The achievements of Yiddish during the last fifty years in connection with the celebration now of fifty years of Hewish mass immigration to America will be the subject of a national conference which will be held here from April 3rd. to 5th., convoked by the J. L. Peretz Jewish Writers’ Club here. The discussion will embrace the problems of the Yiddish Press, Yiddish literature, the Yiddish theatre, etc. Exhibitions of Yiddish books and of paintings by Jewish artists in America will be held during the progress of the Conference.
Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, the leader of the Yiddish cultural movement, will open the Conference by delivering a lecture on the national importance of Yiddish in America. Dr. Coralnik, one of the editors of the Yiddish daily, the “Day”, and Mr. B. Vladek, the Manager of the “Jewish Daily Forwards”, will speak on the Yiddish press. Dr. Mukdoni, the leading Yiddish theatrical critic in America, will speak on the Yiddish drama. Mr. David Pinsky, the well known Yiddish dramatist, will speak on Yiddish literature, and Mr. L. Derner will speak on the Yiddish schools in America. About 200 delegates from all parts of the country are expected to attend the Conference.
A year ago, in March 1930, the first annual conference of the Yiddish Cultural Society in America was held in New York with about a thousand people, delegates and visitors, present. Dr. Zhitlowsky and Mr. Zalman Reisen, editor of the Vilna Yiddish daily, “Der Tog”, and one of the leaders of the Vilna Yiddish Scientific Institute, who was then on a visit to America, were the principal speakers at the opening session. No one can deny now that there is such a thing as a culture in the Yiddish, Dr. Zhitlowsky said in his address. Jewish culture in the Yiddish language is a fact. It is not only a culture for the Jewish masses but it has also drawn in a great part of the Jewish intellectuals. All Jewish movements throughout the world must make use of Yiddish if they wish to appeal to the Jewish masses.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
