Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

TheTorah columnis supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.NasoNumbers 4:21-7:89

Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, is an ancient pilgrimage festival that celebrates perhaps the most foundational moment in the collective life of the Jewish people: the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. It is a holy time that highlights the bond between God and a community of believers.

The Torah portion Naso is ordinarily read after Shavuot, yet the link between the two is not obvious. That is because in Naso, we read about a radically different kind of sacred experience, one that is not collective in nature, but instead profoundly individualistic.

In chapter six of the Book of Numbers, we find a description of the Nazir, or Nazirite, a man or woman who distinguishes and separates him/herself from the mainstream Jewish community through a range of special practices meant to devote the Nazirite exclusively to God.

The Nazirite, a sort of spiritual lone wolf, is an outlier in the history of the Jewish people. For centuries, Judaism has focused far more on the importance of community, often minimizing or even ignoring the value of the solitary individual and his or her unique needs.

In Pirkei Avot (2:4), we find the following well-known teaching: Do not separate yourself from the community. There are countless others.

Jews throughout the ages have placed the primacy of the collective, the group, above virtually all else. Whether it was a ghetto, a shtetl or a neighborhood, communal interests and needs have usually trumped personal agendas, aspirations and dreams.

But what about the needs and desires of the individual? Is there a place within the Jewish community, and within the Jewish religion, for the person who wants to focus on internal spirituality rather than communal projects, on personal work rather than collective practice?

Spiritual seekers have known for millennia about the powerful role that solitude can play in our inner development.

Individuals of diverse faith traditions have gone on solitary retreats and pilgrimages; some, like the early Christian desert monks, lived alone in caves or cells; others, like the Hasidic mystic Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, developed their own ritualized practices of self-seclusion (hitbodedut).

Many of the great and revolutionary spiritual leaders, such as the Buddha and the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Hasidism), first removed themselves from the world before returning to it to share the knowledge and wisdom that had been revealed to them.

What links all these figures is not theology or worldview but a common understanding that solitude can promote insight as well as healing and personal transformation.

Our capacity to be alone is connected to becoming aware of our deepest feelings, needs and impulses, to self-discovery and self-realization. It can disclose to us just how narcissistic we are, or it can show us how little we are concerned with our own well-being.

Solitude is a teacher. But it is also a healer.

One of the most ancient and vital Jewish mourning rituals is that of sitting shiva, of partially separating the mourner (who is prohibited from working during the observance) from the rest of the community for a period of seven days following the burial of a loved one.

This practice acknowledges that coping with loss bereavement is a challenging, painful, largely solitary process that may be hindered rather than helped by distractions.

As time passes, the mourner, still hurting, often comes to see that the meaning of life is not exclusively linked to personal relationships, that the life of the person bereft of those relationships has meaning as well.

Although love, friendship and community are an important part of what makes life worthwhile, they are not the only source of fulfillment and growth. What occurs in human beings when we are by ourselves is as valuable as what happens in our interactions with others.

We in the Jewish world have to create a safe space for the spiritual lone wolves among us, for those solitary seekers who strive for God and who work to become their best selves. At times, that striving and that work will best be served by separating from the established community.

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The spiritually solitary have a place in the Jewish world J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

"Judith" by Miriam Karpilove, translated by Jessica Kirzane, published by Farlag Press. Courtesy of Farlag Press

By Zach GoldenJune 16, 2022

Yiddish has been made to represent the failure of Jewish life in Europe, remarked Mindl Cohen, academic director of the Yiddish Book Center. Connecting Yiddish with shtetls, pogroms and the Holocaust created a narrative of an old-fashioned way of life that disappeared in the wake of modernity and antisemitic violence. The message was that this culture didnt survive, maybe because it wasnt fit to, Cohen said.

But the narrative might change if Yiddish literature were better known. Yiddish didnt lose the battle with modernity; on the contrary, modern Yiddish literature thrived in the 20th century and never died. Read a crazy sexy poem from a woman writer in the nineteen-teens, Cohen suggests. Or a novel about a man who indulges in continental philosophy in interwar Berlin. Or a novel by a woman about her skepticism that free love in turn-of-the-century New York was good for women.

If only people knew. The problem is, relatively few secular people can read modernist Yiddish writing. (Hasidic Jews speak Yiddish, but are unlikely to read secular Yiddish literature.) And because of the dominant narratives around Yiddish, theres no demand for it in translation. Instead, people turn to Yiddish literature to experience a lost world of Jewish tradition that serves as an escape from modernity as well as a post facto justification for its demise.

People have preconceived ideas of what Yiddish is; if youre going to read something in translation from what Yiddish is, you want it to fit a sentimentalized view of the Jewish world, and fit your preconceived view of that world including Holocaust memoirs and religiosity, said Jessica Kirzane, assistant instructional professor of Yiddish at the University of Chicago. There is an expectations gap; Yiddish literature is not just about Jewishness. So much of Yiddish literature was about modernization, and was rebelling against the Jewishness that people turn to Yiddish for.

