THE BETSY’S YIDDISH SPEAKERS' SALON
9:30 AM TO 11:30 AM
Presenting Avi Hoffman (Writer, Performer, Director) and Professor Miriam Hoffman (Professor, Holocaust Survivor and Scholar) in a conversation about intergenerational legacy and memory, as well as commentary on the future of Yiddish Culture Worldwide.
Hosted by Professor Asher Milbauer, Florida International University
The program is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Click "TICKETS" to reserve your seat now.
Bagels and Lox are served courtesy of Jonathan Pluzik and Lesley Goldwasser, owners of The Betsy Hotel, with catering provided by LT Steak and Seafood, Laurent Tourondel, Executive Chef.
Betsy’s Yiddish Speaker’s Salon Series is hosted in partnership with FIU”S Exile Studies Program, Directed by Dr. Asher Milbauer
"Forgetfulness lies at the root of exile, just as remembrance lies at the root of deliverance." - Elie Wiesel, Souls on Fire
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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Avi Hoffman (Writer, Performer, Director) was born 'Avrum Ber', son of Mendl and Miriam Hoffman, in 1958 in The Bronx, NY. A child of Holocaust survivors, Avi was taught at an early age to appreciate the beauty and depth of the Jewish culture, literature, music and tradition. At age 10, he was featured in his first professional production - "Bronx Express" - at the Yiddish Folksbiene Theater on East Broadway. The New York Times review said: "Avremele Hoffman displays a sense of humor." In 1977, he returned to the US and got his BFA in Drama from the University of Miami, graduating cum laude. On TV, Mr. Hoffman was currently featured as Sid Raskin in the Starz Network series MAGIC CITY, was recently seen on the Netflix series BLOODLINE and as Ted the Pawnbroker on A&E’s THE GLADES. His one man shows TOO JEWISH? And TOO JEWISH, TOO! have been broadcast nationally on the PBS system. He was featured as 'Teddy Wayne' in the NBC series LAW AND ORDER. In the music and recording industry, Avi was the lead singer of the 10-piece Don Byron Klezmer Orchestra (Elektra/Nonesuch). Playing the music of Mickey Katz, they have performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brian (NBC), at Avery Fisher Hall, and at the Montreal, Quebec and JVC Jazz Festivals. Hoffman was nominated for a Drama Desk Award (2016), for his role as Willie Loman in a Yiddish language version of Death of A Salesman, presented by New Jewish Rep and the Castillo Theater, in NYC. Avi Hoffman is Professor Miriam Hoffman’s son.
Miriam (Schmulewitz) Hoffman (Writer, Professor, Scholar) retired recently from the Germanic Languages Department at Columbia University, where she served as scholar and teacher since 1993. Hoffman was born in Łódź, Poland to a Yiddish-speaking family. While she was a child, her father was sent to a forced labor camp in Siberia, accompanied by Hoffman and her mother. After a difficult passage through several other countries, the family arrived in the United States in 1949. She received a B.A. from the University of Miami, cum laude, in 1981, and an M.A. from Columbia University, in 1983. Since the late 1990s Hoffman has been a columnist and feature writer for the Jewish Forward, where she has published over two thousand articles. A dozen of her Yiddish plays have been staged. She has published several children's books, and is best known for her weekly column in New York's Yiddish Forward. Her translation into Yiddish of Neil Simon's Sunshine Boys earned her an Emmy Award. As a child in the D.P. Camp in Ulm, Germany, she collected some eighty songs in four languages — Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, and Polish. The album (filled with her transcriptions) is now housed at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. She has compiled three university-level textbooks for the study of Yiddish. Professor Hoffman is Avi Hoffman’s mother.
