DOCSLIB.ORG

Study Guide Contents

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

INDECENT A PLAY BY PAULA VOGEL DIRECTED BY GARY GRIFFIN STUDY GUIDE CONTENTS GREETINGS FROM ROXANNA 3 ABOUT THE PLAY 4 ACTORS & CHARACTERS 5 INTERVIEW WITH THE PLAYWRIGHT 6 GLOSSARY OF TERMS 8 ABOUT YIDDISH 8 COMPARING HEBREW + YIDDISH 9 SHOLEM ASCH’S GOD OF VENGEANCE COMES TO LIFE 10 ABOUT GOD OF VENGEANCE 11 AN OPEN LETTER FROM SHOLEM ASCH 14 WORD SEARCH 17 1923 TIMELINE 18 WRITING PROMPTS 20 PUBLIC PROGRAMS 21 LINKS 22 JOIN VICTORY GARDENS THEATER’S TEEN ARTS COUNCIL 23 SUPPORT FOR VICTORY GARDENS EDUCATION DEPARTMENT PROVIDED BY ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY 2018/2019 SEASON SPONSORS THE HARVEY L. MILLER BILL & ORLI STALEY HELEN ZELL SUPPORTING FOUNDATION FOUNDATION SEASON SPONSOR PARTNERS JANE M. SAKS, CONANT FAMILY GEORGE A. MARCELLE McVAY JEFFREY RAPPIN NATHAN CUMMINGS FOUNDATION JOSEPH & DENNIS ZAČEK & PENNY BROWN FOUNDATION MAJOR PRODUCTION SPONSOR PRODUCTION SPONSORS PLAYWRIGHT’S SOCIETY SPONSORS JARED KAPLAN SONDRA SARAH HELEN ZELL & MARIDEE MERLE RESKIN BERMAN BEARDSLEY QUANBECK EPSTEIN ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY VICTORY GARDENS THEATER • INDECENT STUDY GUIDE 2 GREETINGS FROM ROXANNA CONNER Welcome to the 2018/19 Season! I’m thrilled to join Victory Gardens and look forward to continuing our tradition of excellence in Arts Education with students across the city. While researching for this study guide, I was struck by the number of issues that we continue to face that were prevalent in 1923. More than a century has passed since Sholem Asch wrote God of Vengeance and we still have so much to do in our society regarding equality, race, culture, religion and love. During the first rehearsal for Indecent, Artistic Director, Chay Yew stated, “This play is about the endurance and power of art.” I am hopeful this production will encourage all audiences to embrace not just the power of art, but the importance of history, and our capacity to connect and empathize with one another. This study guide will provide you and your students with an introduction to the world of the play, which spans 1906 to 1952. It should also challenge your students to think about the themes of the play from their point of view before and after you see the production. Throughout the guide you will find CHECKPOINTS, a new feature developed for further exploration and activation of the material as you move through it. Each checkpoint is on a single page, allowing you to make copies for your students as you see fit. The study guide still includes the ANTICIPATION SURVEY with statements that we would like students to consider pre and post performance, to determine if the play supports their opinions, or causes them to change. You will find these questions on pages 8 and 9 in this edition. The WRITING PROMPTS will challenge your students to make personal connections to the themes of the play. We believe the study guide should provide an opportunity for analysis, expression and reflection. In the future, we will continue to adapt their content. We look forward to seeing you at the matinee and hearing from your students during the post-show discussion immediately following the performance. Best, Roxanna Conner Director of Education Victory Gardens Theater VICTORY GARDENS THEATER • INDECENT STUDY GUIDE 3 ABOUT THE PLAY TIME & Warsaw, 1906, to Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1950s, SETTING: and everywhere in between. LANGUAGE: When characters speak their native language, they speak perfect English (when Sholem Asch, Madja Asch speak Yiddish, for example). When characters speak English as their second language, they speak in a dialect (Reine, Madja, Esther, and Asch, for example; Rudolph Schildkraut has the most intense dialect in America). RUN TIME: 100 minutes; no intermission. Sholem Asch’s play God of Vengeance tells the story of Yekel, who, though he owns a brothel and is married to a former sex worker, desperately wants to establish himself as a respectable man in his community. He’s focused and determined to find a proper husband for his daughter, Rifkele. Once a matchmaker finds a suitable candidate, Yekel commissions a sacred Torah scroll, which he plans to hang in Rifkele’s room in order to protect her. However, he’s blindsided when he discovers that she’s developed an intimate relationship with Manke, one of the brothel’s sex workers. Paula Vogel’s Indecent follows the original productions of God of Vengeance, from its 1907 premiere in Berlin, through its acclaimed European tour and performances in the United States. When the production makes its English language premiere on Broadway in 1923, the team of Jewish artists find themselves wading through legal trouble after a local prominent rabbi files complaints about the content of the play. God of Vengeance is temporarily shut down, while the producer, director and some of the actors are charged with obscenity. Inspired by research found