Liberate & Renew: Yiddish Left Legacy Orgs Thriving Today

Rad Yiddish, the Boston Workers Circle, the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, and United Jewish People's Order co-present a panel discussion moderated by Sarah Biskowitz with three fascinating speakers, each with decades-long involvement in their respective organization: Faith Jones (Peretz), Shayle Kilroy (UJPO), and Linda Gritz (BWC).

Founded between 80-125+ years ago, Boston Workers Circle, Peretz Centre (vancouver), and United Jewish People's Order (toronto & winnipeg) are still thriving today while retaining their explicitly Leftist politics including Palestine solidarity and other social justice commitments.

Rad Yiddish is excited to bring together community members from these three historically-Yiddish Left legacy organizations to share about their organization's radical roots and ongoing cultural activism. What do these robust organizations offer the Jewish Left today?

Thursday, October 15th

4:30 PT / 7:30 ET

Online (Zoom)

Registration required. The suggested contribution for this panel is $25+ / pay-what-you-can (No one turned away for lack of funds). 

This event is organized by Rad Yiddish, which offers community-engaged Yiddish folk arts, language, and cultural programming through a queer, feminist, anti-racist, and disability justice lens, in a supportive, inclusive, accessible environment.

About Our Speakers

Sarah Biskowitz (moderator) is a Yiddish cultural organizer, educator, and oral historian. She is pursuing a dual master's degree in Jewish studies and public administration at New York University. Previously, she worked at the Yiddish Book Center and Jewish Women's Archive. She also taught beginner Yiddish language and co-organized the Farbindungen conference. Sarah graduated from Smith College and completed the Year Program at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. Her writing has appeared in Lilith Magazine, Jewish Currents, and In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, among others.

Linda Gritz is a lifelong Yiddish cultural activist, starting with attending the Workers Circle shule (Yiddish cultural after-school program) and Camp KinderRing. Since retirement in 2016 from a career in biotechnology as a molecular biologist turned medical writer, Linda has been creating original Yiddish songs and Yiddish versions of songs from other languages, usually with a social justice message. She is active in Boston Workers Circle / Arbeter Ring, a secular progressive community rooted in radical Yiddishkayt, and sings in its Yiddish chorus A Besere Velt (A Better World).

Faith (נעמי) Jones is a translator and historian living on the unceded, ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations in Vancouver, Canada. She has been active in the Vancouver Peretz Centre for decades and has written about its history for scholarly and popular audiences. Among her translation projects are The Acrobat: Selected Poems of Celia Dropkin (co-translated with Jennifer Kronovet and Samuel Solomon), and Meant to Be and Other Stories by Shira Gorshman. She is currently working on translations of plays by Kadya Molodowsky and Esther Shumiatcher.

Shayle Kilroy is a Toronto-based Yiddish enthusiast and community organizer. She grew up at Camp Naivelt, emerged in secular, leftist Jewish culture and has worked at the United Jewish People’s Order for four years, working to build a dynamic Jewish Left in Toronto and a true alternative Jewish institutional presence. She has an MA in Germanic Languages and Literatures with a field in Yiddish from the University of Toronto and is passionate about contemporary Yiddish pedagogy. She is a founding member of the Jews Say No to Genocide coalition and is proudly anti-zionist.