On 27th May 2010 Yiddish researchers from Israeli universities gathered for a one day seminar sponsored by the Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ten doctoral students presented the current fruits of their research, in the fields of Yiddish language, literature, history and culture. The seminar was also pleased to welcome two contributors from Germany.

The goals of the seminar, which was organized by Rebecca Wolpe and Oren Roman, PhD students at the Hebrew University, was to provide an opportunity for young Israeli researchers of Yiddish to meet and present their research and to create a forum that could address issues and difficulties unique to today's Yiddish researchers.

The seminar demonstrated that research of Yiddish and Yiddish related topics is thriving. Papers were given at three sessions: ‘Literary Response to Catastrophe’ on literature written following the First World War and both during and after the Holocaust; ‘Between Literature and Tradition’ covering folk songs, minhagim books, demons and dybbuks; and ‘Between Two Languages’ in which researchers discussed the relationship of Yiddish to German and Hebrew in case-studies of the press in America, contemporary Hassidic schools in Israel and bilingual Yiddish writers.

Over fifty esteemed observers listened to lectures, including guests from America, Germany, and the Netherlands. The seminar was concluded with a meeting of research students at which it was decided that this important academic and cultural endeavor should be repeated in coming years. The young Yiddishists also decided to try and meet before the next symposium within other cultural and academic frameworks.

Conference overview:

Aharon Maman, Head of the Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), greetings.

Israel Bartal, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), greetings.

David Levi-Faur, Limmud Bechevruta (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), greetings.

Abraham Noverstern, Head of Yiddish Section, Department of Hebrew Literature, Yiddish and Folklore (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), greetings.

Miriam Trinn (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), "Code Words in Ghetto and Concentration Camp Poetry: Their Development and Meaning".

Roi Greenwald, (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), "Pogrom and Avant-garde: Peretz Markish's Di Kupe".

Gali Drucker-Baram, (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), "Yiddish Prose Written in Israel 1948–1968: Central Themes and Problems".

Michael Lukin (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), "Songs of Complaint in the Yiddish Folk Song Tradition".

Lucia Raspe (Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universitaet, Frankfurt), "Yiddish Minhagim Manuscripts from Sixteenth-Century Italy".

Astrid Lembke (Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universitaet, Frankfurt), "Demonic Alliances in the ‘Mayse fun Vorms’".

Yaniv Goldberg (Bar Ilan University), "Between Two Worlds — The Dybbuk? Sh. Ansky and his Dybbuk: Truly a Dybbuk Tale?"

Moshe Maggid (Tel Aviv University), "Between Yiddish and German: Concerning the Yiddish Anarchist Press in America".

Lilach Netanel (Bar Ilan University), "Bilingual Writers and the Philosophy of Writing: On 'Writing' in New Yiddish Literature".

Neta Abugov (Tel Aviv University), "Acquiring Noun Plurals in Ultra-Orthodox Hassidic Yiddish".