ACTIVIST SPOTLIGHT: SARAH BISKOWITZ

A gut morgn [a good morning]! My name is Sarah Biskowitz, and I work at the Jewish Women’s Archive in Boston. I manage the Rising Voices Fellowship, a writing and leadership program for high school students.

I am passionate about Yiddish as a tool to build a more inclusive and vibrant Jewish community and a more equitable world. I first studied the language at the Yiddish Book Center in 2018 and continued through various summer intensives and classes around the world and online. As a Yiddishist, I’ve had a lot of fun opportunities like interning at the Paris Yiddish Center, co-organizing the Farbindugen Yiddish Studies conference, speaking at places like Limmud UK and Lehrhaus, and writing for In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies.

I’m a big fan of the Workers Circle Yiddish instruction and resources. This is my third year taking the online intermediate-advanced class Mit yidish iber der velt (With Yiddish Around the World) with the incredible Nikolai “Kolya” Borodulin, and I’ve enjoyed other programs from the Workers’ Circle Yiddish like Winter in Yiddishland. It’s been academically and socially beneficial; I’ve become friends with many Workers Circle students and teachers from across the globe. I recommend taking a class, and checking out the recently digitized Yosl and Chana Mlotek Song Collection.

I love how the Workers Circle is not only committed to Yiddish, but also to social justice for all. I was lucky enough to accompany a Workers Circle group of young people on a trip to Selma, Alabama, alongside a group from Black Voters Matter as a part of the Black and Jewish Partnership for Democracy. We learned about civil rights history and contemporary voting advocacy. I appreciate how the Workers Circle draws upon American Yiddish history and partners with groups from other cultural backgrounds. It is essential that we all contribute in our own way, as the Morris Winchevsky song Di tsukunft [The Future] goes, bafrayn un banayan undzer alter velt [to liberate and renew our old world].

To sign up for our Activist Update e-newsletter and get these Activist Spotlight blog posts in your inbox click here

Sarah is in the back row, third from the right