In the Midst: Exploring Systemic Racism through the lens of Yiddish Culture
with Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell
In this three-part series, Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell will join a panel in exploring issues of systemic racism in the United States through the lens of moments in Yiddish culture: Leyb Malach’s play Mississippi, written in the wake of the infamous Scottsboro Boys trials; Yoysef Kerler’s poem Ven Kh’volt in Alabama Zayn, written in response to the American Civil Rights Movement, and the diverse engagements in the Yiddish language press with the phenomenon of anti-Black racism in the United States.
Anthony Russell is a vocalist, composer and arranger specializing in music in the Yiddish language. His work in traditional Ashkenazi Jewish musical forms led to a musical exploration of his own ethnic roots through the research, arrangement and performance of a hundred years of African American roots music, resulting in the EP Convergence (2018), a collaboration with klezmer consort Veretski Pass exploring the sounds and themes of one hundred years of African American and Ashkenazi Jewish music. Anthony also performs in a duo, Tsvey Brider (“Two Brothers”), with accordionist and pianist Dmitri Gaskin, composing and performing their original music set to modernist Yiddish poetry of the 20th century. An essayist in a number of publications including Jewish Currents and Moment Magazine, Anthony lives in Massachusetts with his husband of five years, Rabbi Michael Rothbaum.
Thursday, March 4, 2021, 7:00-8:30pm ET
Report and Reverberation: Fault-lines of Race in the Yiddish Press
Tony Michels and Jonah Boyarin
How did coverage, comment, and criticism on the subject of race in the Yiddish press express the diversity of Jewish reactions to the phenomenon of systemic anti-black racism in the United States? Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, with guests Tony Michels and Jonah Boyarin, will delve into the diverse contents of writings on race in the Yiddish-language press as an exploration of trends, tendencies, and continuities with how these issues continue to be covered in the Jewish press today.
Tony Michels is the George L. Mosse Professor of American Jewish History and Director of the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin. He is co-editor, with Mitchell Hart, of the forthcoming Cambridge History of Modern Judaism: The Modern Era(Cambridge Univ. Press). His first book, A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (Harvard Univ. Press), won the Salo Baron Prize from the American Academy for Jewish Research. He is currently finishing a book on American Jewish responses to the Russian Revolution.
Jonah S. Boyarin is a writer, Yiddish translator, and antiracism educator. He leads antisemitism trainings and organizes around solidarity-based approaches to community safety with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
Other In The Midst Programs:
Familiarity and Distance: Yoysef Kerler’s Ven Kh’volt in Alabama Zayn
Thursday, February 18, 2021, 7:00-8:30pm ET
Report and Reverberation: Fault-lines of Race of in the Yiddish Press
Thursday, March 4, 2021, 7:00-8:30pm ET
Co-sponsors: Be'chol Lashon, Boston Workers Circle, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, Congregation Kol Ami, Detroit Jews for Justice, Jewish Community Action, Jewish Community Relations Council of the Sacramento Region, Jewish Currents, Jewish Labor Committee, JFREJ, Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, National Council of Jewish Women, Reconstructing Judaism, Ritualwell, T'ruah, Yaffed, Yiddish Book Center, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
