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The Discovery ProjectFinding Yiddish Culture and Bringing it to Life… A dance at your grandparents’ wedding, a little-known Yiddish proverb, the perfect recipe for brisket, a nign (tune) sung by Hasidim in a village destroyed in the Holocaust, a scene from a play about immigrant life in the sweatshops, a photograph of Jewish workers at a convention in the 1920s -- all are fascinating artifacts of Jewish cultural history, and all will be coming to life again thanks to the Book Center’s new signature educational program, the Discovery Project. Led by Hankus Netsky, the Book Center’s Vice President for Education, the Discovery Project will recover what is left of our immigrant and post-immigrant heritage, mobilizing a specially selected group of college students to seek out the kinds of Jewish cultural treasures that they are most passionate about. Our Discovery Fellows, recruited from the 2008 Steiner Internship Program at the Book Center, hope to cover a diverse sampling of Jewish culture. They are strategically located in south Florida, the Midwest, and Israel.
The material Hankus and the students gather will be made available to the public, who will be able to learn from it and use it as the basis for creative projects, curriculum, writings -- or delicious meals! It will become part of an interactive “open archive,” hosted in exhibits at the Book Center, on the web, and within the pages of Pakn Treger. Most important, the Discovery Project will provide endless content for public programs of all types. Such programs are already in the works for this coming spring, so stay tuned -- and get ready to discover! |
| 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 |
Leah Weston, a student at the University of Miami, has been attending meetings of the “Sunny Isles Yiddish Culture Club,” looking for songs, stories, recipes and other kinds of Yiddish treasures. A DJ at her college radio station, Leah has just the right experience of putting together media presentations that can communicate directly with students of her generation.
Aviv Luban, studying at a Yeshiva (religious training school) in Israel, hopes to connect with sources of traditional Jewish cultural treasures, including zmiros (popular religious songs in Hebrew and Aramaic), nigunim (spiritual and dance tunes), and nusakh (the musical language of Jewish prayer). He also plans to meet and interview active Yiddish poets living in Israel.
Leah Jakaitis, a library science major at Indiana University in Bloomington, plans to work on-campus with experienced Jewish folklorists and historians, including Dov-Ber Kerler and Jeffrey Weidlinger (both of whom have been leading an ongoing Jewish folklore collection expedition in Eastern Europe), and is planning her own collecting field trips to Chicago and Milwaukee.