Fraytik tsu Nakht Shabbes for Cultural Jews

Fraytik tsu Nakht Shabbes for Cultural Jews is open to all, beginning with our community's Secular Humanist Shabbes observance (songs and readings) followed by a potluck dinner and an engaging speaker to stimulate our learning and discussion.

This community shabbes event is open to members and friends of all ages There will be an alternative hang-out space for kids organized by the Peretz Child Activities Committee.

Admission: a contribution to the pot luck OR pay $18.00 per person (children are free).

Please register before May 13th to make sure there's enough food for everyone.

This month's after-dinner topic:

Immigrant Jewish Mutual Aid Societies in New York City, 1890–1990

The hundreds of thousands of Yiddish-speaking immigrants who arrived in New York in the early 20th century found a place which was radically different from the cities and shtetls they had left in Eastern Europe. Most were forced into cramped conditions in the Lower East Side and had to figure out how to get by in a bustling, industrialized urban environment which made it impossible to live the way they had lived back home. To find a sense of stability and dignity, many of them banded together into fraternal and mutual aid societies which offered burial plots, medical and old age insurance, emergency loans, and a tightly-knit social group to support dozens or hundreds of members and their families.

This lecture, based on recent research at the YIVO Institute in New York, will examine the fascinating rise of these types of mutual aid societies from the 1910s to 1950s and their decline, and will give a glimpse into the rich cultural and political life that took place within them.

Our Speaker: Daniel Carkner is a Peretz Centre board member and historian (MA UBC '20) who works as a library technician at Langara College. He has been a member of the Peretz's Vancouver Jewish Folk Choir since 2017. His current research interests relate to immigrant klezmer musicians in New York from the 1890s to 1920s, including their biographies and family histories, their professional relationships, and their musical compositions. He was a Music Editorial Board member of the Klezmer Institute's Scholarly Editions Project (2023–24) and recently returned from a research trip about immigrant musicians and mutual aid societies at the YIVO Institute, where he was the recipient of the the Ruth and Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellowship in East European Arts, Music, and Theater. He shares his research on klezmer music and musicians on his blog, Old Klezmers.

Photo credit: Provided by Daniel Carkner, from the YIVO Archives & Library Collections.