Exhibition: מאַמע–לשון The Hidden World of Yiddish at Robarts, Aug 1 – Sep 1

Robarts Library, 130 St. George St, Ground Floor, FREE ADMISSION
Open during library hours.

Curated by: Miriam Borden & Jessica Pollock

A note from the curators:

The University of Toronto library system is home to one of the most impressive collections of Jewish books in Toronto. A significant portion of this collection is in Yiddish, the language spoken by Jews in Eastern and Central Europe for 1,000 years. The collection is widely varied and includes newspapers, film, dictionaries, sacred texts, journals, books written especially for (and by) women, histories, and a rich body of literature.

We have sourced materials from the Robarts stacks, the Fisher Rare Book Library, and the Media Commons’ extensive microfilm collection. Though our exhibit focuses exclusively on Yiddish at Robarts, we hope to show the U of T community how much Robarts has to offer, particularly in the research of understudied languages.

We present this exhibition with the help of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the Al and Malka Green Program for Yiddish Studies, the Ontario Jewish Archives Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, and the incomparable staff of Robarts and Fisher Libraries. Special thanks to Mike Hamilton at Media Commons, Pearce Carefoote at Fisher, and Dr. Barry Walfish.

Robarts and its collections have been indispensable resources to us in our own Yiddish research, and has enriched our experience as students at the University of Toronto. We are proud to be students in the only Yiddish M.A. program in Canada. We hope you enjoy the exhibit as much as we enjoyed putting it together, and hope it will inspire you to explore the hidden world of Yiddish that we have discovered at Robarts. A sheynem dank, un lern gezunt!