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Dear Friend of Yiddish,
As peysakh (that's how we say Passover in Yiddish) quickly approaches, everyone here at Yiddishkayt wishes you and your family a zisn peysakh, a sweet Passover.
A sheynem dank, thank you, to everyone who came to DOIKAYT last Thursday and participated in a meaningful and creative Seder. A special thanks to all the artists, performers, speakers, musicians, donors, and volunteers who helped make DOIKAYT a great success.
If you couldn't join us at DOIKAYT, don't fret! You can download and print the Hagode (Haggadah) and the interactive Seder Plate. View a photo slideshow here.
Save the date for Monday, April 27 at 7:30 pm. Join us for a screening of the documentary film "At Home in Utopia" with a panel discussion to follow. And be sure to stop by our booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on April 25 and 26. More details below.
Yiddishkayt is seeking a summer intern! If you are an undergraduate who lives in L.A. County, you may be eligible to apply. Forward this email to someone you know who may be interested in this great opportunity.
Finally, take a look at some of the great Yiddish programs being offered this summer in New York and Lithuania. If you're interested in learning Yiddish for the first time, or want to master your Yiddish, these programs may be the right fit for you. More info below.
(We regret to inform you that The Vortsman is on vacation. His usual column will return next month. Meanwhile, email him a question about Yiddish)
a zisn peysakh, a sweet Passover,
The Yiddishkayt Staff
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4/2 - DOIKAYT - PHOTOS + DOWNLOADS
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View photos from Doikayt, find your table's Seder plate, and download interactive materials to bring to your family seder.
On Thursday, April 2, Yiddishkayt and the Jewish Artists Initiative presented the third ever Doikayt. With fresh eyes, 150 participants re-interpreted the Passover story through the arts, discussion, music, and Yiddish. View the photos from this inspiring event and download resources to bring to your family seder this year. Artist Eileen Levinson designed an interactive Seder plate. Print it out and bring it to your own seder for a creative discussion starter. Download and print the Doikayt Supplemental Hagode (Haggadah), packed with Yiddish poetry and songs, visual art, and meaningful text. Bring some Yiddish to your family seder. --> Check out photos from the event--> Download the interactive Seder Plate--> View photos of the Seder plates created at Doikayt--> Download and print the Doikayt Hagode (Haggadah)
Doikayt (do-i-kite). From Yiddish. Literally "hereness." 1) The quality of being present. 2) A Yiddish political philosophy premised upon the struggle for social justice in the place where one resides. Co-produced by Yiddishkayt and the Jewish Artists Initiative (JAI) of
Southern California. Generously hosted by the Westside Jewish
Community Center. Co-sponsored by Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA), Cornerstone Theater Company, and Gesher City LA.
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4/27 - AT HOME IN UTOPIA
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Documentary Film Screening + Panel Discussion
Part of the Los Angeles Jewish Film FestivalMonday, April 27, 2009, at 7:30 pm
at Laemmle's Music Hall
9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, 90211 ( map)
$12 Adults, $9 Seniors and Students
To purchase tickets, click herePresented with the LA Jewish Film Festival, the Progressive Jewish Alliance (PJA), and the Sholem Community.
 A home of one's own: that's the American dream. But what happens when
the dreamers are immigrants, factory workers, and Communists?
In
the mid-1920s, thousands of Jewish immigrant garment workers managed to
catapult themselves out of urban slums and ghettos by pooling their
resources and building four cooperatively owned and run apartment
complexes in the Bronx. They believed that owning one's home went a
long way toward controlling one's fate.
 At Home in Utopia
focuses on the United Workers Cooperative Colony - aka the Coops - the
most grass-roots and member-driven of the Jewish labor housing
cooperatives, where life was lived in Yiddish. Beginning as a
stalwartly secular East European Jewish working class enclave, they
were part of an international movement the power of which blows minds
today.
In
the 1930s they opted to bring their passion for racial justice home, by
racially integrating their own cooperative house, with unexpected
consequences. An epic tale of the struggle for equity and justice
across two generations, the film tracks the rise and fall of one
community from the 1920s into the 1950s, paying close attention to the
passions that bound them together and those that tore them apart. Along
the way, At Home in Utopia bears witness to lives lived with
courage across the barriers of race, nation, language, convention, and
sometimes even common sense.
Join us for a panel
discussion following the screening as we explore the history and present-day lessons of the Coops. With Michal Goldman, the filmmaker; Elissa Barrett, Executive Director of PJA; Hershl Hartman, child of the Coops, Education Director of the Sholem Community and Yiddishkayt's Vortsman; with more guests to be announced. Moderated by Peter Dreier, Professor of Politics and Chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College.  --> More info--> Tickets |
4/25-4/26 - FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
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Visit the largest Yiddish book store at the L.A. Times Festival of Books!
 Saturday, April 25, 10 am to 6 pm
Sunday, April 26, 10 am to 5 pm on the UCLA Campus ( map) Free Admission, $9 Parking
 Yiddishkayt is excited to return for our third year at the L.A. Times Festival of Books. Visit our booth for an amazing assortment of books covering the rich world of Yiddish. We're bringing books in Yiddish, books about Yiddish, and books for kinderlekh, for kids. Fill your shelves at home with plays, novels, history and humor from the biggest Yiddish bookstore in L.A. (well, at least in April). |
INTERN FOR YIDDISHKAYT
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Yiddishkayt Seeks a Full-Time, Paid Summer Intern!
