The ongoing lecture and discussion sessions, held bi-weekly on Fridays, are dedicated to perpetuating the YIVO tradition of using Yiddish as an active language of scholarly research and discussion. Speakers and topics have included:

• Mordkhe Schaechter, emeritus senior lecturer of Yiddish at Columbia University: "The History of Yiddish Orthography."

• Rabbi Sholem Bar Levin, chief librarian of the Central Lubavitch Library: Discussion of his library's history and collections.

• Abraham Brumberg, scholar of East European affairs: "The Bund in Poland in the 1930s—A Response to Its Critics."

Conducted entirely in Yiddish, the week-long gathering draws advanced graduate students of Yiddish literature and East European Jewish history and culture. It offers intensive study with some of the foremost specialists in the field, enables students from different countries and research disciplines to become acquainted with each other, and familiarizes students with the rich resources available for the study of Yiddish literature and culture.

The seminar is now co-sponsored by YIVO, Beth Shalom Aleichem, the Yiddish Department of Hebrew University, and the the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). On July 12, 2002, the third International Research Seminar on Yiddish Culture will take place on the campus of JTS in New York City.

Lecturers and topics include:

• David Fishman: Yiddish schools in New York

• Dovid Roskies: Sholem Asch's Uncle Moses and East River

• Eugene Orenstein: Cultural aspects of the Jewish labor movement

• Ruth Wisse: The poetry of Yankev Glatshteyn

• Avrom Novershtern: The bibliography and methodology of researching New York as a Yiddish cultural center

• Rakhmiel Peltz: The ethnography of Yiddish in New York