December 2021: Handpicked

Cameron Bernstein is an artist and Yiddishist from the Chicagoland Jewish community. She began learning Yiddish in her senior year at the University of Chicago, graduating in 2020 with a BS in Statistics and a minor in Jewish Studies. Cameron has since built an impressive Tiktok following creating engaging content about Yiddish language, history, and culture. She's the Yiddish Book Center's 2021-2022 Communications Fellow and is working towards a Masters in Public Health at George Washington University.

After delving into her selections, scroll down to read a short interview with Cameron about her choices.

“Repairing Love” by Alexander Spiegelblatt, translated by Sean Sidky

I feel a kinship with the story’s main character, Doctor Tanya Engelnest, following in the footsteps of her father. My maternal grandparents came from the Philippines to the USA to practice medicine, and my parents met in medical school. Like Tanya visited her favorite poet’s grave before her final year of medical school, I’ve made my own pilgrimage—working at the Yiddish Book Center as I apply to medical school.

Aktor: Dramatisher etyud in 1 akt (Actor: Dramatic Etude in 1 Act)

This play, dancing on the edge of life and death, is one I hope to translate and adapt into a radio-play. The audience hears the cries of a woman giving birth, just out of sight, while her husband monologues about his greatness on the stage and a vision of his child becoming a great actor. I learned about Aktor through a synopsis on the Digital Yiddish Theater Project.

Itzhak Luden, Sings Songs from the Medem Sanatorium

The Medem Sanatorium was established by the Yiddish secular school system in Międzeszyn, Poland to educate and improve the health of working-class children at risk of tuberculosis. Through these parody songs, we hear the children’s perspective on their experiences at the Sanatorium.

“What Remains: The Suitcases of Charles F. at Willard State Hospital,” with Ilan Stavans and Jon Crispin

This public program from 2020 imagines the life of a Yiddish-speaking Russian-Jewish immigrant, referred to here as Charles F., from immigration to his institutionalization at a psychiatric hospital in New York in 1946. Charles F. cannot speak for himself, but for the belongings in his three suitcases confiscated by staff upon his arrival.

Taybele

The Chicago publishing house and whimsical illustration quickly drew me to this book of children’s poetry. When not writing or teaching, the poet Rivke Galin was recovering from her recurring bouts of illness. Prior to meeting her husband in San Francisco and moving to Harbin, China, Galin recuperated in a Colorado sanatorium, where she became friends with Yiddish writer and translator Yehoash.

1930s Yiddish Booklets about Women

This is about a book of pamphlets bound together, originally part of the Yiddish library of the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society in Denver, Colorado. I imagine Rivke Galin reading a similar book in her sanatorium’s Yiddish library two decades before these pamphlets were published.

Q&A

Cameron Bernstein talks to the Yiddish Book Center’s Director of Publishing and Public Programs, Lisa Newman, about her Handpicked choices:

Lisa Newman: I was eager to see what you’d choose for your Handpicked; what an interesting mix of content, and one that reflects your interest in Yiddish and advocacy. First question: Where and when did your interest in Yiddish start?

Cameron Bernstein: I always had an underlying interest in Yiddish as a heritage language, however my interest really began my final year of college when I took my first Yiddish course. As I said goodbye to my undergraduate activities, I said hello to the vast world of Yiddishland.  

LN: There appears to be an underlying theme to your selections. So I’m curious whether you set out to curate your picks based on a theme, or have you been finding your way to these pieces as you continue to explore our collections?

CB: The theme was initially an accident. I started my list with some of my favorite Yiddish texts: a play discovered as a student, a book of poetry discovered by walking the Center’s shelves. I realized that I could connect the two through the theme of sickness and health, and then searched our digital collections with this theme in mind.

LN: I was intrigued by the video of Luden singing songs from the Medem Sanatorium. Tell me more about this and your takeaway from this oral history.

CB: I first learned about the Medem Sanatorium through a play written by a Polish playwright, Zygmunt Turkow while he was in Brazil. As he was an outside observer, writing from the other side of the Atlantic, I found his perspective limited and sought first hand perspective on life at the Medem Sanatorium. Listening to these songs by children at the sanatorium reinforces that the health is more than a pill you prescribe. Health includes the friendships children are able to build with each other, writing silly songs together, and the trust between children and their teachers and doctors. Health includes the children having access to nourishing food each day and a safe space to sleep each night. Health includes time and resources for children to learn, such as through running the Sanatorium meteorological station.

LN: Your work has you scouring our collections for interesting stories and visuals that you share on our social media pages. Are you constantly surprised by where your searches lead you?

CB: Absolutely. I’ve been especially surprised investigated the artists illustrating these books. You can search the collection by artist and find their name on an Alef beys primer, a book of science fiction, a comedic memoir, and a book of political poetry (that they wrote and illustrated themselves). People didn’t stay in “their lane”, not with genre, nor with artistic style. 

LN:  If you could give one piece of advice to others about searching our collections, what would it be?

CB: The Yiddish world is in conversation with almost any interest you can hold. I cannot recommend the search bar at the upper right corner of our site highly enough for chaotic search terms, you’ll stumble on the most delightful things. “Snake”, “Chocolate”, “Electricity”, “Astronomy”, “Glass”…