Queer Yiddish

Yiddish is a queer language.
For at least 150 years, Yiddish-speakers have been blending their
queerness with their Yiddishness, drawing on this international
language’s built-in intersectionality to create theater, music,
art, film, and literature that defies old taboos by including
our own queer selves. As Sara Felder wrote, “Queer Yiddishkeit
gives me permission to go back to the world of my grandparents
without leaving myself behind.” The multimedia presentation will
start in 1877 with a gender-bending sorceress, attend the 1907
Berlin premiere of Sholem Asch’s play God of Vengeance – set
in a Jewish-run brothel and featuring a lesbian kiss – and
enjoy examples from every decade since. You can expect: a
son with two moms, cruising in 1930s Vilnius, transitioning
in the shtetl, a gay bullfighter from Brooklyn, a Yiddish 
remix of Marlene Dietrich, sapphic bagels, AIDS activism, 
a ritual spanking, and much more.
90-minute presentation in English with
original and translated Yiddish examples.

Jake Schneider is a translator, literary organizer,
aspiring Yiddish poet, and proud member of Yiddish.Berlin
He organizes the local Yiddish conversation group
“Shmues un Vayn” and gives tours about the history of
Yiddish-speakers in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel neighborhood.
jakeschneider.eu