 JOB DESCRIPTION:
- Support research, development and administration of new and emerging projects.
- Assist with planning and facilitating cultural and educational events.
- Communicate with members, artists, and community through email, phone, and mail.
- Assist with marketing, PR, fundraising and grant writing activities.
- Maintain library of resources and communicate with citywide Yiddish groups.
- Assist in daily administration of a non-profit arts/culture organization.
EXPERIENCE: We seek an organized, creative, and motivated multi-tasker with excellent written and interpersonal communication skills. Computer knowledge is a must (Mac preferable). Knowledge of Yiddish, the non-profit sector, and the L.A. Jewish community is helpful but not necessary.
DATES: Beginning in June and ending in August, for a 10-week period.
STIPEND: $3,500
ELIGIBILITY: Internship position is limited to currently enrolled undergraduates who reside or attend college in Los Angeles County, and who will have completed at least one semester of college by June 2009 and will not graduate before December 2009.
LOCATION: The Wiltern Office Tower, 3780 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 1000, Los Angeles, CA 90010.
SEND RESUME TO:
yiddishkayt@yiddishkayt.org or by fax to (213) 365-0702.
Cover letter, references welcomed.
Please send resume by April 25th.
More info posted on our website here.
LA County Arts Commission: This internship is sponsored by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. More than 125 undergraduate interns will participate in the program this year at 95 performing, presenting, and literary nonprofit arts organizations and municipal arts agencies throughout LA County. In addition to their full-time 10 week paid internship, interns will participate in one educational event as part of the program, which is funded by the Getty Foundation. The educational event is designed to provide interns with a broader perspective of the vibrant arts and cultural landscape of the County. For additional information on the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Arts Internship Program, and for a complete list of all the internships offered this summer, visit the Arts Commission website at www.lacountyarts.org.
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STUDY YIDDISH THIS SUMMER!
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The list of Summer programs below should excite anyone who's even remotely interested in delving deeper into Yiddish language and culture. If you don't speak a work of Yiddish, by the end of any of these programs you'll be talking and joking in Yiddish. If you have some previous knowledge, by the end of the program you'll be thinking and dreaming in Yiddish.
We
strongly encourage you to take advantage of any of the following
programs, which vary in location, length and price. The following
descriptions are from the programs themselves, click on their titles
for more information.
VILNIUS YIDDISH INSTITUTE: YIDDISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE
July 26 - August 21, 2009
At Vilnius University in Lithuania
Four levels of language instruction by outstanding teachers, from total beginners to advanced. Plus a rich cultural program of lectures, tours, and music, including: - Local and international experts on cultural topics
- Exciting performances, film, and student-participatory musical events
- Holocaust Survivors, Lithuanian scholars, specialists from around the world
- Local and Jewish history seminars offered by those who experienced it
- Tours of Vilna, Kovno and countryside towns
The Vilnius Yiddish Institute is the preeminent center for Yiddish scholarship in Eastern Europe, including continuing original research on the language and its culture as well as the provision of university level instruction throughout the academic year and at the Summer Program.
THE SUMMER LITERARY SERIES: JEWISH LITHUANIA PROGRAM
July 19 - August 2, 2009
Tour of Eastern Europe
This is your chance to participate in a unique travel experience, where Litvak Jewish life - its profoundly rich past, its vibrant present and its challenging future - is open to you.
This is a first-time-ever, unique, in-depth program for English
speaking folks who have a serious interest in the Jewish literature and
heritage of the Lithuanian lands (a territory called Líte in Yiddish, Lita
in modern Hebrew or English; it encompasses what is today Lithuania,
Belarus, Latvia and more). The center of gravity of this literature was
for hundreds of years the city called Vilna - Vílne in
Yiddish, known as the "Jerusalem of Lithuania" for its rich rabbinic,
literary, and cultural heritage. In today's Vilnius, you will explore
the scant traces of bygone generations and learn of an enormously
complex and rich Jewish literature that was created over many centuries
in three Jewish languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish. You will learn
about these cultures "from inside" and come to see to what degree they
constituted a separate civilization that thrived for centuries,
developed continually by a peaceful minority.
URIEL WEINREICH PROGRAM IN YIDDISH LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, & CULTUREJune 29 - August 7, 2009
NYU Manhattan Campus in New York City
This program offers peerless instruction in Yiddish language, and an in-depth exploration of the literature and culture of East European/American Jewry. The core of the program is an intensive language course daily at one of four levels, designed to develop proficiency in speaking, reading and writing, as well as cultural literacy. As an essential complement to the morning course, students are required to attend afternoon Yiddish conversation classes, workshops and lecture series.
NYU is home to the Skirball Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies, the largest university program in Jewish studies in North America. YIVO is located just a few blocks away at the Center for Jewish History, where students may become acquainted with YIVO's extensive library and archives, one of the world's major collections of materials for the study of East European and American Yiddish culture.
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