Past Events

Join the American Society for Jewish Music and YIVO for a concert offering a beautiful and culturally rich experience of how various male composers from different eras captured the female experience.

Gali Drucker Bar-Am, in a conversation led by Barbara Mann, describes how Yiddish-Israeli writers played a vital role in shaping Israel’s cultural identity in its early years.

Ryan MacEvoy McCullough and Sahun Sam Hong perform Joel Engel’s A krants yidishe folksnigunim (1924): a collection of Jewish folksongs, dances, Hasidic nigunim, and religious melodies in arrangements for piano and four hand piano.

Translating Jewishness: Conversations on Culture and Civilization draws on the collection of the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization to engage two key modes of Jewish expression: anthologies and translations.

Marek Tuszewicki examines folk healing practices performed by Eastern European Jews and their intersection with modern medical knowledge, in a discussion led by cultural critic and playwright Rokhl Kafrissen.

Rebecca Margolis, in conversation with Olga Gershenson, investigates how translated and subtitled Yiddish dialogue in film and television reimagines Jewish lore and tells new stories, where the supernatural looms over the narrative.

Zeke Levine considers themes of rurality in 20th century Yiddish-American folksong amongst Eastern European antecedents and the emerging American folk revival.

Tony Michels analyzes left-wing Jewish politics since the 19th century, focusing on the seminal Jewish Russian revolutionaries Leon Trotsky and Chaim Zhitlowsky and their radically different answers to the predicament of modern Jewry.

For 2024’s commemoration of the Jewish community of Vilna, Bret Werb discusses Shmerke Kaczerginski’s work collecting songs of the Holocaust. The lecture will be followed by musical settings of Kaczerginski’s poetry performed by Temma Schaechter and Binyumen Schaechter.

Nancy Sinkoff, Jonathan Karp, James Loeffler, and Howard Lupovitch delve into their new volume, A Jew in the Street: New Perspectives on European Jewish History, about how early modern and modern Jews navigated schisms between Jewish community and European society.

Eighteenth-century London was a cosmopolitan and tolerant city, attracting Jewish musicians from across Europe—from Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Italian, and Eastern descent—though conditions would soon change as antisemitism increased. Join the Raritan Players for a concert exploring the music of Jews amidst this cultural shift.

Esther de Carpentras is an opera-bouffe composed by Darius Milhaud and based on a text by Armand Lunel. Premiered in 1938, the opera references the literary and theatrical interpretations of the Purim story and integrates the Jewish heritage of Milhaud and Lunel with that of papal domains of southern France.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly conversational class is for students who already have some experience speaking in Yiddish, can hold a basic conversation, and want to take their self-expression to the next level.

This weekly conversational class covers grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for students with some basic familiarity with spoken Yiddish.

Join us for a concert of Jewish choral music performed by the acclaimed New York Virtuoso Singers, under the direction of its award-winning conductor Harold Rosenbaum. The concert includes music by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers, as well as new and exciting Jewish composers.

Commemorate the life and achievements of Yiddish culture advocate Philip (Fishl) Kutner through a virtual tribute program complete with lectures, theater performances, Yiddish conversation, and resources for learning Yiddish.

Rachelle Grossman, Matt Johnson, Harriet Murav, and Christin Zühlke, in a panel discussion moderated by Erin McGlothlin, delve into the elaborate dynamics of Yiddish writing and publishing across transnational literary networks after the Holocaust.

In Family Treasures Lost & Found, journalist Karen A. Frenkel investigates her parents’ unspoken WWII stories. Join the American Jewish Historical Society and YIVO for a film screening of this documentary, followed by a talkback with filmmakers Frenkel and Marcia Rock.

Michael Wex leads an in-depth analysis of Yiddish, revealing how Jewish texts and non-Jewish concepts have been incorporated into the language.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Join YIVO on a fascinating journey of discovery across northern Italy from Torino, Genova via Firenze, Parma, Modena, Ferrara, Padua to Trieste and Venezia, discovering the fabled Jewish history, unfamiliar to most of us.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Explore women’s experiences at the turn of the twentieth century, a transformative period in modern Eastern European Jewish history that included industrialization, mass migrations, and the rise of nationalisms.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Join YIVO for the first conference and festival organized by and featuring formerly Orthodox Jewish scholars, activists, performers, and artists, as we explore the cultural achievements that emerged from this break with tradition.

