some American woman who likes her Popsicles.

Yesterday, in The Australian (p. 9), there was a report about the impending cull of subjects at the University of Melbourne. Among those to be hardest hit are languages, history and arts' subjects. To quote:

...at least a dozen Chinese subjects cancelled from next year, as well as Indonesian, Arabic and German classes.
Some Russian and Swedish subjects will also get the axe from next year, along with Hebrew (emphasis mine), literature, film and philosophy.

That means that as of next year, if I'm not mistaken, one university in Victoria will teach modern Hebrew (Monash) just as only one university in NSW teaches it (we do). Same situation as Yiddish, by the way. And possibly other languages.

254 subjects are to be axed, with an other 227 suspended. 108 new subjects will be created in their place. The article goes on to say that this is related more to "an annual process" than the new model implemented by the University, financial problems or a curriculum review.

The targeting of language subjects (among others of course) is interesting in light of today's article complaining that students aren't taking up the opportunity to study abroad.

A shortage of students willing to study abroad is causing international embarrassment for Australian universities, which stand accused of being more interested in export dollars than educational exchanges.
Cost has been identified by universities as one of the key reasons preventing students from heading overseas for a semester, along with lack of credit transfers and language issues (emphasis mine).

There is a quote in there that while 400 Dutch students came here, only 40 Australians went to study in Holland.

Language issues? Where do we teach Dutch? Not here. And it doesn't look like the University of Melbourne is a candidate either.

The Hebrew University has an amazing collection of illuminated manuscripts and incunabula.

One of these, the 13th century mahzor (holy days' prayer book) from Nuremberg has recently been put online. The pictures are lovely, absolutely phenomenal

One catch: you must download the DjVu Browser Plug-in which is located at LizardTech. It's free.

The home page for the site is here . It works best in Safari (on a Mac, and now available for Windows); I can't get the DjVu plug-in to work with my Firefox. Hint: click on the English to go the English pages, Hebrew for Hebrew pages.

Menachem Ejdelman organized a weekend "retreat" for 45 undergraduate students interested in learnign a bisl mameloshn.

Yiddish Break at Brandeis U

This is the official reminder for first year, as promised:

Exam -- 19 June from 11am until 1pm
in 625 Mungo McCallum
(one floor up from the School Admin office; in the middle of the building, i.e. out of the lift, turn left)

4טער ייִדיש קורס אין סטראַסבורג, פֿראַנקרײַך דעם 6טן ביזן 17טן אויגוסט!

אינפֿאָרמאַציעס קענט איר קריגן פֿון
goldwaserrafael@neuf.fr

----------------------------

4th Yiddish summer course in Strasbourg between from the 6th until the 17th
of August!

For informations, please contact: goldwaserrafael@neuf.fr

A blog and YouTube "reklame" (רעקלאַמע, advert) by Prof. Wirth-Nesher about this year's Summer Program.

This has been brought to you by the Yiddish Forward. However, if you go to the article from whence I snagged the info (the article is "Yinglish" from the 4th of May), you will notice that the link (פֿאַרבינדונג -- it's in your vocabulary) is not to the blog, but to another רעקלאַמע for one of the Forward's audio-books.

See, even the professionals goof up. Heartening, isn't it?

Just a short blurb, but worth the journey.

A World in Your Ear

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

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.

THE FRIENDS OF THE SECULAR YIDDISH SCHOOLS
IN NORTH AMERICA COLLECTION
At Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections

is pleased to announce that it is accepting applications for its
Annual Research Fellowship 2007-2008

The sum of $3-4,000 to be awarded to the applicant who will commit to at least a 2 month in-residence period (of choice) using the impressive multilingual resources (Yiddish, English and Hebrew) of the extensive SYSNA Archival Collection. Fluency in reading Yiddish is required. A substantive publishable paper or project in any of the three languages is one of the goals of this fellowship.

A distinguished panel of scholars in Jewish/Yiddish Studies, Education, Bilingualism and Ethnicity will review all applications.

The deadline for submission of applications (in triplicate) is May 15, 2007.
Notification of award will be no later than June 15, 2007.

