On June 26-29, 2016 WJC held a seminar "Pearls of Yiddish Culture" in Kiev for teachers of Ukrainian schools, where Jewish languages are taught.

More than 20 representatives of educational institutions located in the cities of Kiev, Chernivtsi, Zhytomyr, Lvov, Odessa, Berdiansk, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy, were studying the Yiddish language and culture for four days. The seminar was opened by the Chairman of the Board of the Jewish Fund in Ukraine, Arkady Monastyrsky.

The Academic Director of the International Center for Yiddish language and culture at the World Jewish Congress, Dr. Mordehay Yushkovsky, presented four lectures, one of which – "Sholem-Aleichem – unsurpassed classic" - took place in the local Sholem-Aleichem museum. Dr. Yushkovsky also spoke on the subjects "Yiddish and the thousand-years-old Ashkenazi civilization", "Dilemmas and conflicts in a Jewish family in the light of Yiddish literature", and "Yiddish culture in the Soviet Ukraine".

Alina Polonskaya - a graduate of the Yiddish course in Paris Medem center, currently a PhD student in Bar Ilan university (Israel) - provided several lessons on the ABC and the general structure of the Yiddish language.

Tetyana Batanova, who teaches Yiddish at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, delivered the lectures "Yiddish - a jargon or a mother tongue?" and "the geography of Yiddishland, shtetl in history and literature." Her colleague Dr. Natalia Ryndyuk gave talks "Sh. An-sky and Jewish folk art", "Zayt gezunt un shraybt otkrytkes: what can an old Jewish postcard tell us?" and "Come and see what the people says".

The seminar was crowned by a lecture-concert of the singer Seraphima Gorelova "Yiddish songs of the Jewish soul". See more pictures on the webpage http://jewishkiev.com.ua/novosti-fonda/seminar-zhe...