Dovid Katz: My Three Decade Search for the Last Litvaks

The UJA Committee for Yiddish Proudly Presents Dovid Katz in an online Yiddish-Language Talk:

Mayne Draysik Yor Zukhndik di Letste Litvakes in der Historisher Lite

My Three Decade Search for the Last Litvaks in Their Historic Land

Sunday, July 18, 2021 | 1:00 pm ET (10:00am PT, 6:00pm GMT, 8:00pm IDT)

Dovid Katz will speak in deeply personal terms about his first visit to his ancestral Lithuania and Belarus in 1990, and how the trip changed the focus of his life and work for the ensuing thirty years. He has since travelled widely in today’s Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, eastern Ukraine, northeastern Poland, and beyond, seeking out the last Litvaks and preserving their language and folklore in thousands of hours of taped interviews. In addition to his ‘tales of the road’, he will speak on implications for Yiddish studies.

Dovid Katz vet dertseyln af an ekht perzenlekhn oyfn vegn zayn ershtn bazukh in Lite un Vaysrusland in 1990, un vi azoy di rayze hot ge’endert dem fokus fun zayn lebn un shafn in gang fun di vayterdike 30 yor.

This program will be in Yiddish, followed by a Q&A in English and Yiddish

Dovid Katz, a native of New York, and son of Yiddish poet Menke Katz, worked for 18 years at Oxford founding and building Yiddish studies there and elsewhere in Europe. After a stint as visiting professor at Yale, he relocated to Vilnius, Lithuania where he taught for many years at Vilnius University. He is the author of numerous works in Yiddish and in English, and is currently at work on an online English-Yiddish dictionary. His website is www.dovidkatz.net.

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