Yiddish 1

August 12, 2018 by J-Wire Newsdesk
Read on for article

The World Jewish Congress and its International Yiddish Centre has hosted the International Commemorative Conference of Yiddish Culture and Language in western Ukraine, as part of the Jewish Culture Days in Bukovina celebration.

The conference featured enlightening conversations and presentation by renowned scholars and researchers from all over the world, who will present their lectures and papers in Yiddish, English, Ukrainian and Russian.

The location of this year’s event is particularly noteworthy, as Czernowitz is the home of the very first international Yiddish Language Conference, convened 110 years ago as the first non-party confab to deal with the role of Yiddish in Jewish life. The forum proclaimed Yiddish a modern Jewish language with a developing high culture.

The celebration this week was convened at the initiative of the WJC’s International Yiddish Center in Vilnius, which since its inception in 2015 has provided dozens of courses to more than 6,500 students around the world.

Ahead of the conference, WJC CEO and Executive Vice President Robert Singer said: “The World Jewish Congress is committed to the preservation and critical study of the Yiddish language and culture and sees great value in reflecting on its core roots in the development of modern Jewish history. Just 70 years ago, we witnessed a severe decline in the place of Yiddish within Jewish society, and many believed that the language and culture died along with the six million victims of the Holocaust. It is encouraging and invigorating to be part of the renaissance of Yiddish, and to see it expand into the circles of the next generation of Jewish leaders.

“We must do everything possible to remember the millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews, to preserve their language and culture, to transfer their spiritual treasures to future generations, and introduce these values into all systems of Jewish formal and informal education around the world,” Singer said.

The conference was co-organized and sponsored under the partnership of a number of organizations and individuals, including the World Jewish Congress and its International Yiddish Center, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Center for the Study of Culture and History of Eastern European Jewry at the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” in Kiev, the Yuri Fedkovitch State University in Czernowitz, the Czernowitz Municipality, the Museum of Culture and History of Bukovina Jewry, the European-Asian Jewish Congress, the Va’ad (Federation of Jewish Communities and Organizations of Ukraine), and the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter.

The WJC’s International Yiddish Culture Centre was established in 2014, under the leadership of Singer and Yitzhack Averbuch, and has provided Yiddish instruction in dozens of countries to thousands of teachers, students, community workers, youth leaders, and researchers of Jewish culture. Through this program, participants are able to touch on the wealth of the Yiddish language and its literature, folklore, music, theater, cinema, humor.

Speak Your Mind

Comments received without a full name will not be considered
Email addresses are NEVER published! All comments are moderated. J-Wire will publish considered comments by people who provide a real name and email address. Comments that are abusive, rude, defamatory or which contain offensive language will not be published

Got something to say about this?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.