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The International Association of Yiddish Clubs Rides Again in San Diego
By Harold and Ellen Ticktin
Why should a Yiddish Conference conjure up the image of “riding”? The answer is obvious to former Clevelander Ronald Robboy whose workshop, “On the Trail of Der Yiddisher Kauboy,” was part of the Conference of International Association of Yiddish Clubs (IAYC) October 27-29 in San Diego. Robboy, a fellow at YIVO, Klezmer musician, and Senior Researcher for conductor Michael Tilson Thomas’s Thomashefsky project, described the 1942 autobiography of Isaac Raboy. An immigrant, anxious to escape New York sweatshops, Raboy headed west to become a ranchhand on a North Dakota horse farm. Faced with a miserly employer and anti-Semitism, he ultimately returned east to farm in Connecticut and become a highly regarded Yiddish writer.
A loose federation of groups devoted to Yiddish, the IAYC has a unique “structure,” with no central headquarters or staff and no consolidated activities except its annual conference. As described in IAYC literature, “The associated groups, located throughout five continents, are composed of men and women with widely varying backgrounds and skill levels in Yiddish. What holds them together is their common devotion to the language and its literature and their fierce determination that Yiddish should survive and thrive into the future....”
International is by no means a misnomer for the IAYC. Last year’s conference in Cleveland featured, among others, a highly skilled Yiddishist from Japan and a concert pianist and composer from Tel Aviv. This year’s attendees included people with roots in Mexico, Canada, South Africa, Germany, Latvia, Russia and even the ill-fated Birobidzhan “Jewish” region in Siberia. Cleveland was well represented by Laurie Cahan-Simon who was part of an educators’ panel and convenor of a new group of Yiddish teachers; Harold Ticktin presented a workshop on “The Roots of Jewish Humor.”
A Lifetime Service Award was presented to Lilke Majzner, scholar, journalist, teacher, activist and current President of the Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club. Born in Lodz, the survivor of six concentration camps told the audience, “Poland was an island in Jewish history. There will never be anything like it again.”
As always there was an outpouring of Jewish music, sound and the inevitable subject of the impact of Yiddish on the American scene, including theater, movies and comics. The music was led by that perennial star of Yiddish song, Adrienne Cooper, ably abetted by Heather Klein of San Francisco, an up and coming singer with a decided operatic flair; plus Mitch Smolkin a young Toronto-based international star of production and song. Cantor Hale Porter of New Jersey enlivened more than one session with his wit. One example: “If you take from one person, that’s plagiarism. If you take from many, that’s research.”
There was an amazing array of Jewish subjects sometimes in Yiddish, others in English and frequently in both. No subject of Jewish life was left untouched, as reflected in the workshop titles: “Influence of Yiddish Theatre & Music on U.S. Culture;” “Evolution of the Yiddish Schools and the Labor and Radical Movements;” “The Passionate Ones: Yiddish Women Poets;” “Khanike and Christmas in Yiddish Folklore;” “The Yiddish Theatre in the 1930’s in America;” “The World Wide Shtetl:Yiddish on the Internet;” and “My Experience as a Yiddish Translator,” – the latter by Dr. Barnett Zumoff, Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who supplements his medical practice with translations into English of well known and not so well known Yiddish poets. He has published 12 volumes of Yiddish translations.
The redoubtable conference chairman was Norman Sarkin, who has made significant contributions to the ongoing rebirth of the worldwide interest in Yiddish. Born in South Africa, he now divides his time between San Diego and Tel Aviv, where he has family.
The vibrancy and purpose of the three-day event is perhaps best summarized in the words of Mrs. Majzner (the Lifetime Service Award recipient): “We must hold onto our way of life, with our Jewish language and culture. We can’t negate what we had.”
A loose federation of groups devoted to Yiddish, the IAYC has a unique “structure,” with no central headquarters or staff and no consolidated activities except its annual conference. As described in IAYC literature, “The associated groups, located throughout five continents, are composed of men and women with widely varying backgrounds and skill levels in Yiddish. What holds them together is their common devotion to the language and its literature and their fierce determination that Yiddish should survive and thrive into the future....”
International is by no means a misnomer for the IAYC. Last year’s conference in Cleveland featured, among others, a highly skilled Yiddishist from Japan and a concert pianist and composer from Tel Aviv. This year’s attendees included people with roots in Mexico, Canada, South Africa, Germany, Latvia, Russia and even the ill-fated Birobidzhan “Jewish” region in Siberia. Cleveland was well represented by Laurie Cahan-Simon who was part of an educators’ panel and convenor of a new group of Yiddish teachers; Harold Ticktin presented a workshop on “The Roots of Jewish Humor.”
A Lifetime Service Award was presented to Lilke Majzner, scholar, journalist, teacher, activist and current President of the Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club. Born in Lodz, the survivor of six concentration camps told the audience, “Poland was an island in Jewish history. There will never be anything like it again.”
As always there was an outpouring of Jewish music, sound and the inevitable subject of the impact of Yiddish on the American scene, including theater, movies and comics. The music was led by that perennial star of Yiddish song, Adrienne Cooper, ably abetted by Heather Klein of San Francisco, an up and coming singer with a decided operatic flair; plus Mitch Smolkin a young Toronto-based international star of production and song. Cantor Hale Porter of New Jersey enlivened more than one session with his wit. One example: “If you take from one person, that’s plagiarism. If you take from many, that’s research.”
There was an amazing array of Jewish subjects sometimes in Yiddish, others in English and frequently in both. No subject of Jewish life was left untouched, as reflected in the workshop titles: “Influence of Yiddish Theatre & Music on U.S. Culture;” “Evolution of the Yiddish Schools and the Labor and Radical Movements;” “The Passionate Ones: Yiddish Women Poets;” “Khanike and Christmas in Yiddish Folklore;” “The Yiddish Theatre in the 1930’s in America;” “The World Wide Shtetl:Yiddish on the Internet;” and “My Experience as a Yiddish Translator,” – the latter by Dr. Barnett Zumoff, Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who supplements his medical practice with translations into English of well known and not so well known Yiddish poets. He has published 12 volumes of Yiddish translations.
The redoubtable conference chairman was Norman Sarkin, who has made significant contributions to the ongoing rebirth of the worldwide interest in Yiddish. Born in South Africa, he now divides his time between San Diego and Tel Aviv, where he has family.
The vibrancy and purpose of the three-day event is perhaps best summarized in the words of Mrs. Majzner (the Lifetime Service Award recipient): “We must hold onto our way of life, with our Jewish language and culture. We can’t negate what we had.”
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