On August 22 - 24, 2016 a seminar "Pearls of Yiddish culture" for 20 professionals of Jewish youth organizations from Russia took place in Vilnius.
That was a follow-up of our seminar with JDC young leadership "Knafaim" in Moscow. The guys liked the Yiddish topics discussed there very much, so they decided to gather their group and come to Vilnius on their own for a special Yiddish seminar.
The seminar took place in WJC Yiddish center's premises at the Vilnius Jewish Public Library. A study tour around Jewish Vilnius was held on the first day, followed by lectures presented by our academic director Dr. Mordehay Yushkovsky and by Dr. Lara Lempert from Lithuania.
Dr. Yushkovsky told about Yiddish literature of Jewish emigrants in the US in the beginning of the 20th century, about mystics in Bashevis-Zinger's works, about Yiddish literature and Holocaust, and about pecularities of Jewish humour. The lecture-concert "Songs in Yiddish – songs of our soul" featured the Lithuanian family band "Klezmer Klangen".
Dr. Lempert, head of the Jewish literature section in Lithuanian National library, talked about Yiddish literature in Lithuania in XIX century and about history of Jewish education in Lithuania.
The participants seemed to really enjoy the program and told that time passed so quickly and it would have been perfect to have stayed longer and hear more lectures.
Feedbacks were very positive. For example, Grigory Morozov from Tula wrote:
The lectures of the seminar were very comprehensive and cognitive. Not to mention pleasure, which I got at the seminar, I got pretty big amount of knowledge, too, which I am going to use in my future work with children. It would be nice to know more about derivation of Yiddish, its roots.