From April 15th until April 20th, 2008, Ljouwert/Leeuwarden will be a “Yiddish shtetl in der medine” for five days, as it will host the 1st international Yiddish Festival. The festival, called 'Friling, a New Yiddish Spring', highlights various aspects of Yiddish culture, and will introduce people to the wealth of Yiddish language, music, film, literature, and history.
The programme of the Yiddish Festival Leeuwarden is very diverge and offers concerts, music workshops by internationally renowned teachers/musicians, a Yiddish language workshop for beginners, lectures, exhibitions, a film programme, a walk through town, and jam sessions in the city cafés.
The Mercator Research Centre also has a share in the Yiddish Festival Leeuwarden. It has invited two speakers to give a lecture on Friday afternoon (from 1.30 pm), and drs. Cor van der Meer, member of the management team of the Mercator Research Centre, will be the afternoon chair. The two speakers are professor Dovid Katz and dr. Marija Krupoves-Berg. Dovid Katz is professor at the Vilnius University, Lithuania. The title of the lecture is ‘Yiddish Past, Yiddish Present, Yiddish Future’.
Dr. Marija Krupoves-Berg is lecturer of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Lithuania. She will give an introduction about Yiddish folklore.
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Shortly after the visit of Euro commissioner Leonard Orban to Fryslân, on April 4 and 5, the Dutch Minister for European Affairs, Frans Timmermans, visited the Mercator Research Centre to discuss its activities, its current position, and its ambitions. Being fluent in the mother tongue and two other languages is a prerequisite for European citizenship, thus said the Dutch Minister for European Affairs after his visit to the Mercator Research Centre.
| The discussion very much concentrated on the European policy on multilingualism and the European tendency towards “English only” on the one hand and the trilingual school approach in Fryslân. On the basis of the equality of languages, Frisian pupils learn three languages Dutch, Frisian and English in primary school. In secondary school another foreign language is acquired. |
The European commissioner for multilingualism, Leonard Orban, will pay a working visit to Ljouwert / Leeuwarden on Thursday 3 and Friday 4 April.
Orban has been invited by the province of Fryslân in cooperation with the Representation in the Netherlands of the European Commission. At a large public debate – on Thursday – at the Mercator Research Centre / Fryske Akademy Orban will acquaint himself with the language situation in the province of Fryslân as a good example for other multilingual European regions. The aim of the visit of the commissioner is to acquire ideas for the development of his own policy on multilingualism.
The Mercator Research Centre has been invited by the organisation to present itself to Orban’s delegation at the city hall of Ljouwert / Leeuwarden on Friday afternoon. The Mercator Research Centre hopes that the visit of commissioner Orban will generate support from Brussels for projects that the Mercator Research Centre will develop in Fryslân and other European regions, such as a European Agency for Language Diversity and Language Learning in the ‘Knowledge city’ of Ljouwert / Leeuwarden.
the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union.
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