in the archives at Yale University, Indecent merges historical information from the documents of producer Harry Weinberger and playwright Sholem Asch, with fiction. It was Rebecca Taichman’s thesis project The People vs. The The God of Vengeance at the Yale School of Drama that served as a catalyst for she and Paula Vogel to collaborate in the creation of Indecent. VICTORY GARDENS THEATER • INDECENT STUDY GUIDE 4 ACTORS & CHARACTERS The Victory Gardens production features a cast of seven actors, who between them play a total of forty-one characters. Two musicians will play live music throughout the performance. Indecent focuses on the spirit of a company of artists and the sacrifices they made for their art. BENJAMIN MAGNUSON KIAH STERN NOAH LaPOOK Stage Manager: Lemml The Ingenue: Chana The Ingenue: Avram Rifkele, Madje, Elsa, Immigrant, Ruth/ Asch, Immigrant, Morris Carnovsky, Reina, Virginia, Bagelman Sister Eugene O’Neill, John Rosen CATHERINE LeFRERE ANDREW WHITE CINDY GOLD The Middle: Halina The Middle: Mendel The Elder: Vera Manke, Immigrant, Freida, Dorothee/ Nakhmen, Immigrant, Harry Weinberger, Sarah, Mrs. Peretz, Immigrant, Esther Deine, Doctor, Bagelman Sister Officer Benjamin Bailie, Rabbi Joseph Stockton, Madje Silverman DAVID DARLOW ELLEON DOBIAS MATT DEITCHMAN The Elder: Otto Violin: Nelly Friedman Accordion: Moritz Godowsky Yekel, Peretz, Schildkraut, Immigrant, Bartender, Judge McIntyre, Asch VICTORY GARDENS THEATER • INDECENT STUDY GUIDE 5 INTERVIEW WITH THE PLAYWRIGHT PAULA VOGEL By Miriam Weiner, Vineyard Theatre From: https://www.vineyardtheatre.org/interview-playwright-paula-vogel-indecent/ What was the Can you think of a contemporary play seed of Indecent ? that has provoked similar outrage? I read Sholem Asch’s The plays that I admire, and the playwrights that I play God of Vengeance admire, are not shying away from the complexity of when I was 23 years old, racism, bias, sexism and the things that hurt us. I’d and I was astonished by point to An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. That it. In 1906, Sholem Asch is a play that has an insider/outsider perspective. A was brave enough to musical I thought was astonishing was The Scottsboro write that Jews are no Boys. It’s a brilliant, virulent show and I’m glad The different than Catholics Vineyard’s production succeeded in London but or Buddhists or people it tells me a lot that it wasn’t as well-received on of any religion, in Broadway. We are no different than the audiences terms of having people in the tribe who may sell who sat and watched God of Vengeance. religion for a profit, or who are hypocrites. That’s a very hard thing for a man to do, especially in a time Can you talk about your collaborative of burgeoning anti-Semitism. Then add in the play’s compassionate understanding of the powerlessness process with Rebecca Taichman? of women in that time and place — Asch is a young When Rebecca brought me into this project, I didn’t married man, in a very early work, writing the most see this as a play about the obscenity trial, as her astonishing love story between two women and it thesis project had been; as an older writer, there was makes a pretty compelling play to read and perform. a larger story that I engage in. About a fiery young playwright — not just Asch, but me, too — ignored Many years later, in 2000, I saw Rebecca Taichman’s for decades and then embraced by students. Rebecca MFA Thesis production at Yale, which interwove the was open and generous and allowed me to explore text of God of Vengeance with the transcript of the my ideas. I knew right from the beginning that I 1923 obscenity trial against the play in New York. I wanted music and a klezmer band, and Rebecca thought it was a fascinating idea. Flash forward to brought on composers, dancers and a choreographer. five years ago, when I got a phone call from Rebecca We talked over every page that I wrote; she showed asking me to be involved. It took me thirty seconds to me things in her staging that opened up the play say yes. for me and vice versa. She is an extraordinary, open- hearted collaborator. Why do you think God of Vengeance had such an impact in its time? God of Vengeance is set in a brothel run by a Jewish man who is attempting to raise his daughter piously, and it features a lesbian love story. When it was performed in New York in 1923, there was deep concern within the Jewish community about what Christians would think. “Do you dare to say this in public? Do you dare to show this in public?” It did exactly what plays should do — it provoked people into talking. God of Vengeance traveled all over the world, and then it was closed down on Broadway. Today, nearly 100 years after it was shut down, it needs to be produced and talked about still — playwrights and new plays should bite the hand that feeds them, and that is what this play did.
Recommended publications
  • OSLO Big Winner at the 2017 Lucille Lortel Awards, Full List! by BWW News Desk May

