Blog

Essays, interviews, listicles, podcasts, and much more, covering all aspects of Yiddish culture.

Interview

Ironic Inversions: Rare Soviet Yiddish Songs of WWII

At the inter­na­tion­al sym­po­sium Glob­al Yid­dish Cul­ture: 1938 – 1949,” singer-song­writer Psoy Korolenko and Pro­fes­sor Anna Shtern­shis brought to life lost Yid­dish songs of the Holo­caust in an all-new con­cert and lec­ture program. 

Blog

A Clan on the Move: A Zelmenyaner Family Tree

How to make sense of a fam­i­ly saga that charts the very cre­ation of the Sovi­et Jew: begin by mak­ing a fam­i­ly tree.

Interview

Dreams and Technicalities: Birobidzhan Reimagined in Song

Lis­ten to a con­tem­po­rary rethink­ing of Biro­bidzhan, the longed-for but most­ly imag­i­nary Jew­ish ter­ri­to­r­i­al project.

Blog

Jews in the Archives: A Conversation with Gennady Estraikh

Gen­nady Estraikh speaks with Man­ag­ing Edi­tor Sarah Ellen Zarrow about the ground­break­ing project A Com­pre­hen­sive His­to­ry of the Jews of the Sovi­et Union,” a sev­en-year ini­tia­tive led by researchers in NYU’s Skir­ball Depart­ment of Hebrew and Juda­ic Studies.

Interview

An Interview with Boris Sandler

The long­time edi­tor of the Yid­dish Forverts and author of four­teen books spoke with Sarah Ponichtera about grow­ing up in Sovi­et Mol­davia, being an immi­grant, and reading. 

Interview

Imagining a Dictionary for Solidarity: A Conversation with Artist Yevgeniy Fiks on Russian, Yiddish, and Transnational Queer Dialects

Anna Ele­na Tor­res talks with Yev­geniy Fiks about Inter­na­tion­al­ism, queer pol­i­tics, utopias and imag­i­nary map­ping, and Sovi­et Yiddish.

Blog

We Are More Than the Oppressions We Are Forced to Bear: On Being Queer and Jewish in Moscow

Joseph Heller reflects on oppres­sion, sol­i­dar­i­ty, mutu­al prej­u­dice, and Yev­geniy Fiks’ new book. 

Blog

"Himl un Erd: Artifacts, Imagination, and Speculative Russian Jewish Pasts and Futures"

Lipsker reviews Yev­geniy Fik­s’s exhi­bi­tion Himl un Erd, a project that bold­ly probes the con­nec­tions between Russ­ian-Jew­ish his­to­ry and the Sovi­et space-explo­ration projects. 

Blog

Soviet Ambivalence and Yiddish Continuities at “Hidden in Plain Sight: Yiddish in the Socialist Bloc and its Transnationality”

In its mul­ti­lin­gual­ism and mul­ti­vo­cal­i­ty, this work­shop on Cold War Yid­dish was an anti-eulo­gy that spoke to after­lives instead of endings.

Blog

Briv funem arkhiv: An American Package for Soviet Jews

A melo­dra­mat­ic stu­dio pho­to­graph illus­trates the widen­ing gap between the Amer­i­can and Sovi­et branch­es of the author’s family.

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