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Calendar of EventsUnless otherwise noted, all events will take place at the National Yiddish Book Center, on the campus of Hampshire College, Route 116, Amherst, Massachusetts. You don't need to know Yiddish to enjoy our programs! Tickets for Sunday events are available online until Friday at 3:30 pm. Tickets for evening events are available online until 1 hour before showtime. Space is limited, and all programs are filled on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. For additional information, or reservations, please phone us at 413-256-4900.  Sunday, January 11th - ConcertBarbez - “Force of Light” Composer/musician Dan Kaufman pays homage to poet Paul Celan, considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. These musical reflections mix the sounds of guitar, theremin, clarinet, and marimba with fragments of Celan’s poetry. Reservations suggested. 2pm Cost: $10  Sunday, January 18th - FilmThe Rules of the Game Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir’s masterpiece is a scathing critique of corrupt and racist French society cloaked in a comedy of manners. (1939; 106 min.; French w/ English subtitles) 2pm Cost: $6 Monday, January 19th Closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day  Sunday, January 25th - FilmLacombe, Lucien One of the first French films to address the issue of collaboration during the German Occupation, Louis Malle’s film traces a young peasant’s journey from would-be Resistance member to Milice recruit. (1974; 138 min.; French w/ English subtitles) 2pm Cost: $6  Sunday, February 1st - FilmTerrorists in Retirement A controversial documentary about the crucial but forgotten role of a group of Yiddish-speaking tailors in the French Resistance, who were often recruited for missions considered especially dangerous. Seven of the surviving partisans recall their exploits in this film, narrated by Simone Signoret. (2001; 83 min.) 2pm Cost: $6  Sunday, February 8th - FilmIf the Walls Could Speak (Les Voix de la Muette) This award-winning documentary is a portrait of La Muette, a building in the Paris suburb of Drancy. Today it is a run-down subsidized apartment complex, but during World War II, 67,000 Jews were interned there on their way to the death camps. Director Daniela Zanzotto will be in attendance. (1998; 52 min.; French w/ English subtitles) 2pm Cost: $6 Community Book Group Thursday, February 12th - WorkshopTriangle by Katherine Weber Much has been written about the notorious 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire that took the lives of at least 146 garment workers, most of them women. But Triangle, Katharine Weber’s mesmerizing novel, brings a unique vision to the history and recollections surrounding that event. At the center of the story is Esther Gottesfeld, who at age 106 is the last living survivor of the gruesome tragedy. Her testimony was a crucial element in the criminal trial that ensued. When Esther dies, her few belongings raise new questions about her story, and two women find themselves at odds while trying to reconstruct the truth. Discussion led by Joyce Berkman, University of Massachusetts .
7:00pm Cost: Free  Sunday, February 15th - FilmHate (La Haine) This gritty and explosive look at the racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France explores the relationships between a Jew, an African, and an Arab — giving human faces to France’s immigrant populations. Their resentment of their social marginalization simmers until it reaches a climactic boiling point. (1995; 97 min.; French w/ English subtitles) CAUTION: Strong language and violence. 2pm Cost: $6  Sunday, February 22nd - TalkHow Strange It Seems Michael Hoberman, author of How Strange it Seems, tells the personal stories of Jews living in rural New England from the late 1800s through contemporary times. 2pm Cost: $5  Sunday, March 1st - TalkSholem Aleichem at 150: The Man Beyond the Myth and the Challenges of Biography Celebrate the 150th birthday of Sholem Aleichem with a conversation between Professors Justin Cammy and Olga Litvak. Dr. Cammy teaches Yiddish literature at Smith College where he is a member of the Programs in Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature. He recently published an article and annotated translation of one of the most famous controversies in the development modern Yiddish fiction - Sholem-Aleichem's "The Judgment of Shomer" - which appeared in Arguing the Modern Jewish Canon. Dr. Olga Litvak holds the Michael and Lisa Leffell Chair in Modern Jewish History at Clark University. The author of Conscription and the Search for Modern Russian Jewry, she is presently at work on a biography of Sholem-Aleichem. 2:00 pm Cost: $5  Sunday, March 8th - ConcertBetty Klein Singer, Betty Klein presents traditional Yiddish folksongs. She studied with Martha Schlamme at Mannes College and has performed extensively in Israel and Europe. 2pm Cost: $6 Community Book Group Thursday, March 12th - WorkshopThe Fixer by Bernard Malamud This 1966 novel is based on the true story of Menahem Mendel Beilis, an unjustly imprisoned Jew in Tsarist Russia. The notorious "Beilis trial" of 1913 caused an international uproar that forced Russia to back down in the face of world indignation. The trial is fictionalized using a very similar story line. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1967. Discussion led by John Clayton. 7:00pm Cost: Free Screening of the film adaptation is scheduled Sunday, March 29th at 2pm.
