Romania and Beyond: Yiddish in Central and Eastern Europe. Challenges to New National States

Event: International Workshop

Location: NEC conference hall & Zoom

13 November 2023, 13.30-18.00 (Bucharest time)
14 November 2023, 10.00-18.30 (Bucharest time)

Convener:

Camelia CRĂCIUN, Associate Professor in Jewish Studies, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest; Project Leader, Yiddish Culture in Greater Romania (1918-1940): in the Aftermath of the Empires and Challenged by the New National State (YIDCULT)

Participants:

Camelia CRĂCIUN, Julie DAWSON, Anastasia FELCHER, Anca FILIPOVICI, Gaëlle FISHER, Attila GIDÓ, Szonja Ráhel KOMORÓCZY, Ferenc LACZÓ, Dumitru LISNIC, Irina NASTASĂ-MATEI, Rachel Merrill MOSS, Corina Liliana PETRESCU, Valentin SĂNDULESCU, Francisca SOLOMON

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89667216654?pwd=S1BRektwQjd5NU95ajZJWDVYa2pqdz09

Meeting ID: 896 6721 6654
Passcode: 987526

*

PROGRAM

Monday, 13 November

13.30 Opening remarks
Camelia CRĂCIUN (YIDCULT Project Leader, New Europe College / University of Bucharest)

14.00-15.30 „Jewish Cultural and Linguistic Identities: Between Hungarian and Yiddish”
Chair: Valentin SĂNDULESCU

Attila GIDÓ (Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities)
Transylvanian Jews between cultures and languages in the 20th century

Szonja Ráhel KOMORÓCZY (Jewish Theological Seminary / University of Jewish Studies, Budapest)
Language assimilation and dissimilation: the case of Yiddish in interwar Transylvania and Maramureș

15.30-16.00 Coffee Break

16.00-18.00 „Yiddish Language, Culture and Education in Interwar Romania”

Valentin SĂNDULESCU (New Europe College / University of Bucharest)
Yiddish Language and Culture in Interwar Romania: Context and Challenges

Irina MATEI (New Europe College / University of Bucharest)
The issue of the Yiddish education in Greater Romania

 

____________

Tuesday, 14 November

10.00-11.30 “Yiddish Cultural and Political Activism in Bukovina”
Chair: Francisca SOLOMON

Anca FILIPOVICI (Fritz Bauer Institut, Frankfurt am Main / Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities)
Jewish youth and political activism in interwar Bukovina

Julie DAWSON (Institute for Contemporary History, University of Vienna)
Illuminating an “Unknown” Town: Interwar Jewish Life and Yiddish Traces on the Bukovina Periphery

Gaëlle FISHER (Bielefeld University)
On the Creation of a Yiddish-Romanian Canon and Jewish-Romanian Pantheon: Shlomo Bickel’s Romania

11.30-12.00 Coffee Break

12.00-13.00 „Yiddish and Politics in Soviet Context”
Chair: Irina MATEI

Dumitru LISNIC („A. Russo” University of Bălți)
The Yiddish speakers of a Soviet borderland. Jewish communities of Pridnestrovie and the formation of Moldavian ASSR in 1924

Anastasia FELCHER (CEU & Blinken OSA Archivum)
Remembering Yiddish that Perished: Soviet Jewish Samizdat and Radio Liberty on the Fate of Murdered Poets” (online)

Ferenc LACZÓ (Maastricht University)
Hungarian Jewish Intellectuals and the Rediscovery of Yiddish in the Age of Persecution

13.30-14.30 Lunch

14.30-16.30 „Yiddish Culture and Theatre in Interwar Romania”

Francisca SOLOMON (New Europe College / University of Iași)
The emergence and the evolution process of the Yiddish cultural field in interwar Romania. Political, cultural, literary and journalistic landmarks

Camelia CRĂCIUN (New Europe College / University of Bucharest)
Yiddish Theatre in interwar Romania: between Tradition and Reform

16.30-17.00 Coffee Break

17.00-18.00 „Stances of Yiddish Theatre in Eastern Europe”
Chair: Camelia CRĂCIUN

Corina Liliana PETRESCU (University of Mississippi)
Yankev Shternberg’s Skotsl kimt – A Close Reading (online)

Rachel Merrill MOSS (Colgate University)
With Humor and Pathos: Early Postwar Yiddish Theatre in Poland (online)

18.00-18.30 Concluding remarks

*

This event is organized within the research project titled Yiddish Culture in Greater Romania (1918-1940): in the Aftermath of the Empires and Challenged by the New National State (YIDCULT), supported by UEFISCDI – Exploratory Research (PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-0317).