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Yiddish Experience sessions

The Yiddish Experience is part of the East Valley JCC’s Klezmer Fest on March 15, 2020 at the EVJCC. See below for speaker bios, topics and times.

How to Get Started Researching Your Family History
Judi Missel
12 p.m.

Are you interested in learning how to research your family’s history? This session will teach you how to get started. 

Judi Missel, a member of the Phoenix Jewish Genealogy Group and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, has been fascinated by genealogy for over 30 years. She has researched a variety of biographies and family histories. Judi frequently speaks about Hungarian, Holocaust research, and starting your personal genealogy journey. She is currently teaching “Jewish Genealogy: Step by Step” at the East Valley JCC.

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Preserving Your Family’s History
Daughters of Jacob Genealogy
1:15 p.m.

Explore family history, past and present! Enjoy an introduction to strategies for preserving your family stories so that your children and grandchildren can gain strength from the generations that came before them. Daughters of Jacob Genealogy, started by sisters Elizabeth Lee and Lorrie Walker, combines family photos and stories with their expertise in genealogical and historical-cultural-image research to create heirloom books.

Elizabeth Lee earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in political science and continued on to graduate studies. She loves everything to do with history and maps, and she makes very beautiful family history books.

Lorrie Walker has an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. She has published both quantitative and qualitative research. She loves tracking down the information that turns family mysteries into family histories.

You Can’t Do Business (or Most Anything Else) Without Yiddish
Leon Gildin
2:15 p.m.

Leon Gildin is an award-winning author, producer and retired attorney. His book “You Can’t Do Business (or Most Anything Else) Without Yiddish” discusses the amount of Yiddish spoken in contemporary English by both Jews and non-Jews alike with little or no recognition or knowledge of the source of the words or phrases spoken. This session offers a friendly review of the language that was only spoken by the parents when they didn‘t want the kids to understand. Learn more at the author’s website.  

The Revival of Klezmer Music
Sandra Bernoff
3:15 p.m.

Music has always played a role in Jewish life.  Klezmer music brought additional joy to Jewish celebrations. Unfortunately, after World War 2, klezmer music began to wane.  In the 1970s, musicians took another look at klezmer music and started to revive it all over the world. Join me to learn about the revival of klezmer music and hear a sampling of performances. Many of these klezmorim had to learn to pronounce the Yiddish words that often accompanied the music and interest in Yiddish grew as a result of the revived interest in klezmer music.

Sandra Charyn Bernoff has a bachelor’s degree in Yiddish literature and education and a master’s degree in education and has taught in both public schools and after-school religious schools. She served as the director of education in two Conservative synagogue religious schools and taught Yiddish to children and adults in Arizona, New Jersey and New York.  She was on the founding committee of Yugntruf, the international Yiddish magazine and social group, and serves as the “elder” of the monthly Yiddish group at Temple Solel in Paradise Valley. 

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