Over the course of the last several decades there have been a major feminist and queering transformation happening in the field of Yiddish culture. Having their roots and/or coinciding with movements for women’s and gay rights since the 1970s globally, and in North America in particular, by the 1990s queer and feminist Yiddishkeits became very powerful and noticeable steams of contemporary Yiddish creativity and research. The formation of the new post-vernacular Yiddish culture that began in the 1970s historically was influenced by and cannot be separated from wider identity politics gains, including a growing awareness of the impact of gender and sexuality on culture and knowledge production. Since then, a great number of projects – both artistic and academic – made daring strides toward uncovering the written out of history works by Yiddish women writers and historical Yiddish queer or proto-queer personas, as well as the articulation of present-day Yiddish female and queer experiences. Gender and sexuality finally became not only legitimate topics, but ones of the major topics of contemporary Yiddish art, culture, and research.
In the field of Yiddish literature and research, women’s Yiddish writing that had been neglected and deemed previously minor and unimportant have received more visibility and attention in recent years. Among such projects of uncovering female voices of past and present and giving its due to women’s Yiddish creativity are the translation from Yiddish and publication by Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub of Blume Lempel's Oedipus in Brooklyn as well the publication of contemporary writer’s Troim Katz Handler’s book Simkhe (Celebration) – Volume II. In the field of research, one should mention Naomi Seidman's The Bais Yaakov Project, forthcoming monograph by Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel and with Alyssa Quint “Women on the Yiddish Stage,” and Vaybertaytsh, A Feminist Podcast, in Yiddish.
Among Yiddish queer cultural work, one must mention Eve Sicular’s Yiddish Celluloid Closet, Kolektiv Goluboy Vagon (Queer & Trans, Gender-Marginalized, Post-Soviet Jewish Immigrant-Settlers), and Pink Peacock, a queer, yiddish, anarchist café & infoshow in Glasgow, Scotland. Other important works are writings by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub and Irena Klepfisz as well as the publication of the Yiddish translation by Lili Rosen of Jonathan Branfman’s The Kid's Guide to Gender, Sexuality, and Family.
Although the creation of Feminist and Queer Yiddishkeits was influenced by wider achievements of feminist and queer work within the dominant cultures in the West, these developments have also Yiddish roots in the history of twentieth-century radical and progressive left-wing secular Yiddish culture. The contemporary Feminist and Queer Yiddishkeits are natural progressions of the twentieth-century progressive Yiddish culture.
This panel brings together artists and scholars who over the years have been instrumental in creating and expanding queer and feminist yiddishlands. But where exactly do these experimental yet tangible yiddishlands are located geographically or spatially?
Faith Jones, a librarian, researcher of Yiddish culture and translator of the poetry of Celia Dropkin and Shira Gorshman, will address the intersection of queerness and Yiddishkeit. This question has been asked over and over, but our answers are always partial and preliminary. At last, following this panel, Faith Jones will be able to give a definitive answer. During the panel Faith will lead a mapping project with participants to visualize this doubly-imaginary location: the intersection of Queerness & Yiddishkeit on the streets of Yiddishland.
Feminist and Queer Yiddishkeits question the traditional boundaries of sexuality and gender roles as much as they transcend the borders of nation states.
Zohar Weiman-Kelman, a senior lecturer in the department of foreign literatures and linguistics at Ben-Gurion University, will discus Queer Yiddishkeit beyond borders and will look at Yiddish poetry and art practice as sites of transgression, undoing borders of nation, time, genre and gender. Zohar will focus on the poetry of Anna Margolin from the inter-war period, on Irena Klepfisz's bilingual work from the 1990, and at the researcher’s own Yiddish drag-king performances from the first decade of the 21st century.
There is a long tradition in contemporary Yiddish art and writing of artists going back and reconnecting with countries of origin of their Jewish ancestors in Eastern Europe. But what happens when a Jew’s relationship to the ancestral homeland located in a Eastern European nation is complicated by that nation’s homophobic or transphobic state laws?
Tobaron Waxman, a Canadian artist, curator, and performer will discuss former and current artistic projects, including "Gender Diasporist,” an interdisciplinary project which outlines the absurdity of the oppressive gender laws and unpacks the relationship of the state to the gendered body. Through "Gender Diasporist", Waxman makes both a decolonial gesture, a refusal of the ‘right of return’ and an act of solidarity with feminists and LGBTQ+ allies and activists in Poland.
Map of the intersection of Queerness and YiddishkaytDuring the panel
Faith Jones asked all the participants to contribute to
The Intersection of Queerness and Yiddishkayt Map, a crowdsourced map which attempts to answer the perpetual questions we are asked as queer Yiddish speakers: questions such as, "Why are so many queer people interested in Yiddish?", "Do queerness and Yiddish have anything in common?", and "How could you possibly love Yiddish when the shtetl was homophobic?" Embedded in these questions are assumptions about what queerness is and what Yiddish is, and positions them as opposites, or, at least, difficult to reconcile with each other. In this map we prove otherwise. To view the map data, click on any of the marked points.
Feel free to add a place that expresses the intersection of queerness and Yiddishkayt for you (changes will not take effect immediately: please check back regularly for updates to the map).