The Cockney Yiddish Podcast Live!

Join Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs of the Cockney Yiddish Podcast for a lively evening of music, song, words and discussion about the mixed languages of London. Nadia and Vivi host an exploration of how the Yiddish language, spoken by Jewish immigrants to London’s East End, and local Cockney culture, influenced each other. Discover how Cockney Yiddish music hall composers and Anglo-Jewish writers used shared words and intertwined meanings as English and Yiddish increasingly mixed. Drawing on your experience of hybrid languages and cultures in London today, we’ll think about the longer-term legacy of linguistic and cultural encounter. So bring along your own words and phrases that reflect your multilingual world. After the event, continue the discussion in the cinema bar with free bagels, cheese cake and samosas.

This event is part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 6 - 15 November 2025. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.