Read, listen to, and talk about short stories, essays, journalistic writing, folklore, and more from a literary and linguistic point of view.

Join YIVO for a discussion with Michael Gawenda about his new autobiography, My Life as a Jew, led by editor at large of the New York Jewish Week Andrew Silow-Carroll.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly reading class covers grammar and how to read Yiddish texts with the help of a dictionary. It is for students new to Yiddish, especially those interested in obtaining reading proficiency for academic or archival research.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Advanced I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Advanced I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This mini-course will explore four major arenas where changes occurred in the shtetl—spirituality, politics, gender, and culture—dispelling the myth of the shtetl as a stagnant and isolated Jewish community.

This weekly class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This twice-weekly class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Advanced II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This program explores the secretive practices of biographical Arabic song-making among Iraqi Jews living in Israel. Liliana Carrizo considers how these musical-culinary remembrances relate to theories of ghosting and hauntology, and brings them into a conversation with the burgeoning field of gastromusicology.

Join YIVO for the first US performance by The Bashevis Singers, a band with songs that span centuries of Yiddish and have brought to life classic 20th century folksongs and new compositions based on mystical poetry written by legends of Jewish culture.

Karolina Szymaniak presents the roles Chaim Chajes and Daniel Fajnsztejn played in shaping modern ethnography, and what could have become a new field of study if not for the outbreak of World War II and the Holocaust. Delivered in Yiddish.

Michael Lukin explores little-known Eastern Yiddish musical folklore, which was an integral part of Jewish culture and evolved in meaning and function over time. Delivered in English.

Marion Aptroot explores Isaac Wetzlar's ideas for reforming Jewish education in Ashkenaz in the mid-18th century. Delivered in Yiddish.

Moshe Taube explores the syntax, morphology, and the lexicon of testimonies written in "Loshn Ashkenaz" (Yiddish and German) to learn about the the development of spoken and written Yiddish. Delivered in Yiddish.

Join YIVO for a discussion about Anita Norich’s new translation of Celia Dropkin's Desires, with Norich in conversation with Yiddish Book Center’s Director of Publishing and Public Programs, Lisa Newman.

Dina Porat discusses WWII partisan, poet, and intellectual Abba Kovner's attempts to preserve East European Jewish culture by creating a new kind of community at Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh.

Come and see Vienna, Prague, and Budapest: cities of Habsburg glory and Jewish memory. This tour will visit beautiful synagogues, unrivaled museums, and landmarks of Jewish religious life and secular genius.

Elissa Bemporad explores the different forms of Jewish resistance to the wave of unprecedented violence that devastated the Jewish communities of Ukraine in 1918-1921. Delivered in Yiddish.

Join YIVO to celebrate the legacy of the prolific painter Morris Katz by sharing your Morris Katz story.

Sunny Yudkoff examines the frequently mentioned but little read The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten to explore Rosten's vision of Yiddish joy. Delivered in English.

Jeffrey Shandler, in conversation with Deborah Dash Moore, explores the Museum of the Homes of the Past, an abandoned YIVO project that intended to document the European Jewish lives, places, and ways of living that were destroyed during the Holocaust.

Co-presented by YIVO and The Jewish Board, join us for the opening of this new exhibition which traces the history of the National Desertion Bureau and includes never before seen records, documents, and photographs from the organization’s voluminous archives.

Join YIVO for an enlightening journey to Lithuania and Poland. Examine the life that was lived as you reconnect with your own heritage. Discover the remarkable treasures of old Warsaw, Kraków, Vilnius, and Białowieża.

Naomi Seidman, in conversation with Ken Frieden, explores the academic interest in aiming to detect Jewish influences on Sigmund Freud, his own feelings about being Jewish, and suppressed traces of Jewishness in his thought.

In this talk, Jakub Zygmunt will present a linguistic biography of Celia Dropkin, discuss selected translingual practices found in her work, and demonstrate what the translingual framework can tell us new about Dropkin’s work in particular and Yiddish literature in general.

Spencer Sunshine discusses a new wave of aspiring neo-Nazi terrorists and the inspiration they draw from James Mason’s Siege, which praises terrorism, serial killers, and Charles Manson.

