Rachel Rojanski: Yiddish in Israel (Part 1); Dovid Braun: Yivo Summer Program 2021

• Most of this week's show was taken up with the first part of our interview with Rachel Rojanski, discussing her book Yiddish in Israel: A History, published in English by Indiana University Press in 2020. The discussion is in Yiddish. This week's show (May 26 2021) presented the first part of the discussion, with the second part set to air the following Wednesday, June 2, 2021 (and later be made available via podcast). Rachel Rojanski is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University. She is author of Conflicting Identities: Labor Zionism in North America 1905-1931 (in Hebrew) as well as many articles on political and cultural history of East European Jewish immigrants in the U.S. and Israel. About the book (blurb):

  Yiddish in Israel: A History challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities for ideological reasons, offering instead a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew cultures. Author Rachel Rojanski tells the compelling and yet unknown story of how Yiddish, the most widely used Jewish language in the pre-Holocaust world, fared in Zionist Israel, the land of Hebrew. (Additional publisher info here: https://iupress.org/9780253045140/yiddish-in-israel/)

• The interview was led by Sholem Beinfeld, professor of history emeritus at Washington University, St. Louis, and co-chief editor of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary.

• Also, we heard from Dovid Braun, Summer Program Academic Director at the Yivo Institute, giving an overview of the upcoming 2021 incarnation of the venerable Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture. Info online here: https://summerprogram.yivo.org/

• Music:

  • Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz
  • Outro instrumental music: Itzhak Perlman, Dov Seltzer, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra: Afn Veg Shteyt A Boym

Air Date: May 26, 2021