The expectations gap is related to the limitations of the Yiddish literary canon. Many of those considered to be classical writers, like Mendele Mocher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem and Y. L. Peretz, depicted the old shtetl as backwards places worth poking fun at and longing for in equal measure. Female writers have been shut out of the canon, with the exception of their poetry. The canon is what influenced public knowledge of Yiddish culture, because these were the works that were translated and popularized, furthering the narratives of backwardness and the inability to modernize.

Yet in the Soviet Union, modernist Yiddish writers dominated the literary scene (though many were later executed by Stalin). Soviet-Yiddish writers were comfortable with urban, sophisticated Europe and complex narratives, yet their work is not widely known or associated with Yiddish. One such writer was Moyshe Kulbak, whose Childe Harold of Dysna depicted an Eastern Europe protagonist going to cosmopolitan, interwar Berlin, indulging in existentialist philosophy and becoming a socialist.

The United States had its own modernist writers, many of them women. In early 20th century New York, Miriam Karpilove wrote Diary of a Lonely Girl. The book takes readers through the dating life of a woman unsatisfied with the modern, leftist concept of free love. In the latter half of the 20th century, Blume Lempel wrote short stories, including Oedipus in Brooklyn, a complicated and disturbing tale about a woman in an incestuous relationship with her blind son, pretending that he is her dead husband.

These stories challenge public understandings of Yiddish literature and culture, but have been locked away because theyre only available in Yiddish.

But Sebastian Schulman, executive director of KlezKanada, says the canon and therefore narratives of Yiddish culture can change. The study of Yiddish literature is so small, comparatively, that the canon is whatever it is we decide it will be, Schulman said. After all, only a scant 2% of Yiddish literature is estimated to have been translated.

What does it take to change these hard-wired perceptions among the general public and especially the Jewish public? It takes creating an entire infrastructure, including translator training, specialty publishing houses, social media and marketing. Ten years ago, the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, became the epicenter of this effort.

That was when Schulman started the Yiddish Translation Fellowship, devoted to training the next generation of translators under the auspices of the Yiddish Book Center. (The fellowship has been run by Mindl Cohen since 2018, herself a fellow in 2015. Kirzane was also a fellow.) Schulman staffed it with literary translators possessing backgrounds in a variety of languages to teach students how to make artful, and not just literal, translations.

Ten years and 80 fellows later, a robust network of translators trained in the art of literary translation was ready to share the manuscripts they are required to complete as part of the fellowship. But a roadblock emerged: Publishing was nearly impossible.

Large publishers typically reject most translated works, even those from more widely spoken languages. In fact, its estimated that only around 3% of books published in English are translations, an absurdly small number compared to other languages. (Walk into a bookstore in Israel, for example, and see for yourself how many books published in Hebrew originated in other languages.)

Because mainstream English-language publishers rarely accept translations, with the exception of a handful of classics and surefire hits, some small independent publishers emerged in the 1980s to focus almost exclusively on translated books.

Archipelago Books, for example, writes on its website that its striving to find visionary international writers whom American readers might not otherwise encounter. But therein lies the problem for Yiddish books: Yiddish writers are mostly not contemporary. It is hard to persuade even these presses that a novel from a century ago might contribute to the national literary conversation.

A handful of academic presses do publish Yiddish translations. Notably, the Yiddish Book Center partnered with Yale University Press to issue 10 translations in the New Yiddish Library series, and Syracuse University Press had its own Yiddish translation series. But while these publishers were amenable to releasing English translations of Yiddish books, they really didnt change the general conversation. Their prices were so high and copies of books so few, they had a hard time reaching the non-academic public.

Over time, it became clear that there was a need for publishing houses dedicated specifically to Yiddish translation, that could sell copies widely and cheaply. Schulman, who has translated from Yiddish and Esperanto, observes that presses that publish translations from less-known languages can serve as advocates for them.

In the last few years, frustrated fellowship-trained translators have launched their own presses in order to publish and disseminate Yiddish works: Naydus Press in Ohio, Farlag Press in France, and the Yiddish Book Centers in-house White Goat Press.

Jordan Finkin started Naydus Press (Naydus rhymes with Midas)in 2017 as a side project to his day job as a rare book and manuscript librarian at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He named the press after the early 20th century Yiddish poet Leyb Naydus, who infused his writing with classical Greek mythology, Western European culture and Middle Eastern motifs. I think hes fantastic as a true European aestheticist, art for arts sake. Finkin said. Naydus represents a challenge to the notion that Yiddish literature is parochial.

So far, Naydus Press has published two books, including the cosmopolitan Childe Harold of Dysna, translated by Robert Adler Peckerar. Finkin draws upon his translation skills and his role as Hebrew Union College Presss co-director to get works out with a limited budget. While it costs only $5,000 to publish a book, he says the single greatest problem is funding, because I have a full-time job; shnorring for donations is a full-time job.

