"Gevalt, yidn, zayt zikh nisht meya'esh!"— H. Leyvik

On Tuesday, August 25, 2026, at 18:00 (Israel time), we will hold a lecture via Zoom with the title:

"Gevalt, Yidn, zayt zikh nisht meya'esh!" ("Jews, don't despair!") — H. Leivick

Lecturer:

Aviv Luban

Ph.D. student at Bar-Ilan University

During the interwar years, the Braslever Hasidim of Poland inscribed the words "Gevalt, yidn, zayt zikh nisht meya'esh!"—"Jews, don't despair!”—on a banner and displayed it prominently in their Warsaw shtibl (Hasidic prayer house). These words were nearly the exact words that R. Nachman of Braslev cried out a century earlier, two months before his death at the age of 38. The Braslever Hasidim became a cause-célèbre towards the late 1920’s; on the Jewish street and in the Yiddish daily press, they achieved renown for their ecstatic dances and cries against despair. Secular writers and artists regularly made their way to the shtibl at 28 Nowolipie Street, to take in, and sometimes…