International Association of Yiddish Clubs
12th Conference Updates

Monthly Front Page of Der Bay in Hardcopy

#1 IAYC Announces Its Exciting 12th Conference -- October 24-27, 2008
#2 IAYC to Launch IAYT
#3 Evening Programs at the IAYC 12th Conference
#4 Keynote Speakers at the IAYC 12th Conference
#5 Lecture/Workshop Presentations
#6 Conference Exhibitors and Vendors
#7 Third IAYC Yiddish Lifetime Achievement Award
#8 IAYC Schedule of Events

Contact Information

The XII IAYC Conference, La Jolla, CA, Oct. 24-27, 2008
Conference Presenters

In previous issues we have covered the:

• Keynote Speakers: Boris Sandler, editor of the Forverts, Dr. Motl Rosenbush and Yale Strom

• Entertainment: Archie Barkan, Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble, Workmen’s Circle Gala Revue of Stars, Hot Pstromi Klezmer Group, Mayn Sheyne Meydl (Live), Cindy Paley

• Formation of the International Association of Yiddish Teachers IAYT (4 panels with a moderator & 4 Yiddish teachers in each panel)

Presenters

Roz Baker: (Moderator of Panel and 4 Club Leaders) Yiddish Programming Ideas
Sabell Bender: The Underworld Plays of Sholem Asch
Prof. Chaim: Berman: Evolution of Yiddish Schools and the Labor and Radical Movements
Cookie Blattman: A Yidishe Shtunde
Kolye Borodulin: Experiments with Culture in Birobidzhan
Sabina Brukner: The KlezKamp Experience
Zane Buzby: Survivor Mitzvah Project
Dr. Zack Chayet: Di Yidn fun Meksike
Adrienne Cooper: Yiddish Songs of War in Women’s Lives
Debby Davis: The Life and Music of Molly Picon
Vivian Felsen: Czernowitz and the Early Jewish Immigrants to North America
Sonia Fuentes: Mayne Yidishe Tate-Mame (My Jewish Parents)
Dr. Amelia Glaser: Remembering the Old Country in the Old Country
Troim Katz Handler: The Songs of Mark M. Warshawsky (1840-1907)
Frank Handler: Esther Frumkin, Yiddishist, Feminist, Bundist
Hershl Hartman: Yiddish Surge in Current Hollywood Films
Dr. Miriam Koral: Yiddish Poetry
Dr. Sandy Lakoff and Dr. Elie A. Shneour: The Life and Work of Zalman Shneour
Dr. Peter Louis: The Jews of South Africa
Prof. Meinhard Mayer: Yiddish and German Poets from Czernowitz
Cantor Hale Porer: Influence of Yiddish Theatre and Music on U.S. Culture
Ron Robboy: On the Trail of Der Yidisher Kauboy
Prof. Joel Schechter: Yiddish Theater in the 1930s in America
Prof. Julius Scherzer: Growing up in Czernowitz
Harold Ticktin: The Roots of Jewish Humor
Prof. Robert Zelickman: The History of Recorded Klezmer Music 1908-2008
Rokhl Zucker: Yiddish Radio (Haynt)
Dr. Barney Zumoff: My Experience as a Yiddish Translator

Keynote Speakers in Plenary Sessions

Each morning starts with a plenary session (everyone in the Ballroom.} These lectures are by experts in their field. They will be recorded and the CD will be sent to member clubs as part of the IAYC packets.

Boris Sandler “Di evolutsye fun der yidisher literatur nokh der tshernovitser konferents biz haynt”

Boris Sandler was born in Beltz (Besarabia) and graduated from the Music Conservatory in Kishenev and wrote for the Moscow Yiddish magazine "Sovetish Heymland." Later he joined its editorial board. In 1989 he created a Yiddish Show on the Moldovian State Television - "On the Jewish Street."

