The Floris Kalman Memorial Fund for Yiddish Research and Cultural Production

The Floris Kalman Memorial Fund for Yiddish Research and Cultural Production will support a research and creative collaboration between the ACJC and community partners in innovative syntheses of scholarship and cultural output, specifically focusing on Jewish textual and musical fusions. Together with community partners, in this case, musicians, this project will see the research, development, production and recording of an entirely new album in Yiddish based on the poetry of Hillel Zeitlin (1871-1942). Hillel Zeitlin is widely regarded as one of the most important literary and religious voices of interwar Warsaw, and among his voluminous writings are mystical poems written in Yiddish between 1919-1931, titled Gezangen tsum Ein Sof. Traditional outputs will/may include a scholarly introduction to the poems (including translation), a supporting pedagogical apparatus for use by Yiddish language students, and a scholarly journal article on Zeitlin’s nature mysticism.