Below is information from December 2020– stay tuned for 2021 information!
>>> CLICK HERE FOR THE 2020 DETAILED PROGRAM <<<
Daily programs feature workshops by internationally-renowned artists, activists, performers, and scholars. Join them on Zoom for the following daytime programs and more!
1000 Jewish Cookbooks – Drawing from one of the largest collections of Jewish cookbooks in private hands, pioneering Yiddish folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (POLIN Museum, Warsaw) will talk about how she amassed more than 6000 cookbooks, of which more than 1000 are Jewish cookbooks, over the course of lifetime, starting in childhood.
Wexology – A series of 3 talks filled with musings on Yiddish language and culture by the brilliant Toronto-based Yiddish humorist Michael Wex (author of the NY Times best-seller Born to Kvetch and Rhapsody in Schmaltz).
Cartoons of Sholem Asch – An illustrated talk by David Mazower, Asch’s great-grandson, who shares some of his favorite Sholem Asch (famed Yiddish writer/author of God of Vengeance) cartoons from the Yiddish press and explains the controversies and personalities behind the images.
Folklore of Jewish Holidays – A look at Hanukkah, Purim, and Passover with renowned folklorist Itzik Gottesman (U. Texas at Austin).
BOOK LAUNCH for Yiddish: A Biography of a Language – a discussion featuring renowned Yiddish scholars Jeffrey Shandler (Rutgers) and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett in celebration of Shandler’s new book, which relates the multifaceted history of Yiddish in the form of a biographical profile.
Power of the Pen: A Poetry Writing Workshop – Celebrated poet Irena Klepfisz’s (the 2016 Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Awardee) inspiring work is infused with activism and calls for social justice. Whether you’re an active poet, or want to take your first try at composing verse, join Klepfisz for a special multi-day writing workshop.
Whitechapel Noise – A series of three lectures on pre-WWI Yiddish songs in London by social/cultural historian & Yiddish singer/composer Vivi Lachs.
The Lost World of African-American Cantors – Join award winning record and radio producer Henry Sapoznik for a look at the rarely-explored social history of African-American cantors and an in-depth analysis of the music of der shvartzer khazn, Thomas LaRue Jones.
Ashkenazic Family Names: What Our Names Mean About Our Families – Binyumen Schaechter explores what family names say about our family histories. In this 2-part workshop conducted in Yiddish, we’ll find out about our ancestors from 200 years ago, when they took a family name: what kind of work they did, what their first names were, what they looked like or behaved like, what their socio-economic status was, and where they came from.
BOOK LAUNCH: JEWels – Teasing out the Poetry in Jewish Humor and Storytelling – City Lore’s Steve Zeitlin hosts a lively session of Jewish jokes and tales as poems featuring a mini-minion of top NYC storytellers, humorists, and poets.
Best of the Bubbe Awards: Creativity in Pandemic Times – Nicole and Edy Borger of the Sao Paulo, Brazil-based Kleztival share some highlights of the first-ever Bubbe Awards, an international competition presenting awards for best new Yiddish song, klezmer composition and Jewish Music Video.
BOOK LAUNCH: The Music of the Mitsve Tants in the Courts of the Hasidic Rebbes. Musician/researcher Binyomen Ginzberg presents on a Hasidic wedding ritual (a celebratory dance in which honored male guests dance “with” the bride at ends of a long chord) and how this ritual reflects social patterns within Hasidic society.
Brownsville Yesterday & Today – activist/community history researcher Raul Rothblatt leads a panel on exploring the intertwined histories of the Jewish and African-American communities of Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood, once the world’s densest Jewish settlement.
BOOK LAUNCH: Fun Yener Zayt Shvel / On the Other Side of the Threshold – Sheva Zucker & Gitl Schaechter Viswanath present (in Yiddish) on Zucker’s new book of selected articles from the Yiddish magazine Afn Shvel.
Mixed Dancing and Jewish Modernity – Sonia Gollance (Ohio State) discusses the use of mixed-sex dance scenes in literature throughout the ages as a source of entertainment and expression of concern with Jewish modernity.