For further information contact: Joshua A. Fishman

Mailing address: 3616 Henry Hudson Parkway #7B-N
Riverdale, NY 10463

Those of you who have either listened to me rave about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay or have read the excerpt in the golem course, might be interested to know the following factoids:

• Michael Chabon will be on Tuesday's episode of The Simpsons
  
• The Yiddish Policemen's Union will finally be out on May 1. It will be a hardback release, so unless you order it from Amazon, maybe go to Kinokunya (not Borders, where exchange rates are of their own making.)
  
• The Final Solution: A Story of Detection is already available. Remember, it's a YA novel.
  

If you haven't read Kavalier and Clay, why not?

Along the Milky Way

A talented 'Yunge' writer

Ashkenaz is in the house

The Short, Brilliant Life of the American Yiddish Theater

Cabaret Act Revives Music of Warsaw

Below are the dates for individual workshops, which will focus on
connecting innovations in new Yiddish music with traditional Yiddish
music.

Opening concert July 14, 2007
Instrumental Workshop for Advanced Musicians, July 18-25, 2007
Dance Music Workshop for Dance Musicians, July 27-31, 2007
Dance Workshop, July 28-31, 2007
Yiddish Song Workshop, August 2-9, 2007
Yiddish Languages (for Beginners and Beyond), August 2-9, 2007

You can find a further information on Yiddish Web

For the first time in the history of Yiddish studies, a summer program of the Yiddish language and culture is to take place in Birobidzhan.

This year a center for the research of the history and culture of Yiddish is being organized at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the Birobidzhan Far Eastern State Academy for Humanities and Social Studies. The first undertaking of the center will be this three-week international summer program with participation of Yiddish-studies lecturers from various universities in the world. The program is intended both for university students as well as anyone else interested in the subject.

Further information on this unique opportunity and application forms can be found at the site Birobidzhan International Yiddish Summer Program.

Applications should be sent by e-mail to yiddish@mail.biu.ac.il with "Summer School" in the topic, or to the address Yiddish Project, P.O.B. 24348, Jerusalem, Israel.

Application deadline: June 10, 2007.

18 – 22 June, 2007
New York University, NY

The seminar is being organized by the Yiddish Teachers’ Committee of Yugntruf—Youth for Yiddish within the framework of the Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research/New York University, and is generously supported by the Fishman and Levinson Foundations.

Sign up now! Limited Places this Year

• Pay only $230
• After 2nd March $250

Students over 15 years old are invited to attend a special program for one day.
Program Cost $50.

For an application please contact Dr. Dowling - APPLY NOW!

Further information is available from Renata Singer:
renatasinger@gmail.com

The 2007 Sydney Welcome, Orientation and Transition (SWOT) Program at the Camperdown/Darlington campus will be held in conjunction with the University of Sydney Union O-Week on Wednesday 28 February - Friday 2 March 2007.

The SWOT website is available at SWOT

Fortieth Annual Uriel Weinreich Program, Summer 2007
Monday, June 25 to Friday, August 3.

דער ייִדישער זשורנאַל –– לעבנס–פֿראַגע, די אויסגאַבע פײַון דעם אַרבעטער–רינג אין ישׂראל –– איז יעצט אויף דער אינטערנעץ. דערזשורנאַל גייט אַרויס יעדע צוויי מאָנאַטן.

www.lebnsfragn.com

The National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA announces an outstanding 2007 internship opportunity for university students. The Steiner Internship Program is now accepting applications for this eight-week summer internship program.

Eighteen students will be accepted.

The Tel Aviv Yiddish Summer Program 2007
June 24 until July 19, 2007

www.telavivuniv.org/programs/summer.htm

Time to restart the administrative processes of the year. Before a summary of the conference "The Cultural Geography of Modern Yiddish", let me present this announcement:

Since the “Great Migration” of the 1880s, the boroughs of New York have played an integral role in Yiddish literature. Those who had migrated from Eastern Europe to the Lower East Side found their lives dramatized in stories written by beloved authors, from Sholem Aleykhem to Isaac Bashevis Singer.

This course will examine various texts in which New York is the primary setting: works by the sweatshop poets, the inzikh, Sholem Aleykhem, Sholem Asch, Lamed Shapiro and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Yiddish life in the tenements of the Lower East Side will be analysed through play and film as well. Thematically the topics will range from early migration to unionism, from building new lives in the New World to mourning lives lost.