    OSLO Big Winner at the 2017 Lucille Lortel Awards, Full List! by BWW News Desk May

    Click Here for More Articles on 2017 AWARDS SEASON OSLO Big Winner at the 2017 Lucille Lortel Awards, Full List! by BWW News Desk May. 7, 2017 ​ ​ Tweet Share ​ ​ The Lortel Awards were presented May 7, 2017 at NYU Skirball Center beginning at 7:00 PM EST. This year's event was hosted by actor and comedian, Taran Killam, and once again served as a benefit for The Actors Fund. Leading the nominations this year with 7 each are the new musical, Hadestown - a folk opera produced by New York Theatre Workshop - and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, currently at the Barrow Street Theatre, which has been converted into a pie shop for the intimate staging. In the category of plays, both Paula Vogel's Indecent and J.T. Rogers' Oslo, current Broadway transfers, earned a total of 4 nominations, including for Outstanding Play. Playwrights Horizons' A Life also earned 4 total nominations, including for star David Hyde Pierce and director Anne Kauffman, earning her 4th career Lortel Award nomination; as did MCC Theater's YEN, including one for recent Academy Award nominee Lucas Hedges for Outstanding Lead Actor. Lighting Designer Ben Stanton earned a nomination for the fifth consecutive year - and his seventh career nomination, including a win in 2011 - for his work on YEN. Check below for live updates from the ceremony. Winners will be marked: **Winner** ​ Outstanding Play Indecent Produced by Vineyard Theatre in association with La Jolla Playhouse and Yale Repertory Theatre Written by Paula Vogel, Created by Paula Vogel & Rebecca Taichman Oslo **Winner** ​ Produced by Lincoln Center Theater Written by J.T.
  • Yiddish Literature