Farlag Press, which was launched in 2018, has published four books, two of them novels. One was Kirzanes translation of another Karpilove novel, Judith: A Tale of Love and Woe. Three more books are due out this year. As for funding, founder Daniel Kennedy believes he has a winning formula: subscriptions. Our approach for this year was to offer subscriptions for everything we publish in 2022. So far the response has been very encouraging and it has allowed us to gather the funds we need to produce the books, he wrote in an email.

White Goat Press at the Yiddish Book Center has published a new Yiddish textbook and four translations since its founding in 2019. White Goat has a considerable advantage in funding compared to the other presses because it can rely on its parent organization.

But none of these publishing houses see themselves as the answer to the lack of a publishing pipeline. They would rather play an advocacy role. White Goat Press could publish a few books a year, but we also support others to get them out to non-dedicated publishers to increase visibility, said Mindl Cohen. Im helping translators make the case to small presses. The Yiddish Book Center also gives non-Yiddish publishers funds to defray costs and encourage them to take on projects.

Alongside publishing houses, online literary journals are part of the quest for new readers. Having a short story appear in one of these journals raises the profile of relatively unknown Yiddish writers. Ive learned that its really important to publish in journals, because youre introducing a new author, Cohen said. At the end of day, its an all-of-the-above approach. Were building a mix, she said.

As these initiatives stepped up, other publishers that didnt believe there was a market for English translations of Yiddish books started reconsidering. After Wayne State Press rejected Kirzanes translation of Diary of a Lonely Girl (later picked up by Syracuse University Press) for being too niche, the publishing house changed its approach. They recently published a collection of Yiddish short stories: Anita Norichs translations of Chana Blankshteyns Fear and Other Stories.

The conversation in the media is changing too. A recent article in The New York Times celebrated the revival of female writers by translators like Kirzane, Norich and others. The LA Review of Books published thoughtful reviews of three recent Yiddish translations, two of them from the new Yiddish translation presses: Childe Harold of Dysna, and From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony, a collection of poet Abraham Sutzkevers writings as a partisan fighter in World War II. Yiddish has a seat at the table in places it never had before, Schulman said.

College syllabi and social media have also contributed to the shift in perception. At the University of Chicago, Kirzane teaches courses about books that she and other fellowship graduates have translated. One of Kirzanes pupils, Cameron Bernstein, made TikTok videos talking about and reenacting parts of Yiddish literature. Bernsteins pioneering efforts got her a job at the Yiddish Book Center as a communications fellow handling the centers social media while continuing to work on her personal TikTok, where she has more than 40,000 followers.

Schulman thinks these efforts are finally making a difference. Yiddish comes from a place of being somewhat maligned, he says, but this recent cultural mainstreaming is normalizing perceptions of the language, even in formerly hostile or indifferent Jewish circles. And the gradual recognition of modernity in Yiddish literature, pushed in part by the publication of translated works, is building up a new narrative of pride for the language and culture.

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More than shtetl and pogrom: Inside the movement to translate Yiddish - Forward

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

The reputation of once-renowned NYPD Det. Louis Scarcella took another hit with the latest legal rebuke of his crime-busting tactics.

A 15th conviction secured by Scarcella during the 80s and 90s was overturned Wednesday, one in a series of legal reversals that has cost the city more than $50 million in payouts to wrongly convicted suspects later cleared. Scarcella has repeatedly denied any misconduct.

Retired Brooklyn homicide detective Louis Scarcella testifies at the wrongful conviction hearing of John Bunn at the New York State Supreme Courthouse in Brooklyn in 2015. (Jesse Ward for New York Daily Ne/New York Daily News)

The first case dates to 1990, when the Brooklyn-based Scarcella busted unemployed drug addict David Ranta for the high-profile murder of a Hasidic rabbi despite the lack of any physical evidence. But the cigar-smoking detectives work was undone when the conviction was reversed 23 years later, with Ranta set free to collect a $6.4 million city payout.

David Ranta kisses a family member after Judge Miriam Cyrulnik freed him, in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday, March 21, 2013. Ranta, 58, who spent more than two decades behind bars was freed by a New York City judge after a reinvestigation of his case cast serious doubt on evidence used to convict him in the Feb. 8, 1990 shooting of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger. (Richard Drew/AP)

Five years after Rantas arrest, 23-year-old Jabbar Washington was convicted in a robbery/shooting and spent 20 years in prison before his release. He testified that his confession was coerced when Scarcella beat him, choked him and squeezed his testicles. Washington settled for $5.75 million from the city and $1.65 million from the state

Shawn Williams, despite a lack of forensic evidence and an alibi for the fatal shooting of his neighbor, was convicted in 1994 and spent 24 years in prison before his case was overturned when an eyewitness recanted his testimony. Earlier this year, the city agreed to settle his federal civil rights lawsuit for $10.5 million dollars.

Wrongfully convicted killer Sundhe Moses did 18 years in a case investigated by Scarcella for the killing of a 4-year-old roller-skating girl shot in a dispute between street gangs. He also alleged the detective choked and beat him to secure a confession, and was finally freed in 2013 when an eyewitness recanted his testimony. The verdict was finally reversed in 2018.

