Beginner III Yiddish (Sunday II)

This is a live, online course held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, assignments, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted mostly in Yiddish, with some English used when necessary.

Instructor: Janina Wurbs

Who should take this course?
This course is for students who have previously taken two semesters of Yiddish. It is appropriate for those who completed Beginner II Yiddish in spring 2021. It is also appropriate for those enrolled in Alef in the 2021 Summer Program who are looking for some review of material covered in Alef.

What topics will this class cover?
Beginner III Yiddish will continue to expand listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills with content from the textbook and supplementary materials.

Is knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet required?
Yes, knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is required.

Course Materials:
This course will use the textbook In eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook, Vol I & II by Asya Vaisman Schulman, Jordan Brown, Mikhl Yashinsky (Purchase). The instructor will also provide additional course materials digitally to students throughout the class.

Janina Wurbs has been active in Yiddish circles internationally for almost two decades. She has taught Yiddish at Potsdam University, at the Jewish Community of St. Petersburg and in summer programs as Yiddish Summer Weimar, Warsaw’s International Summer Seminar in Yiddish Language and Culture and the Yiddish Summer Program in Birobidzhan.

Her professional activities in the area of Yiddish language and culture include research on various collections of Yiddish songs (Magid/Beregovski collection, David Kohan's archive of Jewish music, Potsdam University; digitizing the Stonehill collection, YIVO), transcriptions and translations of Yiddish language interviews and texts (including the "Voice of the Holocaust" project and for courts), supertitle operator for the New York Yiddish theater "Folksbiene," for Brave Old World's "Dus gezang fin Geto Lodzh" and "Semer," contributions to more than 30 CDs of Yiddish music (research, typesetting, translations, introduction texts and program notes), radio journalism for the Yiddish radio "Naye khvalyes" (Warsaw, Poland), and publication of texts, poems, drawings and photo-essays in Yiddish newspapers and magazines (Forverts, Vayter, Di Tsukunft, Afn Shvel, Yugntruf, Dos bletele) as well as studying sources in Yiddish for her Ph.D. in history.

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