 Sunday, March 15th - ConcertThe Global Shtetl Band Join this German klezmer band for Simcha Tropical! - a journey through Latin American, Eastern European and Yiddish music including original songs and Latin-Yiddish gems. 2:00 pm Cost: $8 Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival - www.valleyjewishfilm.org Sunday, March 22nd - FilmGreat Cantors Cantor Murray Simon explores the giants of traditional hazanut, the Eastern European cantorial art that enthralled the American-Jewish community during the first half of the 20th century, through the film footage he has researched and restored including Yossele Rosenblatt, Moishe Oysher and Moshe Koussevitsky, among others from his 2 documentaries, Great Cantors of the Golden Age and Great Cantors in Cinema. Co- sponsored by Congregation Sons of Zion, Holyoke, MA. 2:00 pm Cost: $8  Sunday, March 29th - Film and DiscussionThe Fixer Based on the Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Bernard Malamud, this award winning film was inspired by a true story of an unjustly imprisoned Jew in Tsarist Russia. Alan Bates stars as Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman or "fixer” who is arrested on suspicion of murder, when a Christian boy is killed during Passover. Bates was nominated for an Academy Award for his role. John Clayton, retired professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of Kuperman’s Fire will introduce the film and lead a discussion follow the screening. 2:00pm Cost: $8 Community Book Group Thursday, April 2nd - WorkshopThe People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks Inspired by the true story of a mysterious codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, People of the Book is a sweeping adventure through five centuries of history. From its creation in Muslim-ruled, medieval Spain, the illuminated manuscript makes a series of perilous journeys: through Inquisition-era Venice, fin-de-siecle Vienna, and the Nazi sacking of Sarajevo. Discussion led by James Wald, Hampshire College. 7:00pm Cost: Free Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival - www.valleyjewishfilm.org Sunday, April 5th - FilmThe Vow (Tkies Kaf) Two friends make a sacred pact pledging their newborn children, Rachel and Mendel, in marriage. Years pass, Rachel's father dies, and the two children, knowing nothing of their fathers' pledge, meet for the first time and fall in love. Made in 1937 on the eve of the Holocaust, The Vow captures authentic scenes of Jewish shtetl life, Yiddish love songs, and the clash between tradition and modernity. 2:00pm Cost: $8 Closed for Pesakh Friday, April 10th Closed for Pesakh  Sunday, April 12th - TalkA Sea of Voices - Women Poets in Israel In celebration of National Poetry Month, Marjorie Agosin, an award winning poet and professor of Spanish at Wellesley College will present her new book, A Sea of Voices-Women Poets in Israel, a unique anthology that brings together the voices of 51 Israeli women poets, each writing in their native language. Poetry readings in Spanish, Ladino, Hebrew and Yiddish by Professor Agosin, poet and Hebrew translator Yehudit Heller, and Yiddish translator, Dr. Kathryn Hellerstein, the Ruth Meltzer Senior Lecturer in Yiddish and Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. 2:00pm Cost: $5 Wednesday, April 15th Closed for Pesakh Thursday, April 16th Closed for Pesakh  Sunday, April 19th - TalkJulius Lester - Amherst and the Muses In commemoration of Amherst’s 250th anniversary, award-winning author Julius Lester explores the town’s literary legacy. 2:00pm Cost: Free  Sunday, April 26th - ConcertFreylekh Valley Yiddish Orkestr Hear Hankus Netsky and his Hampshire College student ensemble as they perform klezmer, Yiddish theater, traditional folksongs, cantorial selections and rare treasures collected as part of the Book Center’s Discovery Project. 2:00pm Cost: Free Community Book Group Thursday, May 7th - WorkshopEverything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man - also named Jonathan Safran Foer - sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past. Discussion led by Ilan Stavans, Amherst College. 7:00pm Cost: Free Screening of the film adaptation is scheduled Sunday, May 17th at 2pm.
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| The National Yiddish Book Center Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Building • 1021 West Street • Amherst MA 01002 • Phone 413-256-4900 • Fax 413-256-4700 • Contact |