Sundhe Moses reunites with friends Shareka Jones (left) and Jahmeelah Hardy (right) at his mother's home in Downtown Brooklyn on December 3, 2014, after being released from prison after serving 18 years for the shooting death of a 4-year-old-girl. (Pearl Gabel/New York Daily News)

Not even an alibi spared Derrick Hamilton from a wrong conviction in a Brooklyn murder while he was living in New Haven, Conn. He spent 23 years behind bars, studying criminal law and eventually convincing prosecutors to overturn the verdict. In 2019, Hamilton received a $7 million settlement in a lawsuit where he charged Scarcella and two other cops had fabricated evidence in the case.

Derrick Hamilton at State Supreme Court in Brooklyn where he was officially exonerated of a 1991 homicide. (Jesse Ward/for New York Daily News)

And Shabaka Shakur was wrongfully convicted in 1989 for the double murder of two former high-school classmates one year earlier. Scarcella testified the suspect confessed to killing the men after an argument over car payments, although Shakur denied that was true.

Shabaka Shakur, right, convicted of killing two men in 1988, appeared at a hearing Tuesday, July 1, 2014 to decide if the case will be re-tried. (Aaron Showalter/New York Daily News)

After 27 years in prison, his conviction was vacated after a judge found a reasonable probability that Shakurs alleged confession was indeed fabricated. The city and state paid him a combined $8.3 million in damages.

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Notorious NYPD detective no stranger to overturned convictions over the past decade - New York Daily News

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

Carl PaladinoPhoto: Screenshot

A GOP candidate in New York known for his extreme anti-LGBTQ and racist views praised Adolf Hitler during a radio interview last year that was unearthed this week, calling Hitler the kind of leader we need today.

During a February 2021 interview on WBEN in Buffalo, host Peter Hunt asked Paladino, How do you rouse the population? How do you get people thinking about the possibility of change here in New York state and what that might mean for our, for everyone here?

Related:GOP politician says Uvalde shooter was transgendering so theres no reason to ban AR-15s

While Paladino could have pointed to a number of charismatic leaders from history, he chose to extol Hitler, whose regime systematically murdered six million Jewish people and millions of other people deemed undesirable, including tens of thousands of gay and bi men.

I was thinking the other day about somebody had mentioned on the radio Adolf Hitler and how he aroused the crowds, Paladino said, laughing. And he would get up there screaming these epithets and these people were just they were hypnotized by him. Thats, I guess, I guess thats the kind of leader we need today. We need somebody inspirational, we need somebody that is a doer, somebody that has been there and done it so that its not a strange new world to them.

Paladino released a statement yesterday saying that he isnt actually a fan of Hitler.

Any implication that I support Hitler or any of the sick and disgusting actions of the Nazi regime is a new low for the media, he said. The context of my statement was in regards to something I heard on the radio from someone else and was repeating, I understand that invoking Hitler in any context is a serious mistake and rightfully upsets people. I strongly condemn the murderous atrocities committed against the Jewish people by Hitler and the Nazis.

Paladino has a long history of discriminatory statements. While running for governor in 2010 against Andrew Cuomo, Paladino infamously claimed at an appearance with Hasidic leaders in Brooklyn, My children and your children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I dont want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option it isnt.

Paladino also slammed Cuomo for taking his daughters to that years Pride Parade: Have you ever been to one? The men wear little Speedos and they grind on each other. Would you take your children there? I dont think so.

In that same race, racist email chains attributed to Paladino revealed images of Africa tribesmen dancing entitled Obama Inaugaration Rehearsal [sic], one showing chimpanzees doing an Irish dance called proof the Irish discovered Africa, and another depicting bestiality.

Also in 2010, Paladino ran a radio ad calling for the destruction of the mosque being built near the World Trade Center site, making it a war memorial instead of a monument to those who attacked our country.

In 2016, Paladino, then Trumps New York state campaign chair, called for hanging a Republican convention delegate for treason because she opposed Trumps nomination.

He also tweeted that New York Attorney General Loretta Lynch should be lynched, and falsely claimed in an interview with the New York Observer that President Barack Obama was a secret Muslim.

In 2017, Paladino was fired from the Buffalo School Board when his answers to an alt weeklys New Years survey came to light: Paladino hoped Obama catches mad cow disease and Michelle is returned to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a member of the partys leadership in the House, has already endorsed Paladino and she released a statement to say that shes standing by him, accusing journalists of taking his statement out of context.

The relevant exchange starts at the 37:45 mark at the linked podcast.

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Homophobic GOP candidate says Hitler is the kind of leader we need today - LGBTQ Nation

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

The Jewish Agencys nominating committee recommended Doron Almog, a storied retired general and a longtime advocate for people with disabilities, to lead the body that bridges Israel and the Jewish Diaspora.

The nomination on Thursday of Almog, 71, now goes to the Jewish Agencys Board of Governors, where it is all but assured of approval. The nomination follows an extended period of consideration since May 2021, when the last chairman of the agency, Isaac Herzog, announced his successful run for the Israeli presidency.

