2020 Annual Authority Prizes Ceremony

Every year, the National Authority for Yiddish Culture awards prizes to prominent figures in the fields of arts and literature who contribute significantly to Yiddish language and culture in Israel. In 2020, this ceremony took place without public on December 1.  

This time, the Authority's Public Council chose to bestow lifetime achievement awards upon:

Dudu Fisher - singer, actor, cantor

and Daniel Galay - composer.

 The laureates of our second Yiddish short story content:

Alexander Fish

Ruth Levin

Leybl Botvinik

During the current coronavirus pandemic,the Authority continues to be committed to the elderly population in Israel, working to provide them with the touch and joy of Yiddish culture. In light of the restrictions, we have been organizing performances by artists in the courtyards of nursing homes and sheltered housing, so that the residents can safely listen and join in the singing from the windows or balconies. 

Pictured below: Nursing homes in Herzliya, Jerusalem, and Rechovot.

Click here to see our Jerusalem Day performance

A representative of the Authority laid a memorial wreath at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem on Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), April 21, 2020. The ceremony took place without the public.

    Ya'akov Glatstein, American-Yiddish poet: "Talk to me in Yiddish, my Jewish land, and I'll certainly address you in Hebrew"

רעד צו מיר ייִדיש, מײַן ייִדיש לאַנד. 
און איך וועל צו דיר רעדן עבֿרית ממילא. 
אַבֿרהם מיט שׂרהן קומען מיר אַנטקעגן 
פֿון דער מערת־המכפּלה... 

In 2021, the Authority's Public Council chose to bestow lifetime achievement awards upon:

Moshe (Moisey) Lemster - poet and writer

Bilha Rubinstein - literature researcher and translator

Israel Rudnitsky - writer, editor and translator

"Di emese fe'e" ("The true fairy") by Maya Gez is a new Yiddish book issued with the Authority's support

Congratulations to professor Nati Cohen on the release of his new book "Yiddish with an exclamation mark / under the sign of reading"!

Take care of your health - in Yiddish as well!

The Winners of Israel’s Yiddish Story Contests

Israel’s National Authority for Yiddish Culture launched the first government-sponsored Yiddish-language writing contest ever held in the Jewish state.

In 2019, Ethel Niborsky, age 17, won the first prize for her short story “Letters to a Blind Grandfather,” for which she received an award of 3,000 shekels. The second prize, with an award of 1,500 shekels, went to Shira Shapira, 31, for her story “Three Widows.” Raphael Halff, 25, got the third prize: 1,000 shekels for “A Letter to the Mail.” These prizes were awarded during a ceremony in Tel Aviv on November 19, 2019.

Shiri Shapira, also a Jerusalem resident, is a literary translator who translates works from English, German and Yiddish into Hebrew; her translations include works by the Yiddish writers Deborah Fogel and Yisroel Rabon. She earned M.A. degrees in literary translation and Yiddish studies from the Hebrew University.

Raphael Halff, studying for M.A. in Yiddish at Tel Aviv University, is originally from Teaneck, New Jersey. He graduated with a joint degree from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary. A former fellow at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, he made his literary debut in the last print issue of the Yiddish Forward in April 2019.

See the full article in the Forward newspaper.

Such contest also took place in 2020. The prize winners were:

1. Leybl Botvinik for his short story “Fly, Little Coloured Butterfly, Fly."

2, Alexander Fish for "The Three Letters which Felix Wrote to Binyomin."

3. Ruth Levin for "A trip from Czernowitz to Kiev." 

Yiddish Radio Show – also online

The National Authority for Yiddish Culture was established following the Knesset's resolution authorizing it in 1996. The Authority's mission includes:

* Deepening acquaintance with and increasing exposure of the Israeli public to Yiddish culture in all of its forms;

* Fostering research of Yiddish culture;

* Promoting the instruction of Yiddish language and literature;

* Encouraging the creation of contemporary works in Yiddish, including literature, poetry, theater, etc.

* Compiling, documenting and cataloguing oral folklore and written culture in Yiddish;

* Publishing selected works both in their original Yiddish versions and in Hebrew translation;

* Organizing events for people of all ages, transmitting Yiddish heritage from generation to generation.

The Authority's activities are focused mainly inside the State of Israel, but it also promotes collaboration with Yiddish cultural institutions around the world.

See two reports on our activity published in the leading Yiddish-language paper "Forverts", NY: from August 21, 2015 and from January 10, 2016.