Nathan Lucky traces the strategic decisions made by key figures in the Jewish journalistic world during a time of crisis that fundamentally reshaped how news was categorized, gathered, circulated, and consumed.

Join Lorin Sklamberg for his first-ever concert of the ballads of the beloved legendary Yiddish bard of Krakow, Mordkhe Gebirtig, focusing on the lyrics contained in Gebiritg's hand-written notebooks housed in the YIVO Archives.

Considering an array of sources, including prewar memoirs, religious and secular self-government records, and court files, Miranda Brethour will describe how rural leadership was an important site of interaction between Jews and Christians in the Lublin countryside leading up to German occupation.

Join YIVO to celebrate the launch of our newest exhibition, The Instant Art of Morris Katz, with a reception catered by The Challah Fairy and exhibit tours offered by YIVO Senior Academic Advisor & Director of Exhibitions, Eddy Portnoy.

Join YIVO for a performance of Jacob Weinberg’s Ten Jewish Songs (1933), a collection of Jewish folksongs, holiday songs, dances, and Hasidic nigunim, performed by Thomas Kotcheff. Famous for writing the first Hebrew language opera, The Pioneers (Hechalutz), Weinberg was a prolific composer with many songs, choral works, chamber compositions, and oratorios to his name.

Netta Ehrlich explores the history of Jewish resistance to pogroms in the Russian Empire before and during the failed 1905 revolution.

Join YIVO for a concert exploring Yiddish and Hebrew songs of the Weimar Republic.

Noa Tsaushu analyzes the works of Jewish Ukrainian artist Issachar Ber Ryback (1897-1935).

This workshop, led by YIVO’s Reference and Outreach Archivist Ruby Landau-Pincus, will cover what information researchers can expect to discover in a finding aid and will provide an overview of a range of finding aid formats, from digital finding aids to legacy finding aids and other resources available for navigating collections in the YIVO Archives.

The Congress for Jewish Culture, Friends of the Bund, the Jewish Labor Committee, Workers Circle, and YIVO join together to commemorate and remember the bravery of the partisans of the Warsaw Ghetto. This event takes place in Warsaw Ghetto Memorial Plaza in Riverside Park, NYC.

Tea Arciszewska's Miryeml was heralded as a powerful memorial to the million children murdered in the Holocaust. This nearly-forgotten modernist masterpiece is now available in English translation for the first time.

This concert introduces two German-Jewish composers in American exile: Paul Aron and Rosy Geiger-Kullmann. Part of the series “Opera and Democracy: Listening to Exile.”

Historian Jeffrey Herf will lead a panel featuring scholars Meir Litvak, Norman Goda, Karin Stögner, and David Hirsh exploring responses to Hamas’ October 7th massacres and to the state of Israel’s subsequent military response.

Join us for a 150-year celebration of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), one of the 20th century’s most important and influential composers.

In this lecture, Michael Hagemeister uses the Bern trial as a case study of Jewish legal self-defense in order to shed light on both the widely disseminated antisemitic publication, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and the concerted efforts against the “Antisemitic International” in the 1930s, which have received little attention from historians.

Amanda Ruppenthal-Stein examines performances of Ferdinand Hiller's Israel’s Siegesgesang, showing how Hiller clearly recognized his Jewish heritage and was acknowledged as a member of the broader Jewish community, regardless of his baptismal status.

In this talk, Winson Chu focuses on how police records in Poland and survivor sources at YIVO enable a better understanding of prewar connections with wartime perpetrators.

Join YIVO for a screening of a documentary about comics artist Drew Friedman's evolution from underground comics to the cover of The New Yorker, complete with interviews with his friends and colleagues.

Join YIVO for the album launch concert of in a dark blue night, a new album by Pulitzer Prize nominated composer Alex Weiser, comprising two song cycles that explore Jewish immigrant New York City.

Barbara Mann explores the publishing history of Yiddish and Hebrew little magazines, their content, physical features, and readership.

Historians Benny Morris and Jeffrey Herf discuss the international politics surrounding Israel’s establishment, the causes and nature of the war of 1948, and the controversies of how this history is understood in contemporary discourse.

Celebrate the launch of our newest online course about Jewish comedy, which delves into the history of Jewish comedy and its development in the United States.

