Two Jan Karski & Pola Nireńska Award Lectures in 2021

(New York, NY) – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is delighted to announce two unique lectures by Professor Daniel Grinberg on February 22 and Dr hab. Joanna Lisek on March 8. Both presenters are recipients of the Jan Karski and Pola Nireńska Award for 2019 and 2020, respectively. This annual award, administered by YIVO and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, is for an author of published works documenting Polish-Jewish relations and Jewish contributions to Polish culture.

On Monday, February 22, 2021 at 1:00pm, Professor Grinberg will present The Picture and Price of Jewish Assimilation in Documentary & Feature Silent Film. Focusing on documentaries as well as feature silent films, Grinberg will analyze the changing character and perception of Jews in both the United States and Poland in the early twentieth century, a period of assimilation and acculturation for large segments of the Jewish population. The talk will also consider the price of assimilation for Jewish communities of this period, the persistent “myth of America,” Yiddish culture before WW2, and antisemitic stereotypes and cliches popular in films of the 1920s and 1930s. Register at yivo.org/Jewish-Assimilation.

On Monday, March 8, 2021 at 1:00pm, Dr hab. Joanna Lisek will present Leaving Behind the Froyen-vinkl, or How Women Functioned in the Male World of Yiddish Literature. For centuries, writing has been one of the few avenues available for women to make their voices heard in the public sphere. Even so, women writers and poets were not treated as equal partners in the male empire of Yiddish press and literature. Women could expect condescension rather than recognition for their work. Lisek will present an overview of the different strategies used by women at that time to break their way into the sphere of the printed Yiddish word: from annotations in the margins of books to poems smuggled into the press in the guise of letters from readers. She will also explore how relationships with men were needed by women as leverage for getting published. Register at yivo.org/Froyen-vinkl.

These lectures are co-sponsored by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Both lectures will take place via Zoom.

For more information contact:
Shelly Freeman
Chief of Staff

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Prof. Daniel Grinberg is a historian, former director of the Jewish Historical Institute (1990–1995), since 1991 a professor at the Faculty of History at the University of Białystok. Among his interests are modern anarchist movement and general history of the 19th century, history of ideas, historical sociology, history of social movements and emancipation of European Jews. He translated into Polish works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (with Mariola Szawiel)./p>

Dr hab. Joanna Lisek is a literary scholar, translator, faculty member of the Tadeusz Taube Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław. Among her interests is Jewish poetry and participation of women in Yiddish culture. She belongs to the Board of the Polish Society for Yiddish Studies. Editor and co-editor of works such as Silent Souls? Women in Yiddish Culture and anthology of translations from Yiddish women’s poetry, Moja dzika koza (My Wild Goat).

ABOUT THE JAN KARSKI & POLA NIRENSKA AWARD

The Jan Karski & Pola Nireńska Award was endowed by Professor Jan Karski in 1992 to honor his wife, Pola Nireńska, a dancer, who was the only survivor of a Jewish family during WWII. The award recognizes authors of published works documenting Polish-Jewish relations and Jewish contributions to Polish culture. Jan Karski (1914 – 2000) was a Polish World War II resistance fighter who, with the help of members of the Jewish Labor Bund, was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto to gather information about Nazi atrocities in Poland. He was smuggled out of Poland, and in 1942-1943, passed on to both British and American authorities a first-hand account of the destruction of Polish Jewry at the hands of the Nazis. He is recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations.

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story