Community Open House

Join us for a day of events.

Featuring the Melinda Rosenblatt Lecture presented by David Bezmozgis

All events are free and open to the public.

Schedule

2pm | Melinda Rosenblatt Lecture presented by David Bezmozgis

David Bezmozgis’ The Betrayers tells the story of Baruch Kotler, a Soviet Jewish dissident turned Israeli politician who, after becoming embroiled in a political scandal, flees to Yalta, where he’s shocked to encounter a former friend whose betrayal decades earlier resulted in Kotler’s being sent to the Gulag. The novel was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and was named a Best Book of 2014 by the Wall Street Journal and a Favorite Book of 2014 by The New Yorker.  A native of Latvia who now lives in Toronto, Bezmozgis is also a screenwriter and the author of Natasha and Other Stories, a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Toronto Book Award.

11:30am | Exhibit Opening and Talk: Marisa Scheinfeld
Echoes from the Borscht Belt: Contemporary Photographs by Marisa Scheinfeld

In a series of striking, richly textured photographs, Marisa Scheinfeld documents the dramatic degradation of the once-thriving resorts of New York's Catskills region, an area known as the Borscht Belt because of its popularity with Jews. The exhibit includes memorabilia from some of the Borscht Belt’s most beloved resorts, along with photographs from their heyday.

Made possible with support from the Brechner family.

11am & 1pm | Tour the world's first Yiddish museum!

This 45-minute tour takes the visitor through the Yiddish Book Center's museum exhibits and allows them to...

DISCOVER the whole of Yiddish literature and its writers
LEARN about Yiddish language
ENCOUNTER the stories of three immigrant families told through words, pictures, and artifacts
EXPERIENCE the world of rural Jews in 1912-1914
GLIMPSE life in the American Jewish home
EXPLORE a Yiddish print shop
WATCH classic Yiddish film clips
LISTEN to vintage Yiddish radio 
SEE our visiting exhibits
TOUR the Yiddish Writers Garden, and more

PLEASE NOTE: Lineup is subject to change. All ticket sales are final, we cannot accommodate refunds or exchanges.