ALEPH Festival, a new international festival devoted to the Hebrew language and the culture created through it, will launch on February 18 to mark International Mother Language Day.
Taking place simultaneously in Berlin, London, Stockholm, New York, Boston, and Hollywood, Florida, the festival spotlights Hebrew not only as an ancient language, but as a living, evolving tongue that continues to travel across borders and communities.
“Hebrew is a language that moves; it travels with its speakers and evolves through their diaspora journeys. ALEPH is a platform to showcase the incredible vitality of Hebrew culture – from its ancient roots to its queer, poetic, and cinematic modern expressions – connecting the world through a shared creative pulse,” said the festival’s founder and director, Yair Qedar, a distinguished documentary filmmaker who created The Hebrews, a series about Hebrew literature, and Outsider. Freud.
Conceived as a multidisciplinary event, ALEPH presents Hebrew as a literary, cinematic, poetic, and spoken language, shaped by centuries of creativity and constantly reinterpreted in the present. Through film screenings, literary encounters, poetry readings, academic lectures, and conversations with artists and scholars from Israel and the Jewish diaspora, the festival explores the place of Hebrew within today’s global cultural landscape.
At the heart of the program are documentary films focusing on some of the most influential figures in modern Hebrew culture, including Haim Nachman Bialik, Yona Wallach, Amos Oz, Leah Goldberg, and A.B. Yehoshua.
Alongside these screenings, the festival offers conversations with award-winning writers, lectures on the history and future of Hebrew, and events designed to reach a wide range of audiences, from children encountering Hebrew culture for the first time to scholars engaged in its academic study.
Berlin events open with examinations of Hebrew language, literature, poetry, and queer culture
THE BERLIN events open the festival with premieres and special screenings that examine Hebrew language, literature, poetry, and queer culture. Highlights include a work-in-progress film on queer poet Hezi Leskly, directed by Shauli Melamed, as well as screenings from filmmaker Yair Qedar that explore the foundations of Hebrew literary heritage. Berlin will also host the first German translation of The Seven Tapes of Yona Wallach, and a presentation by writer and artist Yirmi Pinkus, who will introduce his Noah Books project, which adapts classic Hebrew poetry into illustrated comics for children. Pinkus will also discuss his creative process and the challenges of reimagining Hebrew literary classics for younger audiences.
In London, an academic evening at University College London poses the provocative question “Is Hebrew really that old?” with Prof. Yaron Peleg of the University of Cambridge and Prof. Lily Kahn of UCL. The evening continues with a screening of Bialik: King of the Jews, followed by a conversation with Qedar about the poet’s enduring cultural significance.
Stockholm’s contribution centers on a special afternoon program at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and Judisk Kultur i Sverige, dedicated to major Hebrew poets. Films focusing on Rachel Bluwstein, Leah Goldberg, and Haim Nachman Bialik will be screened, offering a cinematic portrait of how Hebrew poetry has shaped modern Jewish culture.
In New York, ALEPH arrives at JCC Manhattan with a cross-continental literary conversation titled Home in Words: Hebrew Literature Across Continents. The event brings together award-winning writers Maya Arad and Ruby Namdar with Qedar, followed by a screening from The Hebrews Project, which traces the lives and legacies of seminal Hebrew writers.
Boston’s program takes place at IAC Boston, in collaboration with Brandeis University. The evening combines Hebrew poetry readings in both Hebrew and English, conversation, and a screening of Bialik: King of the Jews, highlighting the dialogue between academic study and artistic expression.
The festival concludes in Hollywood, Florida, with a full day at the Hollywood Art and Culture Center. The program includes screenings of films on A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and Bialik, and culminates in a live conversation with Qedar and writer Ruby Namdar, hosted by Ronit Bachar Shachar.
ALEPH Festival is presented in collaboration with leading cultural and academic institutions across Europe and the United States.
For full details, go to the ALEPH website at https://ivrim.co.il/en/festival-aleph/