    Yiddish Literature

    Syracuse University SURFACE Religion College of Arts and Sciences 1990 Yiddish Literature Ken Frieden Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/rel Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Frieden, Ken, "Yiddish Literature" (1990). Religion. 39. https://surface.syr.edu/rel/39 This Other is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religion by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i C'L , IS4 ed l'ftOv\ Yiddish Literature 1077 וt..c:JI' $-- 131"'1+-" "r.כ) C fv כ,;E Yiddish Literature iddiSh literature may 00 said to have been born the Jews of northern Europe during this time than among twice. The earliest evidence of Yiddish literary ac­ non-Jews living in the same area. Many works achieved Y tivity dates from the 13th century and is found such popularity that they were frequently reprinted over in southern Germany, where the language itself had origi­ a period of centuries and enjoyed an astonishingly wide nated as a specifically Jewish variant of Middle High Ger­ dissemination, with the result that their language devel­ man approximately a quarter of a millennium earlier. The oped into an increasingly ossified koine that was readily Haskalah, the Jewish equivalent of the Enlightenment, understood over a territory extending from Amsterdam to effectively doomed the Yiddish language and its literary Odessa and from Venice to Hamburg. During the 18th culture in Germany and in western Europe during the century the picture changed rapidly in western Europe, course of the 18th century.
  • Indecent by PAULA VOGEL Directed by WENDY C

    Indecent by PAULA VOGEL Directed by WENDY C

    McGuire Proscenium Stage / Feb 17 – Mar 24, 2018 Indecent by PAULA VOGEL directed by WENDY C. GOLDBERG PLAY GUIDE Inside THE PLAY Synopsis • 3 Characters and Setting • 4 Inspiration for Indecent • 5 Responses to Indecent • 6 Responses to The God of Vengeance • 7 THE PLAYWRIGHT On Paula Vogel • 8 Paula Vogel on Indecent • 9 Paula Vogel on Sholem Asch • 10-11 Glossary: Concepts, Words, Ideas • 12-15 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION For Further Reading and Understanding • 16 Play guides are made possible by Guthrie Theater Play Guide Copyright 2018 DRAMATURG Jo Holcomb GRAPHIC DESIGNER Akemi Graves CONTRIBUTORS Jo Holcomb Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415 All rights reserved. With the exception of classroom use by teachers and individual personal use, no part of this Play Guide ADMINISTRATION 612.225.6000 may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic BOX OFFICE 612.377.2224 or 1.877.44.STAGE TOLL-FREE or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in guthrietheater.org • Joseph Haj, artistic director writing from the publishers. Some materials published herein are written especially for our Guide. Others are reprinted by permission of their publishers. The Guthrie Theater receives support from the National The Guthrie creates transformative theater experiences that ignite the imagination, stir Endowment for the Arts. This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation the heart, open the mind, and build community through the illumination of our common by the Minnesota State Legislature. The Minnesota State Arts Board received additional funds to support this activity from humanity.
  • Wertheimer, Editor Imagining the Seth Farber an American Orthodox American Jewish Community Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B

    Wertheimer, Editor Imagining the Seth Farber an American Orthodox American Jewish Community Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B

    Imagining the American Jewish Community Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life Jonathan D. Sarna, Editor Sylvia Barack Fishman, Associate Editor For a complete list of books in the series, visit www.upne.com and www.upne.com/series/BSAJ.html Jack Wertheimer, editor Imagining the Seth Farber An American Orthodox American Jewish Community Dreamer: Rabbi Joseph B. Murray Zimiles Gilded Lions and Soloveitchik and Boston’s Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to Maimonides School the Carousel Ava F. Kahn and Marc Dollinger, Marianne R. Sanua Be of Good editors California Jews Courage: The American Jewish Amy L. Sales and Leonard Saxe “How Committee, 1945–2006 Goodly Are Thy Tents”: Summer Hollace Ava Weiner and Kenneth D. Camps as Jewish Socializing Roseman, editors Lone Stars of Experiences David: The Jews of Texas Ori Z. Soltes Fixing the World: Jewish Jack Wertheimer, editor Family American Painters in the Twentieth Matters: Jewish Education in an Century Age of Choice Gary P. Zola, editor The Dynamics of American Jewish History: Jacob Edward S. Shapiro Crown Heights: Rader Marcus’s Essays on American Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Jewry Riot David Zurawik The Jews of Prime Time Kirsten Fermaglich American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Ranen Omer-Sherman, 2002 Diaspora Early Holocaust Consciousness and and Zionism in Jewish American Liberal America, 1957–1965 Literature: Lazarus, Syrkin, Reznikoff, and Roth Andrea Greenbaum, editor Jews of Ilana Abramovitch and Seán Galvin, South Florida editors, 2001 Jews of Brooklyn Sylvia Barack Fishman Double or Pamela S. Nadell and Jonathan D. Sarna, Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed editors Women and American Marriage Judaism: Historical Perspectives George M.
  • Profile Season 19-20 Media Release

