Other Zions: From Freeland to Yiddishland (2011)

Michael Chabon's best-selling novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union imagined European Jewish refugees colonizing Alaska as a Yiddish-speaking homeland in the 1930s. In fact, the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonization, with its organ Afn Shvel (On the Threshold), attempted that and much more.

For over 30 years, the Freeland League worked to create a mass Jewish settlement outside the Land of Israel in order to rescue Jews and Jewish culture from Europe. Its most notable projects included attempts to establish settlements in Australia, Tasmania, Suriname, and Alaska. Over time the Freeland League gave up all territorial goals but its devotion to the Yiddish language and culture continued. In 1979, the Freeland League dissolved itself and legally changed its name to "League for Yiddish."

In 2011, The League for Yiddish/Afn Shvel magazine, in conjunction with YIVO, opened a special exhibition in honor of several important anniversaries relating to this history: the 70th year of publication for the all-Yiddish Afn Shvel; the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonization, Afn Shvel's first publisher, and the 30th anniversary of Afn Shvel's current publisher, the League for Yiddish.

Curator: Krysia Fisher.