Join us in celebrating Purim this year with a dramatic and festive telling of the story of Esther, Mordechai, Haman, and King Ahasuerus, punctuated by thrilling performances of klezmer music.

Join YIVO for a discussion with Marwan Muasher, Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Jordanian foreign minister and deputy prime minister, about Muasher's views on “the day after” in Gaza.

Join YIVO for a performance of Joel Engel’s Five Piano Pieces (1923): a collection of Jewish folksongs, dances, and Hasidic nigunim in virtuosic piano arrangements, performed by pianist Thomas Kotcheff.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Join us for a concert-lecture exploring the Yiddish intelligentsia's response to the Scottsboro Trials, one of the most renowned miscarriages of justice in the history of American jurisprudence.

Glenn Dynner examines the Hasidic revival in Poland on the eve of the Holocaust, disproving notions of late Hasidic decadence and decline and transforming our understanding of Polish Jewry during its final hour. A performance of Hasidic niggunim by Lorin Sklamberg will follow the presentation.

In this class students will read, listen to, and discuss 20th century Yiddish short stories in a variety of forms and styles. It is appropriate for students at the higher intermediate and advanced levels.

In a discussion led by Eddy Portnoy, Nathan Cohen explores Jewish reading practices alongside the rise of Yiddish by delving into publishing policies of Yiddish books and newspapers, popular literary genres of the time, the development of Jewish public libraries, as well as personal reflections of reading experiences.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Join YIVO for a conversation with Jeremiah Lockwood and Jessica Roda in celebration of their new books that offer insights into the masculine and feminine art worlds of Hasidic and Litvish-Yeshivish Jews today. The program will conclude with performances from Cantor Yoel Kohn and actress Malky Goldman.

This weekly conversational class is for students who already have some experience speaking in Yiddish, can hold a basic conversation, and want to take their self-expression to the next level.

This weekly conversational class is for students who already have some experience speaking in Yiddish, can hold a basic conversation, and want to take their self-expression to the next level.

This weekly conversational class covers grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for students with some basic familiarity with spoken Yiddish.

Through the prism of New York’s Lower East Side, Elissa Sampson examines the historical interactions seen in Jewish urban immigration, United States industrialization, and processes of social and geographical mobility.

Abraham Lichtenbaum explores the work of Yiddish writers Perets Hirshbeyn and H.-D. Nomberg, who sought to capture their era and a picture of life across the Americas and Israel in their writing.

Abraham Lichtenbaum explores the work of Yiddish writers Perets Hirshbeyn and H.-D. Nomberg, who sought to capture their era and a picture of life across the Americas and Israel in their writing.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Beginner III&IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

M. Syd Rosen explores what it means to be a Jewish radical and whether Jewish culture radicalized New York — or if it was New York that radicalized Jewish culture.

Yaad Biran examines key Yiddish writers who visited Palestine to understand their ideological points of view, appreciate the literary aspects of their writings, and attempt to recreate their vision of “Yidishland.”

Samuel Glauber examines Jewish engagement with modern occultism, with a focus on eastern European Jewry and its diaspora.

Alissa Valles, in conversation with Jonathan Brent, discusses her translations of rediscovered Polish writer Zuzanna Ginczanka’s sole published book and uncollected poems.

Aleksandra Jakubczak illuminates the link between the changing economy and Jewish courtship and marriage in Eastern Europe.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Historians Matthias Küntzel and Jeffrey Herf discuss the origins of Hamas, the history of Islamic antisemitism, and Islamic antisemitism's causal significance in the war of 1947-1948.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Are you thinking of returning to the Summer Program to continue your advanced studies? Join Summer Program faculty and staff for a brief information session about YIVO’s advanced levels.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intermediate I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This twice-weekly intensive class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for students who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Intermediate I&II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Advanced I&II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Beginner I&II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Marc Caplan examines the historical significance and legendary allure of Weimar culture by considering three of its most significant Yiddish writers: Moyshe Kulbak, Dovid Bergelson, and Der Nister.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Advanced III&IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Intensive Advanced V&VI Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for students who have completed Beginner IV Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

Ilana Webster-Kogen will consider ethnographic material from across North African ritual, proposing a reading of exile that centers mystical and postcolonial thought, Jewish-Muslim intimacies, and the power of giving voice to text.

