The “Poets Read Poets” workshop series on Yiddish modernist poetry continues on May 12th with a session dedicated to one of the most celebrated — and arguably most sexually charged — Yiddish poets, Celia Dropkin. Though she published only one book of poetry, alongside several short stories and a serialized novel, Dropkin’s striking imagery and fearless reflections on love, desire, sensuality, motherhood, depression, and nature continue to captivate readers today.
At the workshop, participants will read and discuss Dropkin’s poetry and celebrate her work. The discussion will be held in English, with texts provided in Yiddish and English translation.
Featuring a song performance by singer Olive Ivy Benito, with discussion by yael merlini, Katerina Kuznetsova, Jordan Lee Schnee, and Anna Rozenfeld.
May 12, 2026, 7pm
CHTO DELAT EMERGENCY PROJECT ROOM Brunnenstr. 43 10115 Berlin
The event is free – donations are more than welcome to support our hosts from the Chto Delat collective who are generously providing us with their space.
Spring is here, reminding us of the blossoming apple trees in Rokhl Korn’s garden. On April 14th, we will gather — for the fourth time already! — to talk about her poetry.
Rokhl Korn once said about her childhood, “I had no friends. Instead of friends, I had trees, and I spoke to them.” Her work offers some of the most vivid and naturalistic images in Yiddish poetry. Yet it was not only the magic of nature that fascinated her. Korn also wrote extensively about social justice, and especially about women’s experiences and inequality, even if she herself would not have used the term “feminist.”
At this meeting, we will explore different aspects of her rich and multifaceted poetry.
Please register here in order to receive the texts in advance.
April 14, 2026, 7pm CHTO DELAT EMERGENCY PROJECT ROOM Brunnenstr. 43 10115 Berlin
Poets reading poets: Anna Margolin; print: yael merlini.
On March 17 at 19:00, Poets Reading Poets continues with a workshop dedicated to Anna Margolin (1887—1952) — a poet who redefined Yiddish poetry. Margolin re-thought Jewish tradition, challenging the strict limitations her background once imposed on her. In her work, she explores the dark movements of the human soul, speaks to the shadows of the past, and draws on images from pagan and Christian traditions. Her poetry is dramatic, emotional, and uncompromisingly dark.
During the workshop we will read and discuss selected poems. The texts are provided in Yiddish with English translation, the discussion is in English.
Speakers: Katerina Kuznetsova, yael merlini, Anna Rozenfeld.
On February 24, we invite you to an evening of poetry and conversation with Berlin-based poet Katerina Kuznetsova, celebrating her debut poetry collection Glozperl (Glass Bead). From cherry blossoms to the imminent apocalypse, Kuznetsova’s lyrical poems bring an unexpected directness to the page: calling our attention to the dark shadows on a spring afternoon and the lightness of life’s darkest moments. Kuznetsova’s Yiddish poems have already been anthologized, translated into three languages, and set to music by multiple artists. This long-awaited debut marks the next milestone of what is already a promising poetic career.
The book, illustrated by Arndt Beck (see here), was published by the Olniansky Tekst publishing house in Sweden and is now being introduced to a Berlin audience. The author and illustrator will speak about their creative processes and the collaboration that brought the book to life, in a conversation moderated by fellow Yiddish poet Jake Schneider.The poetry reading will be in Yiddish, with introductions in English.
The second meeting in the Poets Reading Poets series is dedicated to Debora Vogel, one of the most innovative and unconventional Yiddish poets, who introduced elements of montage and cubism into Yiddish literature.
During the workshop, we will read and discuss several of Vogel’s poems, focusing on both their formal qualities and their thematic concerns.
This time, Yiddish poets Katerina Kuznetsova and yael merlini will be joined by two more speakers: Anna Rozenfeld — researcher of Jewish history and Yiddish culture, painter, and actress. She is also a Yiddish translator and language instructor, and a professional Yiddish performer on Polish Radio and at the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. Jordan Lee Schnee — poet, writer, and translator. In 2024, he edited collections of Spanish and Portuguese translations of Debora Vogel’s poetry. His English translations of her work have appeared in In Geveb and Asymptote.
All four speakers will present and discuss different poems by Vogel.
The workshop will take place from 19:00 to 21:00, with a 20-minute break.
