4–6 October 2026 | University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
This symposium on Yiddish printing took place at the University of Oxford on the 4th–6th of October 2026. It was convened in celebration of the quincentenary of the first Yiddish printing, the 1526/7 Agode of Gershom ben Salomon Kohen of Prague.
The symposium was made possible thanks to generous funding from the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities.
Symposium Programme
Sunday 4 October
09.00–14.00 | Arrival – Orientation – Refreshments
14.00–14.30 | Introductory Remarks
14.30–15.00 | Break
15.00–16.30 | Panel I: The Contemporary Practice of Yiddish Printing
- Seth Gottlieb, “Casting Lots (of Type): Type Production for Yiddish Letterpress Printing Today”
- Frank Baseman, “The Quest for Hebrew (Wood) Type”
- Tyler Kliem and Raizel Bromberg, “Os: A Digital Yiddish Type Foundry and Design Magazine”
Monday 5 October
09.00–10.30 | Panel II: Histories of Yiddish Printing in the 20th Century
- Victoria Gerasimova, “Yiddish Periodicals on the Polish Cultural Map (1867–1918): Spatial and Quantitative Analysis”
- Julie Beuschel Mikkelsen, “Searching for loved ones: Letters for missing relatives published in Dos Vokhen Blat, 1919–1921”
- Rachelle Grossman, “Yiddish Printing in Postwar Poland”
10.30–11.00 | Break
11.00–12.30 | Panel III: The Art and Craft of Yiddish Printing in the 20th Century
- Caleb Sher, “‘Partners in Creation’: The Histories of Jewish Typesetters, in Their Own Words”
- Etai Rogers-Fett, “Tsu shafn a nayem vort, IKRES: Printing and Self-Publishing in The Jewish Consumptive Relief Society”
12.30–13.45 | Lunch Break
13.45–14.00 | Remarks from Katherine Ibbett, Academic Director of Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities
14.00–15.30 | Workshop I: Yiddish Song with Diana Matut and Lutenist Matthew Spring
15.30–16.00 | Break
16.00–17.30 | Panel IV: Materials and Layout in Yiddish Printing
- Nikki Halpern, “Materializing Memory in Yizker (Memorial) Books”
- Jordan Lee Schnee, “Grotesque Urbanity: Debora Vogel’s Forays into Concrete Poetry”
- Timothy Powell, “Printing Yiddish in the GDR: Es brennt, Brüder, es brennt (1966/1985)”
Tuesday 6 October
09.30–10.30 | Panel V: Pasts and Futures
- Giovanna Truong, “Optical Character Recognition and Automated Font Identification for Vaybertaytsh”
- Yehuda Miklaf, Remarks on his print of “Di blayene platn fun Roms drukeray” by Avrom Sutzkever
10.30–11.00 | Break
11.00–12.30 | Rare Book Viewing at the Weston Library
12.30–14.00 | Lunch Break
14.00–16.00 | Print Workshop at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press
16.00–16.30 | Break
16.30–17.00 | Concluding Remarks
