top of page

Yiddish in Chicagoland
CONCERTS * CLASSES * LECTURES * FILMS
Summer Festival 2023
June 2 – August 15
in person across Chicago libraries
Our MISSION
The Chicago YIVO Society is a local affiliate of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The mission of Chicago YIVO is to entertain and educate the local community through subsidized lectures, music programs, and film screenings that reflect the rich heritage and diversity of Jewish culture, and to ensure the future of Yiddish through language education.

WE'RE BACK LIVE!
The Chicago YIVO Society is holding both
in-person and online events, including live lectures, concerts, classes, and Yiddish conversation.
Join
OUr Email List
UPCOMING EVENTS
- Fri, Jun 02Northbrook Public LibraryViolinists Jake Shulman-Ment and Abigale Reisman, and multi-instrumentalist Kurt Bjorling, combine forces to present a virtuosic and energetic journey through raucous dance tunes, meditative listening music, original compositions, and new settings of Yiddish poetry
- Thu, Jun 15Morton Grove Public LibraryJewish tales from Midrash, folklore and Hasidic sources performed with grace, Yiddishkeit, and humor by storyteller Susan Stone
- Thu, Jul 06Northbrook Public LibraryFor 40 years, Maxwell Street Klezmer Band has been spreading its special take on traditional klezmer to the Chicagoland area and the world, with a schmear of Jewish folk music, a dollop of jazz, and bissel brassy Broadway
- Tue, Jul 11Skokie Public LibraryAn afternoon of Yiddish song, humor, and lore
- Wed, Jul 12Prospect Heights Public LibraryAn interactive musical presentation featuring Ukrainian and Jewish songs by Cantor Pavel Roytman and Chicago based Ukrinain singer -song writer Sofi Fraser
- Thu, Jul 20Morton Grove Public LibraryKlezmer and Yiddish favorites, pieces from Jewish Spain and the Middle East, and music inspired by Jewish American composers
- Thu, Aug 03Northbrook Public LibraryBibi Marcell and Gail Mangurten will play Yiddish soul music that will warm your hearts and make you want to clap and sing along!
- Tue, Aug 08Northtown, Chicago Public LibraryAnnette Bjorling (harp) and Kurt Bjorling (clarinet, basset-horn) invite you to a musical journey through different eras and styles of klezmer
- Wed, Aug 09Highland Park Public LibrarySteve Gibons brings music of Yiddish activism to Yivo at the Highland Park Library
- Tue, Aug 15Skokie Public LibraryAn art deco romantic comedy about male ambivalence and Jewish assimilation (in Yiddish, with English subtitles)