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.
NATO in Yiddishland, an exhibition by Yevgeniy Fiks, satirizes and deconstructs the deadly pathos of fervent nationalism, patriotism, and militarism. It insists on the non-state concept of Yiddishland as an urgent alternative. Yiddishland does not claim land or territory. NATO in Yiddishland reflects on the artificiality of national divisions from the standpoint of Yiddish culture and Ashkenazic civilization in Europe, and demands diasporism, cosmopolitanism, hyphenated identities, and multilingualism.
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This exhibition also marks Yiddish.Berlin’s 5-year anniversary. During this time, many people have invested their idealism, creativity, and priceless unpaid labor into cultivating the fertile ground on which a new Yiddish community has been growing in Berlin. Due to a last-minute loss of expected funding, we have now put forward the money for this exhibition out of pocket, which we unfortunately cannot afford ourselves. Your donation would help pay for our two weeks´ rent at the gallery, installation costs, live performances and presentations at the events, and making sure that there is someone in the gallery every day who can explain the concept of “Yiddishland” to anyone who walks in off the street. A sheynem dank!
The International Women’s Day is an important holiday for us. This year we want to honour the works of women who have been creating Yiddish literature since the Middle Ages. We will recite works of famous Yiddish women poets, such as Kadya Molodowsky, Celia Dropkin, and Rokhl Korn, as well as less-known authors.
However, we don’t concentrate only on the past! That’s why in the second part you will hear contemporary works of Berlin Yiddishistkes: poetry, music, and translations.
Featuring:
Luise Fakler | Sandra Israel-Niang | Katerina Kuznetsova | Sasha Lurje | Yael Merlini | Rose Mintzer-Sweeney | Maria Stazherova | Ro van Wingerden | Iryna Zrobok