The agency has been led in the interim by an acting chairman, Yaakov Hagoel.

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Almog has a long career in the military, assisting in the 1976 raid on Entebbe, Uganda to free a plane held hostage by German and Palestinian terrorists. He helped to lead the secret airlift of Ethiopian Jews in the mid-1980s, and led the Southern Command, which had Gaza as a responsibility, during the Second Intifada.

An Israel Prize laureate, Almog has also led disability advocacy. He founded Adi Negev-Nahalat Eran Rehabilitation Village, named for his son Eran, who died at 23 from Castlemans disease, a lymph disorder.

The Jewish Agency, established in 1929, handles numerous aspects of the Israel-Diaspora relationship, including fund-raising for Israel, encouraging and absorbing immigrants in partnership with the Israeli government, and running Jewish education and identity-building programs at home and abroad. Its funding is provided by North American Jewish federations, together with the federations counterparts in other countries and other donors.

The nomination committeereportedly considered more than a dozen candidates, including a number of women and Sephardic Jews neither group is represented among the chairmen of the agency going back to 1929. Serious consideration reportedly was given to Idan Roll,the deputy foreign minister who is a leader of Israels LGBTQ community.

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Retired general and disabilities advocate to head Israel-Diaspora relations - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) does not have a specific official state strategy towards its diaspora. As early as 2017, at the session of the Council of Ministers in April, a policy on cooperation with the diaspora of BiH was adopted, which was supposed to become a strategy, ie a state policy to determine which institution should work with the diaspora at what level, explained Hasan Sehovic, President of the World Alliance of Diaspora.

He added that now the relationship with the diaspora has been reduced to the enthusiasm of people who work in diplomatic and consular missions.

Sehovic reminded that in 2018, a policy on cooperation with the diaspora was adopted. Since then, the strategy has not been on the agenda of the Council of Ministers of BiH, for which, he points out, those who pass laws are responsible the parliaments and the Council of Ministers of BiH.

If this strategy cannot be harmonized for five years, then it all comes down to the fact that BiH, the government, and the Council of Ministers do not care about the diaspora, Sehovic concluded.

When it comes to the strategy of relations with BiH diaspora, he explains, it should precisely define the work of all diplomatic and consular missions in the world: from economic, cultural, social, and all other subjects of work with the diaspora, but also within BiH.

In addition, he pointed out, a law on foreign affairs should be passed, which BiH still does not have, and then a ministry for the diaspora should be formed in the future. He emphasized that the diaspora would thus have its own ministry a door to knock on. Now it is only the Department for Emigration at the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees, where there is enthusiasm, they are trying, working with the diaspora, but that is not enough to cover all sectors and complete demands of the diaspora.

The diaspora is angry and disappointed, but we love our homeland and we will not turn our backs on it, no matter how angry we are. We are present and we do not give up. For example, on July 2nd, we have a congress of the diaspora. We send short, clear, and concrete messages from each of the congresses we hold every other year. Such messages were also sent from the last congress, but, obviously, no one took them seriously and applied them in practice. The government and the most responsible people for changes do not listen to the diaspora, concluded Sehovic, Federalna writes.

E.Dz.

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Sehovic: We are angry and disappointed with the Attitude of those most responsible toward the Diaspora Sarajevo Times - Sarajevo Times

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

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The 1Love Festival returns to Winston-Salem this weekendfollowing a two-year pandemic-related hiatus. The two-day immersive event will celebrate African diasporic culture through music, visual art, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Live performances and artist conversations shared by a host of local and national musicians, authors, deejays will take place throughout the city.

1Love came about years ago as co-founders Melva Sampson and Darrick Young reflected on their shared love for culture and community, how it took shape in their lives and marriage, and fueled their personal growth. Sampson says they decided to present the revolutionary role of culture to Winston-Salem.

The reparative work that culture does for groups of people who need to be reminded of their greatness, who need to be reminded of their sacred value and their wealth in terms of spirit, says Sampson. And so thats where it came from: to honor and acknowledge and celebrate the African diaspora and ingenuity.

The celebration this weekend will take on many forms: Artistic Soul Conversations with visual artist Elahi Stewart, Hustle Winston-Salem Co-Founder Daryl Shaw, and poets Ely B, Phonsarelli, LB The Poet, and others. Panel discussions titled Black Man Lab We Need You!,Defining Ourselves for Ourselves: Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The Artists Way, and Telling Our Stories As We Know Them.

The arts provide for us agency, says Sampson. And that agency is to be able to stand and to tell and to share from our perspective, from a perspective where we have had front row seats. It is a way to honor lived experiences and that is extremely important.

Without that perspective, she says that shared history is often told through a distorted lens. Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth CountyPresident Chase Law says her organization is a sponsor of the event and thattheir visions for the future align nicely.

Community expansion, responding to needs throughout our community, and using the arts as a tool to make real change, says Law. Were excited that 1Love is partnering with many of our arts partners as well as individual artists, so were looking forward to seeing this come to fruition.