Thematically the topics will range from early migration to unionism, from building new lives in the New World to mourning lives lost.

Assessment includes participation (in class and online) in the discussion of material under analysis and the presentation of a 4000-5000 word essay.

For further information, contact Dr Jennifer Dowling in SLC.

All important news about the state and fate of Yiddish at Sydney Uni:

The Dan Goodrdige Lectureship for Yiddish Studies is endowed.

So, we're here to stay for four more years -- at least.

Note at the bottom of the article, this tidbit for students: "former Mandelbaum House office bearer Nathan Zusman left an endowment for Yiddish studies, which the Mandelbaum Trust would use to establish a yearly Yiddish scholarship."

Good news, indeed. And keep an eye out -- there may be more on the way.

--Jennifer

Article on the Judaica Music Rescue Project at Florida Atlantic University -- an "assisted living program for Jewish music".

Don't forget the other jewish music archives:
Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive

Robert and Molly Freedman Jewish Music Archive at the University of Pennsylvania

The Lily Safra Internship Program

The Lily Safra Internship Program provides undergraduate students an opportunity to learn about the work of Jewish women's studies scholars and centers, and try their hand at research in the field. Interns assist with ongoing HBI research and develop their own individual projects. Weekly outings to research archives and places of Jewish interest, and discussions with Jewish Studies and Women’s Studies scholars, expose interns to various methodologies and academic frameworks.

Interns are paid a stipend and receive additional funds for housing.

Each intern is expected to produce a work –an academic paper, a short story, a website – that is original, personally meaningful, and draws on creative and intellectual energies. Past projects have included a Jewish Women’s Health bibliography, a short film about the spiritual meaning of challah making, and a study of female protagonists of children’s Holocaust literature.

The Lily Safra Internship Program runs from June 12th through August 4th and is open to undergraduate students from the United States and abroad. There is no US residency requirement.

Further information from their site. Note, however, that the application is not up-to-date, but rather for this past internship. A chance to plan ahead.

Good Livejournal entry by T. Senft, lecturer in media studies:

Guidlines here

The Libraries of The Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and Jerusalem
(the Schocken Library) are pleased to announce the formation of a new
on-line journal dedicated to the history of the Jewish book. This journal, entitled "Quntress: An online journal for the history, art, and culture of the Jewish book," will be published electronically on a projected annual basis, with regular updates between official publications.

Proposals are sought for a new edited collection tentatively titled, Jews and Sex. Possible contributions could include, but are not limited to, the following:

Many academic disciplines depend on analysis of primary data captured
during fieldwork. Increasingly, researchers today are using digital
methods for the whole life cycle of their primary data, from capture
to organisation, submission to a repository or archive, and later
access and dissemination in publications, teaching resources and
conference presentations. This conference and workshop will showcase
a number of projects that have been developing innovative and
sustainable ways of managing such data.

The conference will be in three parts: Academic papers on the theme
"Fieldwork: from creation to archive and back"; demonstrations of
tools and platforms for submitting and disseminating digital
ethnographic material; and a hands-on workshop to introduce
researchers to relevant recommended tools.

Held at the University of Sydney

Organised by PARADISEC

December 4 - 6, 2006

Abstract Deadline: August 30, 2006
Paper Deadline: October 20, 2006
For further details see: http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/index.php?cf=11

There's a new unit of study on offer through the School of Languages. EUST 6900, European Cultures and Identity, is a core course for the MA in European Studies. It's being taught for the first time this semester, with lecturers from across the university.

The unit looks closely at European politics, culture and history to introduce students to the issues and events that are important in Europe today. These issues include nationalisms, old and new; local and regional identity in language and culture and in the diaspora; intellectuals, recorders of the past and harbingers of the future; and the experience of everyday life for women and men across generations.

Yiddish will feature heavily in three lectures: dialectology of Yiddish; "language" wars; and Jewish natioinalisms.

The class meets Wednesday evenings.

YIVO News
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research today announced that Dr. Joachim S. Russek, the Director of the Judaica Foundation in Cracow, Poland, became this year's recipient of the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Prize. Endowed by Professor Jan Karski at YIVO in 1992, the $5,000 prize goes to authors and editors of published works documenting Polish-Jewish relations and Jewish contributions to Polish culture.