YIVO Presents the Newly Translated Miryeml

Mar 26, 2024

A Powerful Memorial to the Million Children Murdered in the Holocaust

(New York, NY) – Join the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research on Thursday, April 18, 2024, at 7:00pm ET for a reading of Tea Arciszewska’s Miryeml, a play about the experiences of children during the pogroms that followed World I. Directed by Caraid O'Brien, this “rehearsed reading” will bring NYC audiences a play which became viewed as a powerful memorial to the million children murdered in the Holocaust when it was originally published after World War II

This nearly-forgotten modernist masterpiece is now available in English translation for the first time, translated by scholar Sonia Gollance. The performance, co-sponsored by the Congress for Jewish Culture, will take place at YIVO (located in the Center for Jewish History building at 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY) and will also be livestreamed on Zoom.

Miryeml is a modernist work that deftly integrates twentieth-century history and Jewish folklore into a narrative about children’s response to trauma, challenging our expectations of Yiddish theatre.

Directed by Caraid O'Brien, this “rehearsed reading” of Miryeml will be performed in Sonia Gollance’s new English translation.

What:            Miryeml
When:           Thursday, April 18, 2024| 7:00pm ET
Where:          Taking place live on Zoom and in person at YIVO Located in the Center for Jewish History (15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011)
Cost:              General Admission: $15 / YIVO & CJH members: $10 / Livestream: Free
Reservations Available at:  yivo.org/miryeml

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

For more information contact:
Shelly Freeman
Chief of Staff

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Sonia Gollance is Lecturer in Yiddish (Assistant Professor) at University College London. Her research interests include Yiddish studies, German-Jewish literature, gender studies and performance studies. She has taught previously at the University of Vienna, The Ohio State University, and the University of Göttingen. Her book, It Could Lead to Dancing: Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity (Stanford University Press, 2021) was a National Jewish Book Award finalist. Her ongoing translation of Tea Arciszewska's play Miryeml was supported by a Translation Fellowship from the Yiddish Book Center. She is currently developing a project on women who wrote plays in Yiddish. In addition to her scholarship, she is also a Yiddish dance leader.

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story