    Profile Season 19-20 Media Release

    2019-20: GENERATIONS Brenden Jacobs-Jenkins/ Lynn Nottage/ Paula Vogel FOR IMMEDIATE MEDIA RELEASE: Profile Theatre Press Contact: Jen Mitas, Marketing Consultant [email protected] 503-804-2402 Profile Theatre’s 2019-20 Season Celebrates the Voices and Visions of Three Playwrights Across Generations Lynn Nottage, Paula Vogel and Brenden Jacobs-Jenkins PORTLAND, OREGON. May 20, 2019- PROFILE THEATRE’S next season will fea- ture three of America’s most widely celebrated contemporary playwrights: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (b. 1984), Lynn Nottage (b. 1964), and Paula Vogel (b. 1951). Profile Theatre is one of only three theaters in the country to dedicate their season to an in-depth exploration of a playwright’s vision, using that unique vision as a lens to broaden perspectives on our shared world. Now, in an innovation that deploys Pro- file’s mission to unique effect, we present Generations: two seasons of plays from three of America’s most beloved playwrights whose plays dramatize life, labor and death in the United States and beyond from three different generational vantage points. These visionaries are all connected through the prizes and programs that have shaped them. A gifted playwright, Vogel mentored a generation of playwrights, including Lynn Nottage, who studied with Vogel at Brown. Jacobs-Jenkins was the Paula Vogel Playwright-in-Residence at the Vineyard Theatre, and was on the Su- san Smith Blackburn committee that awarded the prize to Nottage for Sweat. All Pulitzer Prize nominated (or winning), all heralded for the beauty of their writing, their innovative theatricality and deep humanity, Vogel, Nottage and Jacobs-Jenkins’ work stands as a testament to the brilliance of American theatre.
  • The Southwest in Sholem Asch's Yiddish Writing

    The Southwest in Sholem Asch's Yiddish Writing

    “Mexicans Are Just Like Every Oriental People”: The Southwest in Sholem Asch’s Yiddish Writing by Gil Ribak, University of Arizona Editor’s note: Gil Ribak presented the keynote address about Sholem Asch at the 2017 NMJHS Fall Conference in Las Vegas, New Mexico. n late 1909, a promising received a traditional education, from a a long battle, the con- young Yiddish author by very young age he was drawn to secu- viction was overturned the name of Sholem Asch lar topics and taught himself German. on appeal; these events I visited the United States Since his parents disapproved of his are told in a recent for the first time. He secular studies, he moved to another play titled Indecent that stayed in the country for shtetl with relatives and made a living premiered on Broadway about six months until the summer of as a Torah instructor. Later he made a in early 2017. 1910. Apart from writing scenes about living writing letters for illiterate Polish Gil Ribak New York City’s Jewish immigrant life, peasants, and scholars believe that was Asch was also an avid tenement houses, and sweatshops, Asch an experience which offered him insight traveler who wrote impressions of some also embarked upon coast-to-coast travel into human needs and longings. of those journeys. In 1908, he visited across the United States, from Niagara the Land of Israel for the first time and Falls to the Grand Canyon, and his travel When Asch was about 19 years old, he wrote a series of sketches based on that impressions were serialized in the popu- moved to Warsaw, where he became a visit.
  • Lesbian Representation and Impact in Late-20Th Century Theatre

