Getting Into Yiddish: An Introduction to Yiddish Language and Culture

Tuition: $240 | YIVO members: $180**
Students: $120 (Must register with valid university email address)
 

Register

This is a live, online course held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 20 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, assignments, etc.) will be posted to Google Classroom. Students will be granted access to the class on Google Classroom after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English.

Instructor: Michael Wex

Course Description:
This course will offer an introductory look at the language that has helped to define and unite Ashkenazic Jewry for the past millennium, with an emphasis on how and why it promotes a worldview firmly rooted in traditional Jewish practices, beliefs, and sacred texts. We’ll also examine the ways in which this worldview continues to influence speakers who have abandoned or never known those practices and beliefs. Starting with a look at why Jews of the Middle Ages felt a need for a vernacular of their own, we’ll see how that vernacular treated the cultural assumptions of the German in which it was rooted and the Christianity by which it was surrounded. We’ll also learn how Yiddish-speaking atheists can have trouble going to the toilet without affirming a belief in God, how having a crush on someone connects with Yom Kippur, and why dissatisfaction is portrayed as a function of digestion. No previous knowledge of Yiddish required.

Course Materials:
All course materials will be provided digitally by the instructor.

Author of three books on Yiddish, including the bestselling Born to Kvetch, Michael Wex has taught the language at the University of Toronto and the University of Michigan and is a mainstay of the contemporary Yiddish scene. A native speaker whose Yiddish songs have been recorded by such bands as the Grammy-winning Klezmatics, Wex has translated material ranging from classical Yiddish literature to testimony for war crimes trials. He has also translated The Threepenny Opera from German into Yiddish and appeared as Estragon in a production of Shane Baker’s Yiddish translation of Waiting for Godot at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. His most recent major project is the all-Yiddish cabaret show Baym Kabaret Yitesh, which he wrote and directed and which premiered at the 2019 edition of Yiddish Summer Weimar.

**Become a member today, starting at $54 for one year, and pay the member price for classes! You’ll save on tuition for this course and more on future classes and public programs tickets.