For over a decade, Dr Sonia Gollance has been collecting descriptions of Yiddish dance in literature and memoirs. In this interdisciplinary learning session, she will share texts that show how Orthodox communities have grappled with the taboo on mixed dancing––including some reactions from rabbis we might find surprising or entertaining. We’ll read and discuss some remarkable episodes from literature and life that showcase the way scandalous dancing came to be understood as a metaphor for the dramatic changes European Jewish communities experienced between the Enlightenment and the Holocaust. We will also get to do some dancing of our own, with live musical accompaniment.
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