Exploring Jewish Culture and Religion through Yiddish Literature
The Yiddish Book Center’s Public Libraries Program brings Yiddish literature in translation to public libraries across the United States to deepen their engagement with Yiddish literature and Jewish life, religion, and culture, and to foster vibrant cross-cultural dialogue and discussion in their communities.
Virtual Tour of The Yiddish Book Center
Date: Friday, May 1, 2026
Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Location: La Farge Library
Address: 1730 Llano Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505
The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA celebrates Yiddish literature and culture to advance a fuller understanding of Jewish history and identity. Join Jennifer Young, Education Program Manager, as she guides us through a virtual presentation about the Yiddish Book Center, including its collections, exhibits, and initiatives, with time for questions at the end.
Learn more and register to attend at tinyurl.com/YiddishBCTour
Yiddish Sing-A-Long & Concert with Jordan Wax
Date: Sunday, May 3, 2026
Time: 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM
Location: Collected Works Bookstore
Address: 202 Galisteo St, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Jordan Wax performs both traditional songs and his own original compositions in Yiddish, the traditional language of Ashkenazi Jews. His debut full-length studio album of original Yiddish songs, The Heart Deciphers | טײַטש, is out now on Borscht Beat (Visit borschtbeat.bandcamp.com/album/the-heart-deciphers).
This free concert is intended for adult ages but all are welcome to attend! Seating is on a first come first serve basis, no reservations. Books for the Library’s Between Two Worlds programming and CDs of Jordan Wax's albums will be available for purchase at this event!
This event is presented in partnership with Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse.
Learn more at tinyurl.com/JordanWax
Yiddish On One Foot
Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM
Location: La Farge Library
Address: 1730 Llano Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Yiddish: An Introduction to Language & Culture (On One Foot!)
Yiddish has been one of the most widely spoken Jewish languages in history. Yet it is often misunderstood, maligned, or reductively imagined as a jargon of jokes or a mongrel tongue. In this presentation, we'll go beyond the stereotypes to explore the origins and evolution of this global language, with an emphasis on its vast literature and vibrant culture. And why on one foot? You'll just have to hop on in to find out!
Learn more and register to attend at tinyurl.com/YiddishIntro
A Jewish Refugee in New York: Rivke Zilberg's Journal
Date: Thursday, May 7, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM
Location: La Farge Library
Address: 1730 Llano Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Join the Yiddish Book Center in person to hear expert Sebastian Schulman give a talk on the book A Jewish Refugee in New York: Rivke Zilberg's Journal by Kadya Molodovsky.
Rivke Zilberg, a 20-year-old Jewish woman, arrives in New York shortly after the Nazi invasion of Poland, her home country. Struggling to learn a new language and cope with a different way of life in the United States, Rivke finds herself keeping a journal about the challenges and opportunities of this new land. In her attempt to find a new life as a Jewish immigrant in the US, Rivke shares the stories of losing her mother to a bombing in Lublin, jilting a fiancé who has made his way to Palestine, and a flirtatious relationship with an American "allrightnik."
In this fictionalized journal originally published in Yiddish, author Kadya Molodovsy provides keen insight into the day-to-day activities of the large immigrant Jewish community of New York. By depicting one woman's struggles as a Jewish refugee in the US during WWII, Molodovsky points readers to the social, political, and cultural tensions of that time and place.
Learn more and register to attend at tinyurl.com/JewishRefugeeNY
From a Bird's Cage to a Thin Branch: The Selected Poems of Yosef Kerler
Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM
Location: La Farge Library
Address: 1730 Llano Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Join Dr. Kareem James Abu-Zeid to discuss From a Bird's Cage to a Thin Branch: The Selected Poems of Yosef Kerler.
The first Yiddish/English bilingual edition of one of Yiddish literature’s most vital post-war poets. Born in the Ukrainian town of Haysin and raised in Crimea, Yosef Kerler was perhaps the only Yiddish poet to publish poetry written in the gulag. He would later become one of the first prominent refuseniks. This collection proves strikingly timely, with the poet’ s complicated relationship to his “cradle-land” echoing throughout, in poems of Ukrainian forests and folk heroes, of the Vorkuta Gulag and Babi Yar.
Learn more and register to attend at tinyurl.com/YosefKerler
Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem
Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM
Location: La Farge Library
Address: 1730 Llano Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Join Poet Tommy Archuleta and Librarian Liz Fedden to discuss Scholem Aleichem’s Tevye the Dairyman. In Scholem Aleichem’s will, he wanted people to read his books in whatever language they felt comfortable with on the day of his death, May 13th. We will discuss how this book is relevant to us today in our community.
Of all the characters in modern Jewish fiction, the most beloved is Tevye, the compassionate, irrepressible, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, who has been immortalized in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and in acclaimed and award-winning theatrical and film adaptations.
And no Yiddish writer was more beloved than Tevye’s creator, Sholem Rabinovich (1859–1916), the “Jewish Mark Twain,” who wrote under the pen name of Sholem Aleichem. Beautifully translated by Hillel Halkin, here is Sholem Aleichem’s heartwarming and poignant account of Tevye and his daughters, together with the “Railroad Stories,” twenty-one tales that examine human nature and modernity as they are perceived by men and women riding the trains from shtetl to shtetl.
Learn more and register to attend at tinyurl.com/ScholemAleichem
Yiddish Storytime
Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Time: 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM
Location: Southside Library
Address: 6599 Jaguar Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87507
Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Time: 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM
Location: La Farge Library
Address: 1730 Llano Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2026
Time: 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM
Location: Main Library
Address: 145 Washington Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Explore Yiddish culture by reading about the Yiddish Alphabet and Yiddish stories. Whether Yiddish is familiar or new all are invited for this fun children's storytime.
St. John's College Seminar: The Zelmenyaners by Moyshe Kulbak
Date: Thursday, May 28, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Location: Saint John's College
Address: 1160 Camino Cruz Blanca, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Attend a free seminar at St. John's College on The Zelmenyaners by Moyshe Kulbak with professors Dr. Seth Applebaum and Dr. Alan Zeitlin.
This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the twentieth century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism. The resultant intergenerational showdowns—including disputes over the introduction of electricity, radio, or electric trolley—are rendered with humor, pathos, and a finely controlled satiric pen. Moyshe Kulbak, a contemporary of the Soviet Jewish writer Isaac Babel, picks up where Sholem Aleichem left off a generation before, exploring in this book the transformation of Jewish life.
This program is presented in partnership with St. Johns College.
Learn more and register to attend at tinyurl.com/Zelmenyaners
For accommodations at Library programs such as translations, ASL interpreters, or disability needs, please email library@santafenm.gov or call 505-955-6786.
Presented as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Public Libraries Program, in partnership with the ALA and funded by the Lilly Endowment, Inc. Made possible by the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library.
The Yiddish Book Center’s Public Libraries Program brings Yiddish literature in translation to public libraries across the United States to deepen their engagement with Yiddish literature and Jewish life, religion, and culture, and to foster vibrant cross-cultural dialogue and discussion in their communities.
Each year, the Center works with 40 libraries in communities across the United States. The current theme is Between Two Worlds: Exploring Jewish Culture and Religion through Yiddish Literature. Visit yiddishbookcenter.org.
The Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library is an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to support the public library by providing funding, advocacy, programming, services, and materials that enrich the diverse community it serves. Visit santafelibraryfriends.org.