Emanuel Goldsmith

Emanuel Goldsmith, Professor of Yiddish Language at Queens College of the City of New York, and editor of the newly published monumental two-volume anthology, Yiddish Literature in America: 1870-2000, will be our keynote speaker.

Yiddish influences on Jewish English: 1920-2002

Sarah Bunin Benor, Ph.D. candidate in linguistics at Stanford University, will speak on the current status of Yiddish as part of the Young Scholars Forum.

Yiddish film

Eric Goldman, Ph.D., well known expert ant lecturer on Yiddish, Isreali, and Jewish film, will be speaking on Yiddish film.

Secular Yiddish schools and camps

Fradle Freidenreich, prominent Jewish scholar, educator, and writer, will speak on secular yiddish schools and camps

The Old World Folk Band

The Old World Folk band will be providing the Festival with Klezmer and Eastern European Folk Music. They were named "the discovery of the year" by the Reading Times (PA) at a past Bethlehem Musikfest. Two third generation folk musicians from Odessa recently joined the Band, which has "expanded the band's repertoire and stylistic boundaries", according to the Band's brochure.

Jewish Vilna Between the two World Wars

Samuel Kassow, Ph.D, Professor of History, Trinity College, author and editor of numerous books - among them, Students, pProfessors and the State in Tsarist Russia 1884-1917.

Building a Crown for Yiddish Culture in Interwar Eastern Europe: The Founding of the YIVO Institute

Cecile Kuznitz, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Jewish History at Georgetown University.

Newspapers, Magazines, and Other Yiddish Publications

Samuel Norich, President of the Forward Association, publisher of the oldest Yiddish weekly in America and distinguished analyst of American Jewry's communal structure.

Seymour Rexite and Yiddish Radio

Caraid O'Brien, scholar of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Irish, theater director and actress.

For Lena and Libe: Readers and Americanization in Yiddish Woman's Magazine

Shelby Shapiro, Ph.D, candidate in modern American history at the University of Maryland, College Park, and distinguished Yiddishist.

Yiddish Culture in Warsaw and Lodz Between the World Wars

Herman Taube, Washington's well-known and beloved Yiddish journalist, writer, and poet, author of twenty books of poetry and fiction and former professor at American University, the University of Maryland, and the College of Jewish Studies of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater Washington.

Yiddish Writing in the Soviet Union in the 20's and 30's

Max Ticktin, Rabbi, Associate Director of Judaic Studies, and Assistant Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at George Washington University.