CUNY Academic Commons

Join YIVO for an online event on Tuesday, May 14 at 1pm ET celebrating the pioneering composer of Jewish classical music Jacob Weinberg.

Pianist Thomas Kotcheff will perform Ten Jewish Songs (1933): a collection of Jewish folksongs, holiday songs, dances, and Hasidic nigunim in piano arrangements.

The concert is free and you can register here

In the attached photo, an insert from a book in the YIVO library rescued by the famous “Paper Brigade“. The translated text reads:

This book is from the YIVO Library in Vilna. During the years of the destruction, friends of YIVO hid it from the Germans, and after the war A. Sutzkever and Sh. Kaczerginski sent it to YIVO in New…[Read more]

In the attached audio file, Martele Friedman, a Hungarian Yiddish speaker, recites: God of Abraham (a woman’s prayer)

Recorded January 2020

Translation:

Got fin Avrum

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
Protect your dear people of Israel.
For seven days and all the days may we only know good:

For prosperity, life, wealth, good fortune, blessing…[Read more]

A glossary of terms. For video instruction check out Sarah and Reyna

זון באַפֿגריסונג -zun bagrisung- sun salutation

באַרג פּאָזע -barg poze- mountain pose

באַװעגונג -bavegung- movement

שטעלט זיך אױס -shtelt zikh oys- stand up

זיצן -zitsn- sit

קרײַסן די פֿיס -kraysn di fis- cross your feet

זיצן אױף טערקיש -zitsn afn terkish- sit cross legg…[Read more]

April 19th is the 81st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, when Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto—many in their teens and twenties—launched a sustained guerrilla battle in response to a planned Nazi mass deportation to the death camps.

Descendants of members of the uprising, along with Yiddish speakers, singers, cul…[Read more]

In Yiddish there’s a saying: laughing with lizards. It means laughing on the outside, crying on the inside. In other words, laugh through the tears. I bet a lot of us can identify these days.

If you need a good laugh and have a penchant for Jewish culture, this FREE online series is for you! Built as a self-paced online class, it features i…[Read more]