WEBINAR: In the early twentieth century, when the dream of Jewish cultural nationalism in the Diaspora was growing among champions for Yiddish, its leading intellectuals included the “Yiddish historians” who helped to uncover the history of East-European Jews. Before the Holocaust, their mission was to discover and present the formative history of a living people to an audience of educated lay leaders, drawing, where possible, on Jewish sources, in order to help build and fortify a Yiddish-speaking nation. After the Holocaust, their mission became to console its surviving remnant with information about the struggle to survive under German occupation. This book makes Yiddish writings by these historians available in English for the first time, with translations by historian Mark L. Smith.

WEBINAR / March 8 at 10 am, Jewish Renewal in Poland’s webinar Freighted Legacies will interview Igor Golyak, the director of the enormously successful play “Our Class.” Igor Golyak is the founder and muse of Arlekin productions. Our webinar will focus on the genesis of this play in its American version. […] 

Part II: Focusing on Chapter 14 State Builder

WEBINAR 2/15/26 – The story of the enigmatic Jozef Pilsudski, the founding father of modern Poland: a brilliant military leader and high-minded statesman who betrayed his own democratic vision by seizing power in a military coup.

In the story of modern Poland, no one stands taller than Jozef Pilsudski. From the age of sixteen he devoted his life to reestablishing the Polish state that had ceased to exist in 1795. Ahead of World War I, he created a clandestine military corps to fight Russia, which held most Polish territory. After the war, his dream of an independent Poland realized, he took the helm of its newly democratic political order. When he died in 1935, he was buried alongside Polish kings.[…]

Back for a Deeper Understanding

WEBINAR: Please join us January 11, 2026, when Freighted Legacies returns with a conversation featuring author Jennifer Stark-Blumenthal and her monumental book, Poles and Jews: A Call for Myth Reconstruction. We will focus on Chapter 20, “Myth Reconstruction and the Backlash in Poland.” Understanding the complex political and cultural dynamics within Poland will be a key takeaway from this upcoming webinar. Stark-Blumenthal also poses the significant question: Could the study of history replace nationalist slogans and tired prejudices? We hope you will join in the conversation.