First edition of Yiddish Culture Festival takes place in Bucharest

The Festival of Yiddish Language and Culture - Ydisher Velt, including lectures, theater performances, documentary films and concerts to be shown at the State Jewish Theater, Union Cinema Hall, the Jewish Community Center, Green Hours Club, the Museum of the Romanian Peasant (MTR) has been holding its first edition in Bucharest, on September 2-5. Organized by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania, supported by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Department for Inter-ethnic Relations and the European Jewish Fund, the Festival marks the 134th anniversary of the Yiddish theater that succeeded going throughout history, despite dramatic events. Through the Festival's events, the organizers plan to revive for the audience nowadays, the pre-war atmosphere specific to Central and Eastern Europe, when the Yiddish Culture used to be part of the everyday life, in many Romanian towns and cities. Yiddish is the language spoken by the Jews living in Western, Central and Eastern Europe, the language of the Ashkenazi or the Hasidic language (meaning piety, or the loving kindness), but also that of the beginnings of the Renaissance of the Modern Jewish Culture, a transnational culture, wherein plays, poetry and lyrics have been written. AGERPRES