Join us for this virtual program about historic shipwrecks that have occurred south and east of Massachusetts. The region has been called the Graveyard of the North Atlantic with over 3,000 wrecks there since European sailors first began exploring the shores of the western Atlantic. Because of the hazards experienced by ships sailing these waters, Massachusetts was the 18th century birthplace of the modern United States Coast Guard. This presentation will include an overview of shipwrecks, their causes, and the evolution of response resources and programs. RECORDING NOTE: This program will be recorded. All registrants will receive the recording via email within 48 hours of the program. Presented in partnership with Friends of the Ashfield Public Library and other libraries from across MA & NH. Register for this Zoom presentation.   @BecketAthenaeum

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Free author talk | Sunday, November 10, 2:00 p.m. ET, at the Yiddish Book Center

Ilan Stavans discusses his new book Sabor Judío: The Jewish Mexican Cookbook, coauthored with Margaret E. Boyle. Through 100 recipes it tells the complex story of Jewish life in Mexico, from the conversos in the colonial period to the Sephardic Jews arriving from the crumbling Ottoman Empire at the end of the 19th century and the Yiddish-speaking seekers of the Pale of Settlement at the beginning of the 20th century to the Holocaust survivors of the forties and the Israeli emigrants of the seventies. Stavans, an internationally renowned scholar, translator, lexicographer, and cultural commentator, will reflect on the fusion of Jewish and Mexican flavors. This event is presented live at the Yiddish Book Center. Following Ilan’s conversation there will be a book signing. No advance registration is required to attend this event in person.

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Free online talk | Thursday, November 21, 7:00 p.m. ET, on Zoom

Mayer Kirshenblatt was born in 1916 and left Poland for Canada in 1934. He taught himself to paint at age 73 and made it his mission to remember the world of his childhood in living color, “lest future generations know more about how Jews died than how they lived.”

In this talk his daughter, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, will discuss her father’s legacy and recent exhibitions of his work, including the current exhibition at the POLIN Museum, which presents a dialogue between Mayer’s depictions of his youth in the shtetl and today’s Opatów, a post-Jewish town with no remaining Jewish community

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Free online talk | Thursday, December 12, 7:00 p.m. ET, on Zoom

Join us for a talk with David Mazower, the Yiddish Book Center’s research bibliographer and the chief curator and writer of the Center’s acclaimed permanent exhibition, Yiddish: A Global Culture. David will share his favorite objects and images from the exhibition, stories of the search for original artifacts, and reflections on how the exhibition speaks to us about the past, present, and future of Yiddish culture and community.

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Free conversation | Sunday, December 15, 2:00 p.m. ET, at the Yiddish Book Center and streamed live via Zoom

During and immediately after World War II, Eastern European Jews perceived a radical transformation in the Yiddish language. This perception inspired some intellectuals to create dictionaries and glossaries that deciphered the metamorphosis of Yiddish words. Others incorporated this new strain of Yiddish into their poetry and prose. In this conversation, Hannah will explore Khurbn Yiddish (Yiddish of the Holocaust) as a form of Holocaust memory. Following the conversation there will be a book signing.

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