Civil rights advocate and author John Mendez is one of the panelists. He grew up in Harlem, followed the speeches of Malcom X, and he came of age during the Black Power movement.

What Melva and Darrick are bringing to Winston-Salem now is part of that continuity, says Mendez. And it says to me, Its still alive. And being prophetic in this sense, Im predicting that were gonna see a lot of transformations taking place.

Mendez calls 1Love Festival one of the most positive initiatives hes seen in Winston-Salem since the emergence of the National Black Theatre Festival founded in 1989. The former pastor who is also a psychoanalyst will talk about the importance of mental and spiritual health of Black people, particularly among the citys youth.

We talk about the violence and whats happening in our cities, he says. Im of the belief that culture is one of the ways to not only address it, but to raise consciousness which results in transforming how people think and if you transform their thinking, you also transform their behavior.

1Love Co-Founder Darrick Young agrees. He grew up in St. Louis, and eventually attended Howard University.

Pre-eighteen my pre-eighteen years we were making some interesting decisions, says Young. But it was consciousness, and culture that caused me to begin to make better decisions and begin to understand my history, my DNA, the kinds of folks in the diaspora that we come from.

He points to the ancient Egyptians and their ability to build the pyramids, and their contribution to modern medicine. He hopes sharing this culture will move hearts and minds, especially as he sees cultural backlash against Black history.

Why is it a problem? he asks. Because many other ethnic groups are able to study and experience and learn and celebrate and amplify their culture. But when folks of the African diaspora begin to learn and begin to love and begin to embrace their culture, its a problem.

All panel discussions and artists talks at the 1Love Festival in downtown Winston-Salem will be free and open to the public. Thereareticketed evening performances by Soultriii, Untitled, Toronto hip-hop artist Tara Lord, Grammy-nominated violinist Chelsey Green, and headliner Mausiki Scales and Common Ground Collective.

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1Love Festival celebrates African diasporic culture through arts, innovation, and conversation - WFDD

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

A selection of works by Hungarian artists from the diaspora is on display at the exhibition entitled Hungarian | Artist | World, which opened on Wednesday at the Blna exhibition center in Budapest.

In his welcome speech, Jnos rpd Potpi, Minister of State for National Policy of the Prime Ministers Office, said that the government measures of the past 12 years have strengthened the sense of national belonging, which has become a tangible experience by 2022.

He also said that the Hungarian Heritage House has played a prominent role in the past decade in fostering the culture of all Hungarians and strengthening Hungarian identity. This exhibition is also the result of this effort, he added.

The State Secretary said that what unites Hungarians is our common history, culture, traditions, and art, and this has now materialized here in Budapest.

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He also said that being Hungarian is not only a matter of origin but also a cultural commitment especially for third and fourth-generation Hungarians living in the diaspora, who hold on to the traditions of their ancestors because they are proud of the heritage that unites them. This can be seen in the exhibition of works by Hungarian artists from around the world.

Krisztina Csibi, the director of the Hungarian Heritage House, thanked the 22 artists and their families who accepted the invitation of the institution and traveled to Budapest for the celebration.

It was announced at the opening of the exhibition that the Hungarian Heritage House celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2021, and on this occasion, a fine arts competition was announced with almost 300 entries accepted, of which forty or so works currently on display were selected.

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The festival's organizer, the Hungary L!ve Arts Foundation, aims to bring Hungarian culture closer to New York, MOME said in a statement.Continue reading

The exhibition has been shown in several countries, the first being in Innsbruck, Austria last November.

The exhibition features works from South Africa, Australia, Canada, and the United States, with artists from many countries. The collections include paintings, photographs, textiles, and sculptures.

The body of the exhibition, which presents the works of Hungarian artists living in different parts of the world, has been compiled into a catalog, which also presents the artists biographies.

The exhibition will be open until the end of July, after which it will move to Australia in the autumn.

Featured image: Folk dance performance at the opening of the exhibition Hungarian | Artist | World, featuring a selection of works by Hungarian artists from the diaspora, at the Blna in Budapest on June 15, 2022. Photo by Mrton Mnus/MTI

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Exhibition of Works by Hungarian Artists from the Diaspora Opens in Budapest - Hungary Today

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

This new venture helps Ghana homebuyers achieve their dreams

PHILADELPHIA & ACCRA, Ghana, June 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sankofa Capital, a Philadelphia-based Real Estate Development Company and Jobomax Global, West Africa's most trusted homebuilder, announced a joint venture pilot housing project in Ghana. The homes can be either owner-occupied residences or income generating investment properties, appealing to buyers in the historical and recent diaspora as well as those currently living in Ghana.

Sankofa's Founder and CEO Keith Williams talked about partnering with Jobomax on Sankofa's first project in Ghana, "As an African-American owned real estate developer I have always been drawn to Africa. A few years ago I made my first investment property acquisition in Ghana but knew that I really wanted to be more than a passive player in the Accra market. Sankofa saw Jobomax's experience of developing communities from the ground up in Guinea and Sierra Leone as a perfect addition to Sankofa's boots on the ground experience in Ghana. Investing in the land of my forefathers is a personal mission for me. Jobomax's know-how and experience getting it done in West Africa made them the ideal partner."