Poets Katya Kuznetsova and yael merlini open the new series “Poets Reading Poets”, inviting audiences into an intimate encounter with female Yiddish poets. Through shared readings and conversation, they will explore voices such as Kadya Molodowsky, Deborah Vogel, Anna Margolin, and others. The Discussion will take place in English.
We are launching our new monthly series with a talk on the Yiddish poet and writer Kadya Molodowsky (1894—1975). Born in a shtetl in Belarus, she later moved to Warsaw and emigrated to the United States in 1935, where New York welcomed her as a grand dame of Yiddish poetry. Molodowsky’s body of work is truly impressive, spanning numerous poetry collections as well as short stories and novels.
Her poetry is remarkably versatile — ranging from deeply personal, emotional lyrics to poems addressing social injustice and the struggles of workers. In the workshop, we will read several poems from her debut collection Kheshvndike nekht (1927). We will focus on her relationship to religion, her views on womanhood, and the distinctive features of her poetic style.
January 13, 2026, 7pm CHTO DELAT EMERGENCY PROJECT ROOM Brunnenstr. 43 10115 Berlin
Milly Witkop and Rudolf Rocker, London, about 1900, photographer unknown. Archive Klaus Decker.
Following The Youth of a Rebel, Rudolf Rocker’s earliest memories, comes the second volume about his years in London, his acquaintance with Milly Witkop, and their joint activities surrounding the Yiddish anarchist newspaper Arbeter Fraynd. In their introduction, editors Klaus Decker and Tilman Leder focus on the chapters about Milly and give us insights into the little-known history of the Jewish labor movement in London’s East End.
Malka Lee. Date, place, and photographer unknown. Source.
Join us for an evening dedicated to Yiddish poet Malka Lee (1904—1976), one of the most distinctive voices of Yiddish modernism. Contemporary Yiddish poets Katerina Kuznetsova and Yael Merlini will introduce Malka Lee’s remarkable life story — from her beginnings in a Ukrainian shtetl to her creative years in New York — and trace the path of her literary awakening. Together, we will explore her debut poetry collection and read several texts in which she reflects with striking honesty on motherhood, the body, and self-expression.
Group photo of the Syndicalist Women´s League. Milly right in the background, with semi-covered face. Year and photographer unknown. Archive Klaus Decker.
In 1920s Berlin, Milly Witkop and Rudolf Rocker were at the center of many strands of the international and German anarcho-syndicalist movement. They were closely associated with Emma Goldman, Zenzl and Erich Mühsam. Milly was very involved in the Syndicalist Women’s League, whose inner-city Berlin group she led for a time. From 1926 onwards, she was secretary of the Berlin group of the International Workers’ Association’s relief committee for imprisoned anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists in Russia. In this lecture, we trace her commitment and let her speak for herself through her articles and appeals.
A lecture with reading by the FAU History and Future Working Group.
With this collective artistic research project initiated by Arndt Beck, YIDDISH.BERLIN is honoring an extraordinary figure: the feminist and anarchist activist Milly Witkop (1877–1955).
In the spring, Beck began tracing Milly’s footsteps in Yiddish archives and reading what they found with a small reading group. The result is a collective exhibition that investigates, honors, and makes visible Milly’s life through audio, drawings, text, mail art, collage, and more – accompanied by a series of events (see below).
Milly was born into a poor, frum family in the town of Zlatopil, in what is now Ukraine, the eldest of a tailor’s four daughters. At seventeen, she migrated on her own to London, where she soon became part of the circle around the Yiddish anarchist newspaper Arbeter Fraynd and one of the leading activists in the Jewish workers’ movement in early-twentieth-century London.
Milly lived through turbulant and combative times in England – including her own imprisonment and repeated migration. She then spent the Weimar years in Berlin, where she helped shape the Syndicalist Women’s Union (Syndikalistischer Frauenbund), and fled Germany immediately after the Reichstag fire, making her way to the United States via Switzerland. She lived outside New York for the rest of her life.
On the seventieth anniversary of her passing, we commemorate a life of political struggle for a just and humane world.
24 November – 2 December 2025, daily from 11 am
Opening: 23 November 2025, 4 pm
With an audio presentation by studio lärm and Anna Rozenfeld, a staged reading by Yossi Lampel, Guli Dolev-Hashiloni, Arndt Beck and music by Zhenja Oks.
And collective and individual artworks by Yael Merlini, Zuzanna Hertzberg, Ori Tor, among others.