    Lesbian Representation and Impact in Late-20Th Century Theatre

    University of Central Florida STARS Honors Undergraduate Theses UCF Theses and Dissertations 2019 The WOW Factor: Lesbian Representation and Impact in Late-20th Century Theatre Brenna L. Maginness University of Central Florida Part of the Playwriting Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the UCF Theses and Dissertations at STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Undergraduate Theses by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Maginness, Brenna L., "The WOW Factor: Lesbian Representation and Impact in Late-20th Century Theatre" (2019). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 483. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/483 THE WOW FACTOR: LESBIAN REPRESENTATION AND IMPACT IN LATE-20TH CENTURY THEATRE by BRENNA MAGINNESS A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors in the Major Program in Theatre in the College of Arts and Humanities and in the Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2019 Thesis Chair: Vandy Wood ABSTRACT The intent of this thesis is to investigate the influence of 1980’s and 1990’s lesbian playwrights on modern queer representation in theatre. By analyzing the successful works of troupes and artists born out of the Women’s One World (WOW) Café, it became apparent that the greatest changes in lesbian portrayal on stage came from queer and feminist authorship. Additionally, WOW Café became the common denominator in the success of many lesbian playwrights due to the freedom it gave its writers and performers.
  • December 2019 Welcome Mike Hausberg

    December 2019 Welcome Mike Hausberg

    DECEMBER 2019 WELCOME MIKE HAUSBERG Welcome to The Old Globe and this production of Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG San Diego Christmas Show. Our goal is to serve all of San Diego and beyond through the art of theatre. Below are the mission and values that drive our work. We thank you for being a crucial part of what we do. MISSION STATEMENT The mission of The Old Globe is to preserve, strengthen, and advance American theatre by: creating theatrical experiences of the highest professional standards; producing and presenting works of exceptional merit, designed to reach current and future audiences; ensuring diversity and balance in programming; providing an environment for the growth and education of theatre professionals, audiences, and the community at large. STATEMENT OF VALUES The Old Globe believes that theatre matters. Our commitment is to make it matter to more people. The values that shape this commitment are: TRANSFORMATION Theatre cultivates imagination and empathy, enriching our humanity and connecting us to each other by bringing us entertaining experiences, new ideas, and a wide range of stories told from many perspectives. INCLUSION The communities of San Diego, in their diversity and their commonality, are welcome and reflected at the Globe. Access for all to our stages and programs expands when we engage audiences in many ways and in many places. EXCELLENCE Our dedication to creating exceptional work demands a high standard of achievement in everything we do, on and off the stage. STABILITY Our priority every day is to steward a vital, nurturing, and financially secure institution that will thrive for generations.
  • Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin

    Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin

    Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Johnson, Kelly. 2012. Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9830349 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA © 2012 Kelly Scott Johnson All rights reserved Professor Ruth R. Wisse Kelly Scott Johnson Sholem Schwarzbard: Biography of a Jewish Assassin Abstract The thesis represents the first complete academic biography of a Jewish clockmaker, warrior poet and Anarchist named Sholem Schwarzbard. Schwarzbard's experience was both typical and unique for a Jewish man of his era. It included four immigrations, two revolutions, numerous pogroms, a world war and, far less commonly, an assassination. The latter gained him fleeting international fame in 1926, when he killed the Ukrainian nationalist leader Symon Petliura in Paris in retribution for pogroms perpetrated during the Russian Civil War (1917-20). After a contentious trial, a French jury was sufficiently convinced both of Schwarzbard's sincerity as an avenger, and of Petliura's responsibility for the actions of his armies, to acquit him on all counts. Mostly forgotten by the rest of the world, the assassin has remained a divisive figure in Jewish-Ukrainian relations, leading to distorted and reductive descriptions his life.
  • Yiddish Culture in the West

