Zachary Baker and Ken Blady gave a presentation of Yiddish in the Hasidic World at KlezCalifornia’s 2010 Yiddish Culture Festival.
Yiddish continues to play a significant role in contemporary Hasidic communities. Mame-loshn (Yiddish) and loshn-koydesh (Hebrew) coexist with Hasidic English, which has emerged as a new Jewish language. Ken Blady, who grew up in a Hasidic family, will distribute a Glossary of Hasidic Terms and explain some basic concepts such as shrayim, pidyoinis, kvitl, kashketl, and gartl; talk about the regional differences between those who wear shtraymlekh and those who wear spudiks, and discuss Yiddish within the Hasidish world. Zachary Baker will show how Yiddish has become a factor in the consumer marketplace, with a proliferation of glossy magazines. He will discuss Hasidic publications in Yiddish and recent findings by ethnographers and historians.
Biographies:
Zachary Baker is the Reinhard Family Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections in the Stanford University Libraries, and previously (1987 – 1999) Head Librarian of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, in New York City. His presentation on Shabbes afternoon is a spinoff from talks he gave in 2001 at KlezKamp about Yiddish publishing since 1945.
(Berkeley) Educator, writer, and Yiddish translator, Ken Blady was born in Paris and grew up in Hasidic Brooklyn, where he attended yeshiva and rabbinical seminary. A Bay Area resident since 1972, Ken has a B.A. in History from the U.C. Berkeley, and an M.A. in Educational Psychology from Cal State University East Bay. He is author of The Jewish Boxers’ Hall of Fame and Jewish Communities in Exotic Places, and translator of The Journeys of David Toback and Remembrance. A popular lecturer on a variety of Jewish themes at colleges, synagogues, elderhostels, and adult educational institutions, Ken has been featured on radio and television talk shows, including the Voice of Israel and The History Channel documentary, Operation Magic Carpet. He is a lecturer in Jewish history on the faculty of American Jewish University’s Whizen Center, Bel Air; Cal State University East Bay, Concord, OLLI program; and Diablo Valley College’s Emeritus College, Walnut Creek.
For more Yiddish lectures from KlezCalifornia’s 2010 Yiddish Culture Festival or if you’d like information on upcoming KlezCalifornia events click here.
