On 23 May 2019, EMODHEBREW held a joint, informal, workshop with Dr. Kriszta Eszter Szendroi and her research group ‘Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish’ from University College London. The two groups gathered for a day of linguistic discussions on the continuity of Yiddish and Hebrew in honor of the memory of Professor Edit Doron.
The workshop took place at the YUNG YiDiSH Library & Cultural Center in Jerusalem, among thousands of Yiddish books, plus coffee and kigl. During the day, the participants from each group presented their work within their project, each in turn shedding new light on the interrelations between Yiddish and Hebrew and their linguistic developments. Our workshop keynote talk was by Dr. Dalit Assouline (University of Haifa) about ‘Contact and linguistic change in American and Israeli ultra-Orthodox Yiddish’. Each presentation was followed by attentive and fruitful comments and discussion.
The meeting benefited greatly from the participation of Eli Benedict, the administrator of YUNG YiDiSH Tel Aviv, a native speaker of Yiddish. We ended the workshop with Eli’s words about the story of the YUNG YiDiSH organization and its goals, which relate to those of the Avant-garde group ‘Yung-yidish’: a group of Yiddish artists, poets, and authors in Lodz in the early 20th century, who collaborated to publish a journal with their integrated art – of painting and writing, tradition and innovation.
The inviting atmosphere of YUNG YiDiSH and the successful exchange of ideas in the workshop showed us that the research questions addressed by Edit’s project (and team) are a fertile ground for ever-growing and expanding research collaborations.
