Three-day Parley on Yiddish Culture to Be Held at Columbia University

A three-day conference devoted to the scholarly study of Yiddish language, literature, and folklore will open on the campus of Columbia University on April 7, it was announced here today. Participants from the United States as well as from Israel, England, Holland, Switzerland, and Argentina will present papers on various aspects of Yiddish studies at the sessions.

The conference, in preparation for two years, is being co-sponsored by Columbia, the City College of New York, the Hebrew University at Jerusalem, and the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. The purpose of the conference is to enable the participating scholars to share the results of their recent work and jointly to map plans for their future research.

Among the scholars joining in the event are Prof. Roman Jakobson of Harvard University, Prof. Irving Howe of Brandeis University, Prof. Dov Sedan of the Hebrew University, and Profs. Sol Liptzin and Max Weinreich of City College. An exhibition dealing with stages in the rise of the Yiddish language is being prepared by the Yivo Institute.

The range of subjects dealt with in the conference papers is a wide one. Several talks will be devoted to recent developments in Yiddish poetry. The language of Bialik, a writer of distinction in both Yiddish and Hebrew, will be the subject of two analyses. A folklorist will discuss the treatment of international motifs in Yiddish narrative lore. The pronunciation of Yiddish on the radio, based on sample recordings, is among the subjects of scheduled papers. Many additional topics concerned with Yiddish language and literature from the Middle Ages to this day are on the agenda.