Director of the YIVO Archives Stefanie Halpern shares the harrowing journey of YIVO’s pre-war collections and the cutting-edge technologies used to digitize them, in conversation with Miri Koral (UCLA). This talk was co-sponsored by the Toronto UJA Committee for Yiddish, California Institute for Yiddish Language and Culture, and Der Nister.

Professor Kalman Weiser (York University) talks with Miri Koral (UCLA) about Yiddish reaching the university and what it means for Yiddish. This talk was co-sponsored by the Toronto UJA Committee for Yiddish, California Institute for Yiddish Language and Culture, and Der Nister, and is the third of three in this series.

Professor Kalman Weiser (York University) talks with Miri Koral (UCLA) about the theories of the origins of Yiddish and their political undertones. This talk was co-sponsored by the Toronto UJA Committee for Yiddish, California Institute for Yiddish Language and Culture, and Der Nister, and is the second of three in this series.

Professor Kalman Weiser (York University) talks with Miri Koral (UCLA) about the origins of Ashkenazic names and interesting stories about how difficult those names could be for their bearers in Eastern Europe. This talk was co-sponsored by the Toronto UJA Committee for Yiddish, California Institute for Yiddish Language and Culture, and Der Nister, and is the first of three in this series.

Josh Kogan, author of The Story of the Jews of Mexico, takes us on a tour of Mexican Jewish history. Spanning five centuries, Mexican-Jewish history stretches from Jews escaping the Inquisition, joining the conquest of Cortes, to the establishment of four different Jewish communities at the turn-of-the-century, who had to learn to unite. 

Yvonne Winer teaches about the spiritual visions of justice in three completely different religions traditions that she immersed herself in: Mahayana Buddhism in China, Shamanism in the Amazon of Colombia, and Kabbalistic Midrashot in Israel. Each of these traditions, in their own ways, stands firmly against the normal conceptions of Western thought.

Rabbi Zach Golden discusses the medieval Andalusian poet and philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol, and how he took the intellectual speculation of the cosmos and made it become a spiritual discipline.

Leon Kraiem teaches us about the life and work of the late Tunisian-Jewish philosopher Albert Memmi, and what he has to say about the discourse surrounding oppression through colonization, and where the Jews are in all of it.

Brett Kopin teaches us about Saba, Rabbi Yisroel Dov Ber Odesser, who took the relatively unknown teachings of Rabbi Nachman and popularized them the world over.