The Yiddish Program

Students standing in front of restaurant in Brooklyn — *Yiddish students on a class trip to Brooklyn*

The Yiddish Program has offered a full sequence of language courses (L1-L5) since 2021, alongside recent and/or upcoming seminars taught in English on: the classical Yiddish literature of the 19th century; a genealogy of Yiddish humor extending into German, Russian, Hebrew, and English; the history of Yiddish cinema; and the Jewish short story.

Language courses aim to equip students with the fluency needed to become active citizens of “Yiddishland” in all of its diasporic, vernacular ungovernability: folklore of mythic and real shtetl pasts; labor anthems; modernist poetry; (ir)reverent holiday liturgies; old and new Jewish polemics; and the increasingly variegated world of contemporary Hasidic media (tweets, podcasts, comics).

Truck with Yiddish in Williamsburg — *A truck spotted on a class trip to Williamsburg, Brooklyn*

As much as we bring these worlds to the classroom (guest speakers, library workshops), we also venture beyond with semesterly field trips, primarily to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where students have had the opportunity to hear and speak Yiddish in immersive environments from the bagel shop to Satmar schools to private audiences with community members: activists, leaders, and dissenters all.

Alumni of the program have gone on to use their Yiddish in intensive summer programs (New York, Amherst, Tel Aviv); graduate studies in Comparative Literature and History (Oxford, Yale, UChicago); cultural/archival work (the Yiddish Book Center); urban planning; and the rabbinate. Translations undertaken as part of coursework have been published in outlets including Shibboleth, Tablet and In geveb.

Contact Information

To join our ranks, and with any questions, write to Joshua Price. Zol zayn mit mazl un brokhe!