Yiddish Schmooze: Selections from the Poetry of Rosa Nevadovska
Sunday, November 3 at 1 :00 PM ET
Join Merle L. Bachman and Sheva Zucker as they introduce us to Yiddish poet Rosa Nevadovska through her own extraordinary words which have been recently translated to English. With a strong foundation in Jewish and Russian education, Rosa’s deep intellectual hunger pulled her from her native Bialystok toward studies in Ghent, Brussels, Berlin, and Paris before her immigration to the United States in 1928. Her poetry captures the voices of city, mountain and sea; of joy, sorrow and yearning.
The readings will be in Yiddish and English, and the conversation will be conducted in English.
This event is free, but donations to support our Yiddish program are welcome.
-
Poet Merle Lyn Bachman fell in love with Rosa Nevadovska’s poems while writing her book Recovering Yiddishland: Threshold Moments in American Literature (2009). In 2015-16, Bachman was granted a Translation Fellowship at the Yiddish Book Center, where she worked on the draft of this very book, So Many Warm Words. Bachman, a former denizen of Oakland, CA and Louisville, KY, now resides, writes and translates in Bloomington, IN. See https://www.merlebachman.com/ for more.
-
Sheva Zucker believes that So Many Warm Words: Selections from the Poetry of Rosa Nevadovska bears witness to the fact that new treasures are still being found. Sheva Zucker is the author of the textbooks Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature & Culture, Vols. I & II, published by the Workers Circle, and the editor and producer of the CDs The Golden Peacock: Voice of the Yiddish Writer. She has taught and lectured on Yiddish language, literature and culture on five continents and has taught Yiddish for over two decades in the Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture, currently under the auspices of Bard College and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. She served for 15 years, from 2005-2020, as the director of the League for Yiddish and the editor of its all-Yiddish magazine Afn Shvel.