YIDDISH LANGUAGE: MEMORY, LITERATURE, AND TRANSLATION
July 21 - 23, 2026
Universitat de Barcelona / Casa Adret
Free admission
TUESDAY, JULY 21
18:00 - 20:30
Universitat de Barcelona, Aula Capella (Historic Building, ground floor)
Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585, Barcelona
SHOAH TESTIMONIES IN YIDDISH AND JUDEO-SPANISH, IN DIALOGUE
In the 1980s, the Fortunoff Archive launched a project to record video interviews with Holocaust survivors from around the world. Today, the archive is part of Yale University and contains a collection of more than 4,400 testimonies in various languages, including Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish.
The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University: History and Corpus
Stephen Naron (Director)
Presentation in English with translation into Spanish
Testimonies in Judeo-Spanish: who speaks, about what, and who listens?
Lida-Maria Dodou (Fortunoff Archive Research Fellow)
Presentation in English with translation into Spanish
Documentary Short Film “You Have Courage, Madame” by Asaf Galay (2026)
Presented by Daniela Rosenfeld (director of the Festival de Cinema Jueu de Barcelona)
Screening of a documentary based on the Yiddish testimony from the Fortunoff Archive by Julia Pirotte, a Polish Jewish photographer and Holocaust survivor.
Documentary in Yiddish with English subtitles
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22
18:00 - 20:30
Casa Adret, Carrer de Salomó ben Adret, 6, Ciutat Vella, Barcelona
THE WRITTEN WORD IN YIDDISH: FROM EASTERN EUROPE TO LATIN AMERICA
For centuries, Yiddish has been the vernacular language of millions of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. Combining lexical elements of Hebrew, Germanic, and Slavic origin, it constitutes a distinctive heritage of Ashkenazi Jewish culture and gave rise to a modern literature of outstanding universal value and global reach.
The Remarkable Popularity of Don Quixote in Yiddish: From Mendele Moykher Sforim to Modernist Poetry
Arnaud Bikard (Institut National de Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Inalco)
Presentation in English
Eighty Years of the Book Collection Dos poylishe yidntum / Polish Jewry: Buenos Aires, 1946–1966
Malena Chinski (YIVO / Maison de la culture yiddish / Yiddish Barcelona)
Presentation in Spanish
Moderator: Golda van der Meer (translator, Universitat de Barcelona / Yiddish Barcelona)
THURSDAY, JULY 23
18:00 - 20:30
Venue: Casa Adret. Carrer de Salomó ben Adret, 6, Ciutat Vella, Barcelona
YIDDISH, JUDEO-SPANISH, AND CATALAN: CONVERSATIONS WITH TRANSLATORS
Translations from Yiddish into Judeo-Spanish and Catalan invite us to reflect on the relationships between minoritized languages and the ways in which they can engage with one another through translation, without relying on the mediation of a dominant language.
Translating Yiddish into Judeo-Spanish: Two Jewish Languages in Dialogue
Arnau Pons (translator, essayist, and poet)
Cynthia Gabbay (researcher, CONICET-LICH-UNSAM)
Presentation in Spanish
Translating Yiddish into Catalan: Challenges, Trajectories, and Perspectives
Joan Ferrarons (translator, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona)
Golda van der Meer (translator, Universitat de Barcelona)
Presentation in Catalan
Moderator: Ana Bejarano (professor and translator, Universitat de Barcelona)
The schedule is subject to changes.