Uriel Weinreich Summer Program Testimonial: Howard Brown, ‘75

The Best Way to Connect with the History and Culture of Ashkenazic Jewry

by HOWARD BROWN, Summer Program ‘75

In 1975 I was a student at Cornell University with an abiding interest in labor history. I had written a research paper about the “Uprising of the 20,000,” the historic 1909 strike of garment workers in New York. Somehow (perhaps a notice on a school bulletin board) I learned of the Weinreich Summer Program. I applied and was accepted, with a scholarship to boot.

That summer I began to learn Yiddish. Although my grandparents were all Yiddish speakers born in Ukraine, and Yiddish was the first language of my Bronx-born mother, I had very little knowledge of the language. Thanks to the program’s teachers and with the help of College Yiddish, I got a basic grounding in Yiddish, enough to update my research paper by reading the 1909 strike coverage in the Forverts on microfilm. The change in perspective from the Times to the Forverts was enlightening!

Later, during a year of graduate study in history at Columbia, I was privileged to continue my Yiddish education for a semester with Professor Mordkhe Shaechter. What a pleasure it was to learn from him. I also participated in a graduate history seminar at YIVO. I have very fond memories of days spent in research at the former YIVO building on Fifth Avenue as a graduate student.

Fast forward a few decades. I became an employment lawyer in Boston, not a labor historian in New York. But I have always kept in touch as a member of YIVO, making annual contributions to help preserve this wonderful institution.

Last year I participated in one of YIVO’s online Yiddish classes and was pleased to find that I had retained much of what I had learned in the zumer program and in Professor Shaechter’s class. There is no better way to connect with the history and culture of Ashkenazic Jewry than learning Yiddish.

What will I do next with Yiddish? I can’t say for sure, but I hope to enroll in in-person classes at YIVO as we move from pandemic to endemic. I am deeply grateful to YIVO and plan to continue to support it as I can.

Learn more about the Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.