This weekly reading class covers grammar and how to read Yiddish texts with the help of a dictionary. It is for students new to Yiddish, especially those interested in obtaining reading proficiency for academic or archival research.

Anna Elena Torres, in conversation with Amelia Glaser, discusses her newly published book examining Yiddish poetry to offer an original literary study of the Jewish anarchist movement.

Join YIVO and the International Association of Yiddish Clubs for a "community read" of Sholem Aleichem's “Ven ikh bin Roytshild,” led by Dr. Raphael (Refoyl) Finkel.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at YIVO’s Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of YIVO's Summer Program for a brief information session.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at YIVO’s Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of YIVO's Summer Program for a brief information session.

Join us for a concert centered on exploring the human experience through Jewish texts and music.

Join YIVO for a performance of the Yale Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies' newest album, Shotns/Shadows, based on poems and songs from interviews with Holocaust survivors recorded by the Fortunoff Archive.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at YIVO’s Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of YIVO's Summer Program for a brief information session.

Incorporating showtunes, lesser-known songs, storytelling, and scholarship, this cabaret invites audience members to consider the historical narratives of musicals in addition to enjoying the pleasure they provide.

Malena Chinski examines Shmerke Kaczerginski’s postwar life and work, from Vilna through Lodz and Paris to Buenos Aires, and his research and song collecting activities throughout this period.

Look back on more than 150 years of the Yiddish press in the United States, examining its role as a vehicle of acculturation, a forum for political and ideological debates, and a seedbed for the growth of a mass culture among Jews worldwide.

Abraham Lichtenbaum explores the modernizing project of classical Yiddish writers Mendel Moykher-Sforim, I.L. Peretz, and Sholem Aleichem.

Dr. Eric Goldman explores why Yiddish has resurfaced on the screen in Europe, North America, and Israel, what has drawn creative artists to making Yiddish-language work, and the themes that they have chosen for their works.

The former Warsaw Ghetto site is both a symbol and a place of history. Elżbieta Janicka outlines the history of the site, examines the narratives conveyed by its design, and considers how it relates to 21st century politics of Poland.

Through readings of Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad and the diary of Yitskhok Rudashevski, Jonathan Brent explores two different visions of victory over the anti-human Nazi ideology and violence.

Using books, Hasidic websites, social media, newspapers, and pashkeviln (“broadsides”), Nathaniel Deutsch examines the history of Hasidism in America, dating back to the massive waves of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Irena Klepfisz focuses on creating a final draft – the process of completing a poem and understanding when we should stop working on it.

Samuel Kassow explores Jewish reactions to Nazi persecution in poetry, song, and writing from the Warsaw, Lodz, and Vilna ghettos.

Ilan Stavans explores the history and culture of the Jews of Argentina, from the immigration to the agricultural colonies at the end of the 19th century, to the terrorist attack against the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina), and beyond.

Tony Michels explores the long history of Jews and the American left from the late 19th century through the era of the New Left and beyond.

Jonathan Karp examines the extraordinary role Jews played in the development of American popular music, particularly the Rock ‘n’ Roll and classic Rock eras of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Hasia Diner explores how foodways, including ingredients, dishes, and ideas about eating, functioned both before migration to the United States and afterwards.

Curt Leviant examines the works of seven major early 19th to mid-20th century Yiddish writers to illuminate the life and culture of Jews in Eastern Europe.

For the 2024 Winter Program Keynote Lecture, Jan Grabowski sheds light on the origins of the current political situation in Poland as well as its impact on Holocaust memory and Holocaust education in Poland, Europe, and beyond.

Vicky Ash-Shifriss examines the world of Yiddish children's literature through the motif of bears and bear cubs.

Yiddish musicians and researchers Isabel Frey and Benjy Fox-Rosen present a thought-provoking concert-lecture on Holocaust memory and cultural expectations. Followed by a Q&A with the performers, moderated by Samantha Cooper and Gordon Dale.

Eve Jochnowitz follows the development of the Yiddish recipe in written form with special attention to the tastes and culinary practices of the Yiddish world.

Rose Waldman explores the task of a translator, how they make stylistic and connotative decisions, and the particular challenges of translating from Yiddish to English.