[ad_1]
(New York Jewish Week) — New York Metropolis has no scarcity of collections preserving the Yiddish tradition that flourished right here within the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are Yiddish theater collections on the New York Public Library and the Museum of the Metropolis of New York. Columbia College has in depth Yiddish holdings.
After which there’s the granddaddy (or ought to we are saying zayde) of all of them, the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Analysis, the most important assortment of Yiddish-language works on the earth.
The Jewish Theological Seminary, in the meantime, is best identified for its huge holdings of Hebrew manuscripts and books, Jewish marriage contracts, uncommon maps, authorized paperwork and different Judiaca.
A brand new exhibit, nonetheless, is drawing consideration to among the Yiddish treasures within the JTS library, particularly these reflecting the political and cultural ferment of the 2 million Japanese European Jews who arrived and thrived in New York between 1880 and 1924.
“It’s in regards to the lives of Yiddish audio system and the legacy that lives past them,” mentioned David Kraemer, librarian and professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at JTS, referring to the title of the exhibit: “Dwelling Yiddish in New York.” He curated the exhibit together with visitor curator Annabel Cohen, a PhD pupil in Fashionable Jewish Historical past on the seminary, and Naomi Steinberger, director of Library Providers at JTS.
The exhibit, whose scope ends earlier than the Holocaust and the post-war increase in Yiddish among the many metropolis’s Hasidic Jews, opens April 20 and runs by way of August 10.
Kraemer gave us a tour of the exhibit this week; right here’s a take a look at seven standout objects and what they are saying about New Yorkers who lived and dreamed in Yiddish.
The attract of America
Sh. L. Hurvits (trans.) “Binyamin Franklins lebns bashraybung un di bafrayung enjoyable amerike” (Benjamin Franklin’s life and the liberation of America). Warsaw, 1901. (JTSA)
A Yiddish-language biography of Benjamin Franklin, printed in Warsaw in 1901, is the one merchandise within the exhibit that was created abroad. “The Yiddish-speaking communities of Japanese Europe imagined America as ‘di goldene medine’ — the golden land. It held for them a promise and a part of the promise emerged from the truth that they knew one thing about American founding rules,” mentioned Kraemer. Proper subsequent to the Franklin biography is an nameless poem gently mocking that notion as desires gave strategy to actuality.
Turning into Individuals
Alexander Harkavy, “Der Amerikanisher lerer” (The American instructor of the English language and American establishments). New York: J. Katzenelenbogen, 1897. (JTSA)
The linguist and philanthropist Alexander Harkavy, himself a Russian-Jewish immigrant, created a collection of academic guides to assist Jewish immigrants acclimate of their new houses, together with this Yiddish-English phrasebook in 1897. The Workmen’s Circle, in the meantime, created a vegetarian cookbook for immigrants in 1926, a part of a large effort connecting wholesome consuming with progressive politics.
Previous World meets New
Postcard: “In der heym iz er geven a shuster, in nyu york paskent er shale” (At dwelling he was a cobbler, in New York he’s an knowledgeable in Jewish regulation). New York: Der groyse kundes. (JTSA)
The exhibit consists of blown-up pictures taken from postcards within the JTS assortment suggesting the adjustments forward for brand new immigrants. In a single cartoon, created in 1908, an immigrant who was a revered rabbi again in Europe is decreased to peddling in the US. Within the picture above, nonetheless, the joke is reversed: “At dwelling he was a cobbler, in New York he’s an knowledgeable in Jewish regulation.” In a non secular desert like America, the cartoon suggests, even a median Jewish training makes you a sage.
That’s leisure!
Left: Sheet music for “Der kleyner milioner” (The little millionaire), undated. New York: Trio Press Inc. Proper: Sheet music for “Mamenyu,” or “Mom Expensive,” mourning the Triangle Shirtwaist Manufacturing unit fireplace victims. New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1911. (JTSA)
“The Yiddish theater tradition in New York was extraordinary,” mentioned Kraemer. At its top, the “Yiddish Rialto” – the theater district situated totally on Manhattan’s Second Avenue, however extending to Avenue B, between Houston Avenue and East 14th Avenue within the East Village — may boast as many as 30 performances an evening. The exhibit consists of sheet music for fashionable songs, from a ditty about “The Little Millionaire” to a track composed in mourning for the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Manufacturing unit fireplace, which precipitated the deaths of 146 garment employees in 1911.
Getting organized
“Konstitushon enjoyable Hoshter Sosayti” (Structure of the Hoshter Society). New York. Sloane Print Co., 1929. (JTSA)
Immigrants organized an enormous community of mutual help societies, affinity golf equipment for Jews from the identical cities in Europe (landsmanschaften) and political golf equipment. Jews from Hoshcha in Ukraine organized a “Hoshter Society” and wrote up this “structure” for members. “They discovered from the American mannequin: you create a company, you write a structure,” mentioned Kraemer.
Assist the New York Jewish Week
Our nonprofit newsroom is dependent upon readers such as you. Make a donation now to help impartial Jewish journalism in New York.
Getting radical
Der hamer (The Hammer). New York: Freiheit, Could 1926. (JTSA)
A lot of objects within the exhibit reveal the leftist politics of most of the Yiddish-speaking immigrants. “This displays the worlds that they got here from, the place these similar concepts have been clearly fermenting very powerfully on the time,” mentioned Kraemer. “It additionally displays the composition of the neighborhood. A lot of them have been very, very impoverished and residing beneath tough circumstances. And as employees residing in impoverished circumstances, they have been interested in socialism, even to communism.” “The Hammer,” above, revealed in Could 1926, was the month-to-month journal of the communist every day Di Morgn Freiheit.
Train your youngsters
Nokhem Vaysman, “Di balade enjoyable undzer kemp” (The Ballad of our Camp). New York: Union Sq. Press Inc., c. 1926. (JTSA)
At the same time as mother and father have been succeeding in assimilating, many didn’t need their Americanized youngsters to overlook Yiddish language and tradition. Yiddish publishers and educators responded with publications, Yiddish colleges, camps and assets, like this youngsters’s songbook created in 1926 for Jewish campers by a instructor on the Workmen’s Circle and the Worldwide Employees’ Order Yiddish colleges.
“Dwelling Yiddish in New York” runs April 20–Aug. 10 on the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 3080 Broadway. Register right here for guided exhibit excursions being held in Could, June and July.
[ad_2]
Source link
