A SoCal Yiddish Bulletin
This week, I was delighted to be featured alongside my friends and colleagues in Yiddish world in our friend Robin Estrin’s piece on Yiddish in LA on KCRW. Not only did I feel like she had comprehensive and deep insights about this aspect of Jewish life here at Der Nister and beyond, but it motivated me to redouble my efforts to promote Yiddish in the area.
For those who don’t know, we have a Yiddish LA Whatsapp group where we coordinate our monthly Yiddish conversation group in Brentwood, thanks to the generosity of Seth Weisberg, promote upcoming events, and just practice our Yiddish. I also teach Yiddish privately, and put up classes whenever I sense there is interest in the language or an aspect of it. We work closely with partner organizations to create events — and we love having Yiddish featured as part of our Cabarets.
But while these all make a difference in working for Yiddish life here, it occurred to me that there was so much more to be done. One of our constant issues in the Yiddish world is coordinating between ourselves (because there are many of us, all doing commendable work) and communicating to those who are interested with a singular and powerful voice. We all have different mailing lists and different interests. Yet the city is big enough for us all and many, many more.
I think back to my time at the Forward when I pushed to create the Yiddish Community Calendar, which served the function of being the central repository of Yiddish events around the world. In the process of making it, I learned about just much I didn’t know, how many gatherings and groups that would seemingly spring up out of nowhere, beyond my immediate ability to research them. It became a reliable source of current information in the Yiddish world that didn’t require sifting through a full inbox of emails.
Now that the Calendar is no longer, and there is no longer a central repository — though I will say that the Forward and journalist Rokhl Kafrissen make serious efforts to list anything they come across in various forums. But my dream isn’t dead. It may have shrunk though.
My new goal is to create a separate Der Nister-distributed monthly newsletter, available to those who specifically sign up for it, which I call “Der Zunenshtral” (The Sunbeam), in homage to the many Yiddishists who came before to LA and fell in love with the sun. Hence the name for one leading local literary journal, “Zunland.”
In this newsletter, I will compile as many upcoming local events as possible for any interest — if a klezmer band has a gig, expect it here. If there’s a Yiddish literature group, you’ll see when they meet. If the activity requires Yiddish to enjoy, I will list the offering in Yiddish. I also pledge not to prioritize Der Nister events. Events will be listed in chronological order. However, Der Nister will have a unique advantage in getting events listed since I do in fact know when they are happening with ideally 100% certainty.
Additionally, I will list resources and groups that operate in the area, national and international events of special interest, and articles about or in Yiddish. I might also permanently embed my article from my Forward days on how to learn Yiddish using free apps.
If this newsletter strikes a chord, the ideal would be to expand it to print form and distribute it to interested places, and in lieu of links to interesting articles, we will write, distribute and publish our own — maybe even place ads to help pay for it. Aaron Castillo-White of the Der Nister board and Kultur Mercado agrees with me that this would be a useful method to publish pro-Yiddish art.
My goal is to publish a rudimentary version of this to those who are interested at the beginning of April. Next newsletter will feature a sign-up for it. I hope you come along for the ride on the Sunbeam.
