1/23 | Birthday of Sergei Eisenstein
Today in Yiddishkayt… January 23 Birthday of Sergei Eisenstein, film director Sergei Eizenshtein was born to a middle-class family in Riga, Latvia. His father was of German-Jewish and Swedish descent and his mother was from a Russian Orthodox family. Sergei studied architecture and engineering at the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering. In 1918 he joined the Red Army and began studying Japanese. He later cited his knowledge of Japanese and exposure to Kabuki theater as a major influence on his artistic development. In 1920, Eisenstein moved to Moscow, and began his career in...
Read More1/15 | Yortsayt of Rosa Luxemburg
Today in Yiddishkayt… January 15 Yortsayt of Rosa Luxemburg, Revolutionary Philosopher Rosa Luxemburg was born on March 5, 1871 in Zamość, the youngest of five children. Her family lived near the old market square, not far from the home of Y.L. Peretz. She became politically active at a young age and while she finished the gymnasium in Warsaw at the top of her class, she was denied a medal because of her “oppositional attitude toward the authorities.” In 1889, she moved to Zurich where she met exiled Russian revolutionaries and her partner, Leo Jogiches, with whom she...
Read MoreRemembering Soviet Yiddish
Two new books shine a light on the shadowy memory of Soviet Yiddish culture and literature.
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