He is the author of two documentary film scripts: From 1990 till his immigration to Israel in 1992, he was the Yiddish Editor of the bilingual journal “Undzer Kol" in Kishinev and President of the Yiddish Cultural Organization of Moldavia.

Sandler is author of 7 fiction books and was editor of the children's magazine “Kind un Keyt". His works have been translated to Russian, English, French, German, Hebrew and Rumanian. Since 1998 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the Yiddish Forverts and 1999- present editor of the Forward radio show.

Dr. Motl Rosenbush "der aroysfoder fun yidish"/The Challenge of Yiddish

Dr. Rosenbush is a native Yiddish speaker having been born in Lublin, Poland. Motl was chairman of the Russian Department at the University of New Hampshire. He has developed Yiddish-speaking Yugntruf svives in New York City. He translates from Yiddish, Russian and Polish into English for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C and has run Yiddish workshops in Brussels, Paris (at the Medem Bibliotheque with Professor Yitzhok Niborski), Washington, D.C., and at the IAYC Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Motl is the current Vice President of the IAYC.

The Yiddish of Greater Washington is one of the Yiddish organizations that benefits from his efforts. Another major interest is the new Yiddish dictionary, for he is a major participant in bringing this important work to fruition.

Yale Strom “Labushnik loshn: The Secret Language of the Klezmers”

Yale is a director, composer, musician, writer, photographer and playwright. He is a pioneer among klezmer revivalists in conducting field research in Europe among the Jewish and Rom communities. His work focuses on all aspects of Jewish and Rom culture, from post-WW II to the present, especially the use and performance of klezmer music and is on staff at U.C. San Diego.

Yale Strom is the world’s leading ethnographer-artist of klezmer. He has published 10 books, directed 6 films and leads the klezmer band--Hot Pstromi. He performs with his wife, Elizabeth Schwatz.

Evening Programs

After a day filled with learning, listening, watching and making new friends you will lean back and be entertained. Each evening will be filled with great entertainment.

Opening Night

Cantor Hale Porter will say the blessings and greetings will be given by IAYC President, Paul Melrood. Then Conference Chair, Norman Sarkin will introduce His Honor the Mayor.

Our entertainment begins this first night with master raconteur Archie Barkan. You will recognize him, for he will be the moderator of the first afternoon teacher’s panel. He also performed at a previous conference when the IAYC was at the UCLA Conference Center ten years ago.

Next Debby Davis and The Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble will perform. Several members of the band have been in the music department at U.C. San Diego. As a group they are a musician’s dream. In addition to being magnificent performers, both singer Debby and Prof. Bob Zelickman will be presenters.

Second Night

This will be a very special time, for it will be the third consecutive conference that the Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle has sponsored the Saturday Evening Gala Event of Stars under the leadership of Adrienne Cooper. Each year they have introduced young rising performers who are becoming names on the Yiddish Circuit. As they are added, their names will be placed on the IAYC updated list found on the website (listed below).

IAYC will feature its Third Lifetime Yiddish Service Award. We are proud to announcethat this year’s award will go to Lilke Majzner, leader of the LA Yiddish Culture Club, the #1 Yiddish club in the West and one of the best in the world. She follows in the footsteps of Chana Mlotek and Simon Swirsky.

Final Night

First we shall honor Norman Sarkin’s stellar La Jolla Committee.  A start for a great night of entertainment.

Raquel Leisorek’s San Diego Yiddish Club will perform Mayn Sheyne Meydl, which is the Yiddish version of My Fair Lady. There was a wonderful video made of the first performance and distributed to the IAYC clubs.

Closing out the evening will be Yale Strom, the leading ethnographer-artist of klezmer music who will perform with his wife Elizabeth Schwartz and his klezmer group.

IAYC to Launch IAYT

A New Organization

With the overwhelming success of the IAYC, it is time that the same principles that were learned in organizational Yiddish club formation, be applied in the realm of Yiddish teaching and Yiddish teachers at various levels.