Jobomax's Co-Founder and CEO Jonathan Halloran added, "From the moment my Co-founder Robert Hornsby and I met Keith, we knew we wanted to work with him. His passion for engaging African Americans in a connection with the continent fits perfectly with our experience and passion with engaging local buyers and the recent diaspora. Sankofa has the local market knowledge and experience to ensure a successful launch. Although this initial phase of our work in Ghana together is of modest scale, we believe that Ghana is one of the most exciting real estate markets in West Africa and that by working with Sankofa, we can multiply our impact many times over."

The Jobomax/Sankofa joint venture has already acquired land in Appolonia City, a master planned community in suburban Accra. The site offers a gated community, paved roads, water and electric service, and retail and other amenities to complement the homes. By adapting a Jobomax design for the Ghanain market, the project delivers homes in the mid-priced range sought by many diaspora members and investors. Financing for a term of up to ten years will be available to some buyers through Jobomax's partnership with US-Africa Housing Finance. Ghana residents are encouraged to finance with local banks which offer both Cedi and USD financing.

Recent and historical diaspora and local residents interested in investing in a property developed by the Jobomax / Sankofa partnership can contact Jobomax at +1-215-253-3691 or [emailprotected] to learn more and reserve a home.

Media Contact:Robert Hornsby[emailprotected]2152533691

Photo(s):https://www.prlog.org/12921342

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Jobomax Global

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Jobomax and Sankofa collaborate on their first development in Ghana, facilitating investment from recent and historical diaspora - PR Newswire

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Posted By admin on June 17, 2022

VILNIUS, Lithuania In the mobile game Airplane Chefs, the player is a flight attendant rushing to microwave as much food as possible and serve it, just as efficiently, on a commercial jet filled with demanding passengers.

Hunting for bugs in this game is the job of Inha Kushnir, a member of the quality assurance team at Nordcurrent, the Lithuanian company that created and markets Airplane Chefs and a handful of other titles. Sitting in front of a desktop computer in Nordcurrents surprisingly quiet Vilnius office, in a neighborhood that is a jumble of glass corporate towers and residential housing, Ms. Kushnir spent a recent afternoon looking for programming flaws as her online avatar zapped pizzas and loaded them onto trolley carts. The work is absorbing, which makes it a good way to focus on something other than why shes in Vilnius and how she got here.

Whenever I think about work, she said during a break, I stop thinking about what is happening in Odesa.

Until late February, Ms. Kushnir worked in Nordcurrents Odesa office. Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and she and her husband decided that it would be safer for her and the couples young daughter to leave. Ms. Kushnirs husband, like nearly all Ukrainian men, stayed behind.

Now Ms. Kushnir is part of Ukraines information technology diaspora, about 50,000 people, most of them residing in Poland, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

Before these workers relocated, they were part of one of Ukraines largest service exports, with $5 billion in annual revenue, representing about 4 percent of the countrys gross domestic product, the IT Ukraine Association says. The country has a very mobile pool of I.T. talent, nearly 300,000 people providing computer and coding services in fields like e-commerce, artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain and so on.

When the invasion began, Nordcurrent, like dozens of other companies, improvised an evacuation plan for employees who suddenly lived in a war zone. There are 250 people on Nordcurrents payroll, and nearly half were in Ukraine 90 in Odesa and 30 in Dnipro.

For Nordcurrent, which was founded in 2002, recruiting from Ukraine was simply smart business. Workers there tend to be proficient in English, the lingua franca of the company, and highly capable. (The countrys emphasis on science and tech education is a legacy of years in the Soviet Union.) The risk that Russia might one day invade had been front of mind among Nordcurrent executives since 2014, when Russian troops annexed Crimea in the south of Ukraine. The threat was talked about so often that, paradoxically, it receded as a source of anxiety.

We decided to ignore it, said Victoria Trofimova, Nordcurrents Ukrainian-born chief executive and the person who cobbled together and oversaw the evacuation plan. Even when there was talk about forces at the border of Ukraine, we decided to continue as usual.

That approach ended the morning of Feb. 24, when Ms. Trofimova hit the snooze button on her alarm clock a few times before realizing the noise was coming from her phone. Her father was calling to say Russia had invaded Ukraine. She soon was in touch with Ukrainian employees, offering to help them flee. Most wanted to stay, but a few dozen decided that the country was too dangerous for them, or their parents or their children.

Ms. Trofimovas plan involved three bus drivers who made two trips, four days apart, as well as calls to the Hungarian Consulate, a handful of volunteers bearing insulin for diabetics and, ultimately, the safe passage of 51 people, three dogs and one guinea pig.

Among the biggest challenges was finding a bus because most had already been booked. After calling around, Ms. Trofimova found an operator in Romania willing to pick up her employees in Odesa.