An Exploration of Jewish Papercuts – In this hands-on workshop, Deborah Ugoretz teaches about the history, symbols, inscriptions, motivation and uses of paper cuts among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Check back soon as we announce additional programs and speakers!
Yiddish Language – Classes targeted to beginning, intermediate and advanced students of Yiddish featuring Yiddish teachers Nikolay “Kolya” Borodulin (Workmen’s Circle), Miriam Isaacs, and Asya Schulman (Yiddish Book Center).
YNY Visual Arts Exhibition – Take a look back on the last five years of YNY art exhibitions by visiting the online exhibition Finf Yor! – Five Years of Art from Yiddish New York!
YNY Film Festival – Award-winning director Josh Waletzky curates what has become the world’s leading Yiddish film festival! More information forthcoming.
YNY Theater and the YNY Kids’ Program – Together at last! Join us for an intergenerational puppet theater creation, based on the 1937 socialist marionette allegory, lyalkes (Puppets), by Motl Gilinski.
Klezmer Instrumental Instruction – YNY’s world-class instrumental klezmer faculty is focused on teaching musicians of all ages and abilities. This year we are excited to feature Grammy-winning trumpeter Frank London (The Klezmatics), Romanian-Jewish violin innovators Jake Shulman-Ment and Keryn Kleiman, charismatic clarinetist/composer Michael Winograd, renowned violinist Deborah Strauss, trombone innovator/Pew fellow Daniel Blacksberg, Moldavian accordion specialist Christina Crowder, violinist Amy Zakar (The Klez Dispensers), Latvian klezmer accordionist Ilya Shneyveys, genre-bending clarinetist Margot Leverett, Montreal-based clarinetist Zilien Biret, and leading tsimbl (cimbalom/hammered dulcimer) revivalist Pete Rushefsky.
Yiddish Song – From unaccompanied folk ballads and nigunim (wordless Hasidic melodies) to choral arrangements to art songs to contemporary Yiddish songs, Yiddish New York brings together the world’s leading interpreters of a variety of Yiddish vocal traditions. Whether you’re just starting out with Yiddish song or are an experienced maven, there is something for you! This year we’re pleased to again feature Josh Waletzky, Ethel Raim, Sasha Lurje, Cantor Sarah Myerson (Kane Street Synagogue), Daniel Kahn, and Joanne Borts. We welcome Zoë Aqua, Dmitri Gaskin, Adah Hetko, Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky, and Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell to the faculty as featured presenters in the 3-day course New Generation of Yiddish Song.
Yiddish Dance – Dancing together while apart! Two returning YNY faculty, Avia Moore and Steve Weintraub, teach the gestures and stylings of Yiddish dance through the study of source materials and the pedagogy of their teachers.
Social Justice – Led by activists Jeyn Levison (of the national social justice advocacy group Race Forward) and Jonah Boyarin, who was recently named one of the Jewish Week’s 36 under 36, the YNY Social Justice program explores the challenges and opportunities of our times for social activism with a sensibility informed by Yiddish culture and values.
Teen Programs – OBIE-winning theater artist Jenny Romaine runs the Teens program, which integrates arts and social activism. No prior knowledge of Yiddish is expected, but watch out – your kids might come out knowing more Yiddish than you do!
YNY 2020 Symposium: The Legacies of Russian-Jewish Musical Ethnography – On our final day, Wednesday, December 30, spend the morning in conversation with leading scholars and performers to celebrate and critique the continuing influence of early-mid 20th century Russian-Jewish musicologists on contemporary scholarship and Yiddish musical practice.
The Great Yiddish Culture Crawl! – There’s something for everyone – just pick a room! In this final event on Wednesday afternoon you and all you friends will be able to wander from Zoom room to Zoom room– behind every door there will be a great program, and you’ll get a taste of the rich offerings of the previous 5 days.
More information and class announcements coming soon!
SO NU, READY TO SEE MORE?…