in the west rejected them as outside of the Yiddish canon. Centenary and accolades In honor of his 100th birthday the Jewish People's Philharmonic Chorus had a concert which included a musical adaptation of I.L. Peretz's "Oyb Nit Nokh Hekher", with libretto by Itche Goldberg. In another 100th birthday tribute, Jerrold Nadler honored him in the United States House of Representatives by saying: "Mir shatsn op ayer vunderlekhe arbet l'toyves der yidisher kultur vos hot baraykhert dem gontsn Yiddishn yishev." (English translation ″We honor your wonderful work for the benefit of Yiddish culture, which enriches the entire Jewish community.″) Goldberg had won the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish literature in 1985. Death He died at age 102. His last book was Essayen Tsvey (Essays Two) in 2004, when he was 100 years. In honor of this publication, a commemoration of his life was held on July 25, 2006, sponsored by YIVO and League for Yiddish. A Josh Waletzky documentary was made of his life at age 101, "Itche Goldberg, A Century Of Yiddish Letters", and was shown at this event. Quotes "The split in the Socialist ranks was very powerful and harmful, and it was about attitudes to the Soviet Union". “Never, never in history, did we produce so many poets and so much poetry in such a short period of time, barely one century. It is rare to find so much creativity in the entire history of our involvement with other languages. Look at the Tanakh—you have any number of splendors put together by various writers over the course of centuries. But here, they weren't given any time. Time was so short for all of us. And we're speaking only of poetry. But the prose that was produced! ... It was a time of exceptional, history-making creativity. And if we don’t understand this, we will perhaps not understand how to inherit or what to inherit.” (Speaking of Yiddish literature in first half of 20th century) “Just because I'm secular doesn't mean I'm antireligious.” "The need to keep Yiddish alive in one shape or another is very basic. And after what we went through — the loss not only of six million but also Eastern Europe — do you allow a culture to drift away and stop existing?" "You can't possibly see a future Jewish life with the disappearance of a 1,000-year-old language and with it a 1,000-year-old culture. Somehow