Then I worried about passports, because not a lot of Ukrainians have passports because they have never traveled out of the country, she said. And we were getting conflicting information about whether people needed Covid vaccine certificates.

They did not, it turned out. And the six-hour wait at the Romanian border was relatively brief, courtesy of Ms. Trofimovas decision to direct the bus to the tiny town of Isaccea, a somewhat obscure crossing point.

Nordcurrent employees say adjusting to their new setting has been relatively smooth, both because Vilnius is an easily navigated city and because the company is a family business that has done its best to embrace them. Ms. Trofimova founded it along with her husband, Michail Trofimov, and his brother Sergej, and their creations lean toward the whimsical, starting with their first title, Santa Claus Saves the Earth. Each month about 12 million people play Nordcurrent games, which are free to download and play. Revenue, which amounted to $64 million last year, is earned when add-ons are purchased, like better cooking equipment in Airplane Chefs.

The headquarters have a very un-corporate atmosphere. An aging cat sleeps on the sofa at the entrance of the office, which is on the third floor of a spiffy new building next to a cinema and above a coffee shop. Meeting rooms are named for the companys games, like Murder in the Alps and Cooking Fever. For distractions, there are table tennis and foosball in a snack room.

Like Odesa, Vilnius is a mix of the grand old buildings and Soviet architecture, and the country, which was the first of the 15 Soviet republics to declare its independence, has been welcoming to Ukrainians. A law that requires proficiency in Lithuanian for certain jobs was suspended to help the 50,000 refugees who have arrived here.

In the months since the fighting began, the exit of Ukrainian tech workers has taken them all over Europe and the rest of the world. Some are planning to return home; others hope to stay put. For two Ukrainians who left a few years ago and have settled in Berlin, the invasion sparked an idea. Nikita Overchyk and Ivan Kychatyi created UA Talents, an online portal for employers in search of Ukrainian I.T. workers. Its basically a matchmaking site, and it currently has 15,000 job postings.

The sites founders say anyone from Ukraine who joins them in Germany should brace themselves for culture shock.

This place is hugely bureaucratic, Mr. Overchyk said. There are a lot of rules, and you get three to four pieces of mail a week that you must respond to. Nobody in Ukraine communicates by mail.

Mr. Kychatyi agreed.

A lot of things just take too long, he said. Like getting internet service at home. That took a month. In Ukraine, that takes two days.

Theres a premium on beautiful design and ease of use in Ukraine that is missing from many websites in Germany, the men said. In Ukraine, if an aging site needs an update, nobody is sweating about protocol or rules.

We have no process, Mr. Overchyk said. We just get stuff done. Thats the mentality that Ukrainians are going to bring wherever they go. We need this to happen. Help me make it happen.

This get-it-done ethos is reflected in many of the stories told by Nordcurrent employees who scrambled out of Ukraine. Nastya Dahno was an artist in the companys Dnipro office and met the second bus in the Polish town of Lodz. First, she had to travel by train from Dnipro to Lviv, a trip that, in the chaos of those first days of war, took 36 hours instead of the usual 12. It was a sleeper train, with bunk beds that were used like benches, seating four or five people.

The space was crammed, the doors were locked, the shades were drawn and blankets were draped over the shades. The idea was to reduce the light emitted by the train and limit the chance of being spotted by Russians, and to reduce the impact of imploding glass if the train was attacked. Everybody was instructed to keep quiet, especially when the train stopped at a platform.

The scariest moment occurred about 10 hours into the trip, in the dead of night, when the silence of a stop was shattered by a man pounding at the door, screaming, Let me in!

We had no idea who was on the other side of that door, Ms. Dahno said (and she never found out, as it happened). We thought it could be a criminal or a Russian soldier. Nobody spoke. We were just silent.

Most of Nordcurrents employees, like most Ukrainians, stayed in Ukraine. One of them is Tatyana Margolina, the companys office director in Dnipro. Over a video chat, she recalled that President Volodymyr Zelensky had said early on that if everyone emigrated, the economy would collapse. A local government official then offered a gender-specific recommendation about how to spend some money.

Guys, go to the gym. Ladies, get your nails done.

Nail salons have become a place for therapy, Ms. Margolina said. The woman around here who does nails has also taken some courses in psychology. So her salon isnt just a place to fix your nails. Its a place to talk.

As Ms. Margolina keeps the Dnipro office running, there is a new and unnerving dimension to her job: the sound of explosions. She hears them often, though even silence in a war is preoccupying for those in Vilnius, too.

Not long ago, Ms. Kushnir was on the phone with her husband when he heard bombs landing and said he needed to hang up and sprint to a shelter. Within hours, she read that three people had died in a house near a playground where Ms. Kushnir regularly took her daughter. They had perished, she quickly realized, in the attack that compelled her husband to hang up.

I cant understand this war, Ms. Kushnir said, removing her glasses to dab tears on her cheeks. Our lives were ruined, broken, and I dont know why.

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Ukraines Highly Mobile Tech Work Force Hits the Road - The New York Times

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