Farewell to Communism:
Howard Fast and Soviet Yiddish Writers
Tuesday, October 7 | 7:00pm
Ruth Gay Seminar in Jewish Studies
Free | RSVP: yivo.org/reservations / (212) 294-8301 x5167
Come join us for a special Members-Only Reception at 5:30pm to meet other YIVO Members, staff, and our new Albert B. Ratner Visiting Scholar in East European Jewish Literature, Professor Gennady Estraikh. The reception is only a couple of days away – RSVP today!
Novelist Howard Fast (1914-2003), remembered today as the blacklisted author of Spartacus, was one of the mosprominent Communist intellectuals in the United States until his well-publicized break with the Communist Party in 1956. Gennady Estraikh (YIVO; NYU) reveals the debates that raged in the American Yiddish press in the wake of Fast’s departure. Sponsored by the Family of Ruth Gay. Read more…
For more background information about Fast, the inner workings of the Soviet secret police, and how this all relates to Yiddish, check out our interview with Gennady Estraikh in this week’s Yedies: News from YIVO.
Making/History: Reconstructing the Gwozdziec Synagogue
Sunday, October 12 | 6:30pm
Talk
Purchase tickets
In 2011, artists Rick and Laura Brown, the owners of Handshouse Studio, set out to build a replica of the ornately painted roof and ceiling of the Gwozdziec Synagogue in Poland, one of nearly 200 wooden synagogues destroyed during World War II. Making use of traditional building and painting techniques and tools, they turned an ode to the past into an immersive, hands-on learning experience for hundreds of international students and the residents of eight Polish towns. Rick and Laura Brown will speak, along with Trillium Studios filmmakers (Raise the Roof) and project funder Irene Pletka. Come experience an essential part of Polish Jewish history in the story of a unique building’s reincarnation. Read more…
Want to learn more about the reconstruction process, life in Poland during the 17th-18th centuries, and how architecture and culture intersect? Read our interview with Rick Brown of Handshouse Studio in this week’s Yedies: News from YIVO.
More from Yedies: News from YIVO
YIVO Launches the “Vilna Project”
Last week, YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent and Director of Development Suzanne Leon visited Vilnius, Lithuania, to hold a press conference about YIVO’s new international project to preserve and digitize all of the YIVO prewar collections that survived looting by the Nazis and which are now located in both YIVO in New York and in Lithuanian repositories. Read more…
Tsemakh Shabad Exhibition at the Lithuanian Parliament
An exhibition honoring doctor and Jewish communal leader Tsemakh Shabad (Szabad; 1864-1935) opened at the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas) on September 21, 2014. Read more…
Di gantse velt af a firmeblank: The World of Jewish Letterheads
Assemble the letterheads of Jewish organizations, institutions, and individuals in Europe, North and South America, and Palestine from the 1890s to the eve of World War II in 1939 and you have a portrait of the Jewish world: transnational; diverse in language, political, and religious orientation; and flourishing. Read more…