Storytelling: From goldene medine to goldene medine: engaging with personal stories of migration
Storytelling: From goldene medine to goldene medine: engaging with personal stories of migration
John Melmed (storyteller) in conversation with Vardit Lightstone (Kaplan Postdoctoral Fellow).
How do migrants connect their vastly different experiences from the place they were raised to the place where they settled? How do they communicate identities, cultures, and values that span countries and continents? And most importantly, how can they turn their experiences into good stories?
When Yiddish speaking Jews moved to the United States in the late 1800s, they dubbed it the “goldene medine”, the golden country. Their contemporaries who moved to South Africa used this same term as they also looked forward to greater freedom. In the 1970s, with the increasing violent struggles over apartheid in South Africa, many Jews chose to leave the country that held so much hope for their parents and grandparents, some of them settling in the United States.
Vardit will open the conversation with a brief introduction about personal stories and the South African Jewish migration to the United States. John will then perform a series of specially curated stories about his own migration from South Africa in the 1970s. This will be followed by a discussion between Vardit and John about storytelling, migration and Jewish culture, and a Q&A with the audience.
Vardit Lightstone, Ph.D., is the Kaplan Fellow in History and Culture of North American Jewry at the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies. Her research focuses on the personal narrative genre, migration, Jewish folklore, and Yiddish literature. She is also a translation fellow at the Yiddish Book Center, working on Elhonen Hanson’s Trader Ed (Winnipeg: 1957).
John Melmed is a retired physician who is an award-winning speaker, storyteller and speech educator. He has spoken at professional conferences, universities, government facilities and theaters around the US. Dr. Melmed hails from South Africa and will relate his immigration to the US in a series of fascinating stories.
John Melmed (storyteller) in conversation with Vardit Lightstone (Kaplan Postdoctoral Fellow).
How do migrants connect their vastly different experiences from the place they were raised to the place where they settled? How do they communicate identities, cultures, and values that span countries and continents? And most importantly, how can they turn their experiences into good stories?
When Yiddish speaking Jews moved to the United States in the late 1800s, they dubbed it the “goldene medine”, the golden country. Their contemporaries who moved to South Africa used this same term as they also looked forward to greater freedom. In the 1970s, with the increasing violent struggles over apartheid in South Africa, many Jews chose to leave the country that held so much hope for their parents and grandparents, some of them settling in the United States.
Vardit will open the conversation with a brief introduction about personal stories and the South African Jewish migration to the United States. John will then perform a series of specially curated stories about his own migration from South Africa in the 1970s. This will be followed by a discussion between Vardit and John about storytelling, migration and Jewish culture, and a Q&A with the audience.
Vardit Lightstone, Ph.D., is the Kaplan Fellow in History and Culture of North American Jewry at the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies. Her research focuses on the personal narrative genre, migration, Jewish folklore, and Yiddish literature. She is also a translation fellow at the Yiddish Book Center, working on Elhonen Hanson’s Trader Ed (Winnipeg: 1957).
John Melmed is a retired physician who is an award-winning speaker, storyteller and speech educator. He has spoken at professional conferences, universities, government facilities and theaters around the US. Dr. Melmed hails from South Africa and will relate his immigration to the US in a series of fascinating stories.
HJP