IAYC Role in IAYT Formation

The sole interest is to have the venue for lighting the fire of the new organization. Once the conference is over the IAYT will be on its own. If it wishes to have future meetings at IAYC conferences, it gladly will be accommodated. However, until it is able to reach a critical mass, it should piggyback at other accommodating meetings such as Yugntruf’s Sof Vokh, KlezKamp, etc.

Teacher’s Program at the IAYC Conference
Formation of the International Association of Yiddish Teachers

To initiate this effort the IAYC will include a series of panels/lecture/workshops that will be open to all attendees without having to sign up beforehand. It will include successful Yiddish teachers at all levels.

The 7 teacher sessions will alternate panels of a moderator and 4 Yiddish teachers with a lecture by an outstanding Yiddish teacher. The panels will be; teaching Yiddish through song, curriculum content, teaching methods, organizational direction for IAYT and its website.

The Theme Approach

To identify the individual sessions for attendees, the program will list the areas of concern for each presentation/workshop. They will be: T for teachers, C for clubs, M for music and A for all others. Each of the sessions will attempt to have at least one in each category. Thus one could follow a thread or theme throughout all the sessions or pick and choose. You do not have to select beforehand!

Levels of Yiddish Teaching

There is a difference in teaching any subject when your student ages are; pre-school, elementary, teenage, college or adult/senior. Their attention span, retention ability, background experiences and motivation are criteria in creating specific syllabi. There is a wealth of learning materials and lesson plans that are available from the Arbeter Ring, YIVO and schools in Montreal and Toronto.

From Czernowitz to Cyberspace and Beyond

Yiddish, you have come a long way!

Little could the conveners of the Czernowitz Conference in 1908 have anticipated the obliteration of most of the Yiddish speakers of Europe, the founding of Israel with its concomitant reestablishment of the Jewish Homeland (and its diminishing Yiddish), or the powerful tool of the Internet in producing a “Virtual Shtetl.”

Our 12th IAYC conference will examine the last 100 years of Yiddish, and look into the future. We most likely can no more predict the next hundred years than the Czernowitz conveners could foretell the actual series of events that characterized the Yiddish world of the 20th century--but it will be very exciting.

Specifically, how will the IAYC mark this 100th anniversary of the first-ever Yiddish conference? What will be the ways in which the parent organization will assist the hundred local clubs celebrate this centennial? These resources will be emphasized at the conference as well as in the club materials to be sent out.

In anticipation of the worldwide interest in this theme, Der Bay has announced that it will act as the clearinghouse in listing any and all local major events commemorating the Czernowitz Conference. It is hoped that not only will it bring more attention to the event, but assist the planners in avoiding conflicting dates. It will also act as a resource to identify those key speakers and entertainers.

San Diego—Here We Come!

The 2008 12th IAYC Conference Site Selection Committee has come up with a winner. La Jolla is the premier section of San Diego, and the conference will be situated in the beautiful La Jolla Marriott Hotel located within a short walking distance from the Jewish Community Center, restaurants, boutiques, an exclusive outdoor mall and the skywalk spanning the busy twelve-lane highway. The setting is breathless.

La Jolla is the location of the world renowned Salk Institute, the University of California at San Diego, and the world-famous Scripps Memorial Hospital with its Research Center.

For scenery, the nearby shoreline is the most memorable of La Jolla's districts. La Jolla is home to one of the most spectacular waterfronts in Southern California, with remarkable caves, cliffs, beaches and sunsets.

Norman Sarkin and his committee are getting off to the fastest start of any conference to date. He came forward in Cleveland and said that La Jolla wants the next IAYC confernce!

Norman is a Yiddish-speaker from South Africa and belongs to a S.D. South African Jewish Club. He said that because of Mexico City’s closeness we can anticipate a notable attendance from Mexico’s Yiddish-speaking community.

Major events will appear in the separate listing: www.derbay.org/calendars/kalendar.html

Last Updated on 5/10/08
By FISHL KUTNER

Go To Top