    Yiddish Culture in the West

    Judah YIDDISH CULTURE Waten IN THE WEST The facts about the decline, often overlooked, of Yiddish culture in the West. Q FTEN when anti-Soviet propagandists assert that today Yiddish culture is in a serious plight in the Soviet Union and that soon the Soviet Jews will be without a literature and language, they appear to try to leave the impression that conversely in the West, the Yiddish language and literature are flourishing. Actually the reverse is true; Yiddish literature is at a very low ebb in the U.S.A. and is virtually extinct in Britain, but in the Soviet Union there is still considerable creative activity in the Yiddish language. As Dr. Nahum Goldmann said at the recent meeting of the World Jewish Congress, the Soviet Jewish community is “culturally one of the most creative” (Melbourne Herald, August 1, 1966). Yiddish, a younger language than Hebrew which goes back to antiquity, was derived from Middle High German between the 10th and 12th centuries, and after the Jewish migration eastward to Poland and Russia was mostly spoken in Eastern Europe where it was enriched by new words and word formations. Modern Yiddish literature was born in the mid-19th century in Czarist Russia in which lived nearly 50 per cent of the total Jewish population of the world at that time. Yiddish cultural expression grew up in the Pale of Settlement, the vast ghetto set up in 1835 by Nicholas I, in parts of white Russia and the Ukraine in which most of the Jews were compelled to live.
  • A Study of the Apostle Paul‟S Approach to the Law in Galatians Chapters 2 and 3

    A Study of the Apostle Paul‟S Approach to the Law in Galatians Chapters 2 and 3

    A STUDY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL‟S APPROACH TO THE LAW IN GALATIANS CHAPTERS 2 AND 3 D. J. Lowe Submitted to Trinity Saint David (University of Wales) in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Theology Trinity Saint David, University of Wales 2014 1 Master’s Degrees by Examination and Dissertation Declaration Form 1. This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Name : Dean Lowe……………….. Date …24.3.2014…………………... 2. This dissertation is being submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Theology Name: Dean Lowe………………… Date …24.3.2014…………………. 3. This dissertation is the result of my own independent work/investigation, except where otherwise stated. Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Name…Dean Lowe………………… Date: …24.3.2014…………….…… 4. I hereby give consent for my dissertation, if accepted, to be available for photocopying, inter- library loan, and for deposit in the University‟s digital repository Name…Dean Lowe………………… Date…34.3.2014..………….………. Supervisor’s Declaration. I am satisfied that this work is the result of the student‟s own efforts. Signed: ……………………………... Date: ……………………………..….. 2 Acknowledgements I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Kathy Ehrensperger of Trinity Saint David for her supervision during the writing of this dissertation and for the helpful guidance given to me. I would also like to thank my colleague and friend, Dr. Sam Gordon, who proofread this paper at extremely short notice.
  • Ucl Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies Newsletter

    Ucl Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies Newsletter

    H J S U C L D E P A R T M E N T O F H E B R E W & J E W I S H S T U D I E S N E W S L E T T E R D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 7 • H A N U K K A H Contents 03 Welcome 05 News 06 Hanukkah in Persian-Jewish Custom Daniel Sperber 08 Between 'Mate' & Jewish Gauchos Paola Khalili 10 Who Are The Keepers of the Past? Sima Beeri 12 Exploring The Origins of Jewish Feminism Ellery Weil 14 Luther & The Jews Richard Harvey 17 Interview: Dr. Lily Kahn on Shakespeare in Hebrew Sonti Ramirez & Joel Greenbaum Cover Photo 'Menorah #7' Hanukkah 22 "Dartmouth? It Is A Cult!" Lamp by Peter Shire, 1986. Made from steel: painted; François Guesnet aluminum: anodized; chromium. Part of the 'Masterpieces & 27 Announcements Curiosities: Memphis Does Hanukkah' Collection at the Jewish Museum, New York. Editorial Team: Sonti Ramirez, Joel Greenbaum UCL Hebrew & Jewish Studies Newsletter 03 W E L C O M E D R L I L Y K A H N - H E A D O F D E P A R T M E N T ( I N T E R I M ) Welcome Back ! I’m delighted to be taking over this column while This year we also have the privilege of being joined serving as interim Head of Department. Professor by three new researchers - Dr Sonya Yampolskaya, Sacha Stern is on sabbatical this year, working on a who has arrived from St Petersburg and will be in book project before returning to begin another the Department for two years working on a term as Head of HJS.