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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, August 31st - FilmOur Children (Unzere kinder) This semi-documentary film features the comedy duo Szymon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher at an orphanage/school near Lodz with Jewish children who had survived the Holocaust. 2 p.m Cost: $6 Monday, September 1st Closed for Labor Day Sunday, September 7th - Film Tillie Olsen, A Heart in Action This revelatory new documentary is an inspiring homage to Tillie Lerner Olsen - a renegade, revolutionary, distinguished fiction and non-fiction writer, feminist, humanist, labor organizer and social activist. Her short stories "Tell Me a Riddle," and "I Stand Here Ironing," galvanized the literary world and set in motion an essential new perspective on the lives of ordinary women. 2 p.m Cost: $6 Sunday, September 14th - Concert Rebecca Kaplan and Pete Rushefsky Rarely heard folksongs sung by Rebecca Kaplan and accompanied by tsimblist Pete Rushefsky, along with a variety of old and new klezmer tunes and Yiddish songs composed by Kaplan, Rushefsky, and others. Reservations suggested. 2 p.m Cost: $10  Saturday, September 20th - PerformanceThe Disappearance Double Edge Theatre's newest work, The Disappearance, based on Ilan Stavans’ novella, follows the real-life story of a Holocaust survivor-turned theatre star in Belgium, living in the throes of a perceived renewal of anti-Semitism, who stages his own disappearance to awaken his community to a wave of neo-fascism. Reservations suggested. 8 P.M. Cost: $18 Sunday, September 21st - PerformanceThe Disappearance Double Edge Theatre's newest work, The Disappearance, based on Ilan Stavans’ novella, follows the real-life story of a Holocaust survivor-turned theatre star in Belgium, living in the throes of a perceived renewal of anti-Semitism, who stages his own disappearance to awaken his community to a wave of neo-fascism. Reservations suggested. 2 P.M. Cost: $18  Sunday, September 28th - TalkPeter Manseau, Songs For The Butcher’s Daughter Manseau’s new novel is the story of two lives which merge unexpectedly at the end of the 20th century: a nonagenarian Russian immigrant who is the last Yiddish poet in America; and his 21-year-old American translator, who learns Yiddish and passes as a Jew to win the love of a co-worker. 2 p.m Cost: $6 Tuesday, September 30th Closed for Rosh Hashanah Wednesday, October 1st Closed for Rosh Hashanah  Sunday, October 5th - TalkLucette Lagnado in conversation with Ilan Stavans Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit re-creates the majesty and cosmopolitan glamour of Cairo in the years between World War II and Nasser's rise to power. Ilan Stavans is an author, cultural critic and professor at Amherst College. Reservations suggested. 2 p.m Cost: $6 Thursday, October 9th Closed for Yom Kippur  Sunday, October 12th - TalkGilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel Artist and professor of art at SUNY Purchase, Murray Zimiles, won the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in Visual Arts for his book, the first major study of the secularization of Eastern European Jewish folk art traditions in America. 2 p.m Cost: $6 Monday, October 13th Members Day Spend the day at the Book Center during our community Sweet Harvest Festival, a daylong event for families including art projects, nature walks, author readings and great music. 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m Cost: Free for Book Center Members Tuesday, October 14th Closed for Sukkos Wednesday, October 15th Closed for Sukkos  Sunday, October 19th - FilmLouis Brandeis: The People’s Attorney Directed by Emmy award-winning filmmaker Charles Stuart, this sweeping documentary portrait traces the evolution of one of America’s most influential legal minds from his youth in Louisville, Kentucky, through his years as a Boston attorney crusading for progressive reforms, to his controversial appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. (56 minutes) 2 p.m Cost: $6 Tuesday, October 21st Closed for Shemini Atzeret Wednesday, October 22nd Closed for Simchat Torah  Sunday, October 26th - TalkNathan Englander in conversation with Ilan Stavans. From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, award-winning author Nathan Englander's debut novel The Ministry of Special Cases casts a powerful spell. Ilan Stavans is an author, cultural critic and professor at Amherst College. Reservations suggested. 2 p.m Cost: $6 Sunday, November 2nd - Talk From the Bible to Broadway – 3000 years of Jewish Music Historian and archivist, Barry Serota, explores the development of Jewish song using audio and video clips, anecdotes and humor. 2 p.m Cost: $6  Sunday, November 9th - TalkIlan Stavans Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans is the author of, among other books, On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language, Dictionary Days: A Defining Passion and the editor of the three-volume set, Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories. His new book, Resurrecting Hebrew, explores the life and legacy of Zionist lexicographer Eliezer ben Yehuda, credited for making Hebrew modern. Reservations suggested. 2 p.m Cost: $6  Sunday, November 16th - TalkRadio and the Jews: The untold story of how radio influenced America's image of Jews, 1920s-1950s Authors David S. Siegel, a radio historian, and his wife Susan Siegel use audio clips from a cross section of programs to explore the portrayal of Jews on the radio in America during the 1920s to 1950s. 2p.m. Cost: $6  Sunday, November 23rd - TalkRabbi Harvey Rides Again Jewish folktales are creatively retold and let loose in the Wild West in the graphic novels The Adventures of Rabbi Harvey and Rabbi Harvey Rides Again. Author Steve Sheinkin talks about the origin of Rabbi Harvey stories and illustrates the step-by-step process he uses to turn traditional tales of Jewish ethics into comics set in the Wild West. 2p.m. Cost: $6 Thursday, November 27th Closed for Thanksgiving Friday, November 28th Closed for Thanksgiving  Sunday, November 30th - FilmMothers of Today This 1939 shund film includes the sole motion picture performance of radio star Esther Field, who was well-known on the airwaves of the 1930s as the "Yidishe Mama." Here Field plays a mother coping with her children's troubles as they stray from Jewish tradition. (85 minutes; Yiddish w/ English subtitles) 2p.m. Cost: $6  Sunday, December 7th - FilmBuenos Aires' Pogrom During the "Tragic Week" of 1919, Argentinian soldiers and vigilante groups murdered more than 100 striking immigrant workers, including Jewish citizens, in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Once. Director Herman Szwarcbart's 2007 documentary tries to make sense of this tragic episode. (70 minutes; Spanish & Yiddish w/ English subtitles) 2p.m. Cost: $6  Sunday, December 14th - FilmPrimo Levi's Journey Primo Levi, one of the century's greatest writers, was liberated from Auschwitz in 1945. With the war still underway, he embarked on a thousand-mile journey to his home in Turin, Italy. Sixty years later, director Davide Ferrarion weaves a path through a modern Europe that has both changed and remained eerily the same. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Chris Cooper. (55 minutes) 2 p.m Cost: $6  Sunday, December 21st - StorytellingMark Binder - Chanukah in Chelm Author and storyteller Mark Binder shares an assortment of original and traditional stories for Chanukah. 2 p.m Cost: $6/adult; $3/child  Thursday, December 25thCelebrate the Winter Solstice! Join us for simkhe with something for everyone! - Yale Strom reading from his first children's book, A Wedding That Saved a Town; a holiday sing-along concert; and other surprises! 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Cost: $5/adult; $3/child; $12/family  Sunday, December 28th - FilmAmerican Matchmaker (Amerikaner shadkhn) In Edgar G. Ulmer's last Yiddish movie, Leo Fuchs, known on Second Avenue as "the Yiddish Fred Astaire," plays an elegant and eligible bachelor who can never seem to close the marriage deal. (87 minutes; B&W, Yiddish w/ English subtitles) 2 p.m Cost: $6 |
| 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 |
