The Israel and Jewish Studies & The Naomi Foundation hosted the 2023-2024 Naomi Prawer Kadar Annual Memorial Lecture on Monday, April 8, at 12:00 PM, with academic and cultural critic Ilan Stavans, a virtual talk titled “Yiddish and Ladino: Forking Paths.”
Yiddish and Ladino have unique histories, each reflecting the sprawling civilizations they fostered. What elements do they share? How do we define their individual character? Was their route foreseeable? At what points have the two intersected and what has come from that encounter? Do the two have the same survivalist spirit? Born and raised in Mexico City in a Yiddishist milieu and among fervent Ladinists, Ilan Stavans reflects on the divergent, at times perplexing, and even tragic routes these two Jewish languages have taken.
Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, the publisher of Restless Books, and a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. The recipient of numerous international awards and prizes, his books for adults and children include On Borrowed Words, Dictionary Days, Resurrecting Hebrew, How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish, Selected Translations: Poems 2000-2020, and The People's Tongue: Americans and the English Language. He has rendered Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, and Juan Rulfo into English, Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop into Spanish, Isaac Bashevis Singer from Yiddish, Juan Gelman from Ladino, Yehuda Halevi and Yehuda Amichai from Hebrew, the Popol Vuh from K'iche',and Don Quixote, Alice and Wonderland and The Little Prince into Spanglish. An essayist, cultural commentator, linguist, translator, and editor, his work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted into film, theater, TV, radio, and music.
Dr. Stavans’ talk is available to view in full below.
This event was supported by the generosity of the Naomi Foundation.
The Naomi Prawer Kadar Annual Memorial Lecture provides an opportunity for the public to explore topics of Yiddish language and linguistics, the history of Yiddish, Yiddish children’s literature and education. The lecture is supported by the Naomi Prawer Kadar Foundation, Inc., which is dedicated to reimagining education. The Naomi Foundation champions Yiddish, Naomi’s lifelong passion, as a vibrant, rich, and contemporary language. The Naomi Foundation advances the teaching and learning of Yiddish, particularly in academic and scholarly settings.
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