Yiddish Coffee Houses Around The World - A Place To Read Your Favourite Yiddish Journals
Yidishe Kave Hayzer Iber Der Velt – An Ort Vu Tsu Leyenen Ayer Balibste Dzshurnaln
Join us between 10am-1pm on Friday 28th August at the Leo Baeck College Library as we transform the Lily Montagu Reading Room into that stalwart of Jewish life, the coffee house.
Explore a century of Yiddish culture through international journals, books and sheet music. Featuring a “world tour” of Yiddish periodicals, live music and readings, this a unique opportunity to read rare historic materials, enjoy refreshments, and shmooze.
No Yiddish required but for those proficient there will be time and space to enjoy publications in the mameloshn.
Yiddish Journal World Tours, 10.15am and 11.30am
Our tour will introduce Yiddish journals from different countries and feature readings in Yiddish and English, showcasing the variety of interests of Yiddish writers and readers in the last 125 years. Visitors can “stop off” in Israel to read literary journal di goldene keyt, find a Poland corner where you can browse di khazonim velt, a 1930s journal for all things cantorial, or grab an American spot with a contemporary Chassidic journal and more!
Live Music 11am
A Yiddish musical interlude as might be heard in the kave hayzer, the coffee houses we dream of.
Throughout the day 10am-1pm
Yiddish Journal Showcase, Yiddish Sheet Music Exhibit, LBC Library Exhibition “Beautiful Books” featuring Yiddish cover design, LBC Library Collections in the Lily Montagu Reading Room and Refreshments
The kave hayzer will be led Felix Tzapir, LBC Library Assistant and a translator and teacher of Yiddish and Hebrew, and feature Yiddish scholars and enthusiasts from the LBC community and beyond.
The event is part of the Jewish Music Institute’s Yiddish Culture Weekend 2026, bringing together music, song, dance, literature, language, archives, film, workshops and shared cultural discovery across London. The weekend is a celebration of the richness, creativity and contemporary life of Yiddish language and culture.
We are excited to offer visitors the opportunity to interact with the physical carriers of Yiddish culture, sharing and celebrating rare material that has survived the vicissitudes of Jewish history. We look forward to the sound of Yiddish reverberating around the Lily Montagu Reading Room and bringing people together through text, music and coffee.
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