Canadian Jewish Heritage Month Lecture with Vardit Lightstone, May 2

The UJA Committee for Yiddish and the Ontario Jewish Archives invite you to a Canadian Jewish Heritage Month Lecture with Vardit Lightstone

“Why wear fur at the end of May?”: Stories by Yiddish-Speaking Immigrants of Their Arrival in Canada (1890-1930)

Sunday, May 2, 2021 | 1:00 PM Eastern Time

Registration required: click here to register by May 1.

Event page at Committee for Yiddish website.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s thousands of Yiddish-speaking Jews arrived in Canada as part of the Great Migration of Jews from Eastern Europe, unprepared for the range of new experiences they would face. This talk will explore their first impressions of Canada as presented in their own personal Yiddish narratives: the struggles of migration, as well as the creativity, strength of spirit, and humour with which these Eastern European Jews faced them. The material included in this talk is from published and archival writings, including from the collections housed in the Ontario Jewish Archives.

This program will be in English and Yiddish.

Vardit Lightstone is a doctoral candidate in a collaborative program between the University of Toronto and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The working title of her dissertation is “Performing Immigrant Identity: Canadian Yiddish Life Stories”. In 2020, her article entitled “Becoming Canadian: Folk literary innovation in the memoirs of Yiddish speaking immigrants to Canada”, appeared in Canadian Jewish Studies, vol. 29. Her doctoral research this year is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University.

The Committee for Yiddish is supported by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.