Yidish-Meksikanish: Exploring Yiddish Poetry in Mexico

Not many American Jews know that Mexico City was a lively center of Yiddish culture, art, and education and that it was the destination of tens of thousands of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jewish immigrants in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Not many of us know either that Yiddish writers in Mexico were keenly aware of racial injustice, writing about the Inquisition and the violent conquest of the Americas, the common experiences of its African, indigenous, Muslim, and Jewish victims, and the contemporary legacy of this bloody history. We will explore this under-discussed history and literature through readings of poetry excerpts in Yiddish and English translation.

The event will be hosted by Dr. Rachel Rubinstein.

WHEN: Friday, June 26, 2020, at 11 a.m. PDT, 2 p.m. EDT, 7 p.m. in the UK, 8 p.m. in most of Europe, 9 p.m. in Israel

COST: $15 submitted to www.paypal.me/YAAANA2020

REGISTRATION: please RSVP to info@yaaana.com for access to the Zoom link. For security reasons, all guests must be registered.

BIO:

Dr. Rachel Rubinstein is the author of “Members of The Tribe: Native America in the Jewish Imagination” (2010) and co-editor with Roberta Rosenberg of the forthcoming volume “Teaching Jewish American Literature” (2020). She is currently the Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, MA. Her parents grew up in Mexico City and are graduates of its Yiddish schools.