For all meeting days and times please see the Online Schedule of Classes
Yiddish 102A: Elementary Yiddish
4 Units
Instructor: Noa Tsaushu
In this beginners’ course students will learn to speak, read, and write Yiddish, the original language of East European Jews. Using the communicative method and the new textbook In Eynem, students will focus in class on speaking by playing out short dialogues. Grammar will be taught inductively, through examples. The course will introduce Yiddish culture through a variety of songs, stories, film clips, and illustrations.
Mode of Instruction: Online.
Yiddish 103: History of Yiddish Culture
3 Units
Instructor: Miriam Borden
Who are the Jews? Yiddish culture holds one set of answers. Yiddish, the heritage language of Ashkenazic Jews in Europe, is the key to 1,000 years of Jewish history and culture. This course traces the development of Yiddish culture from the first settlements of Jews in German lands through centuries of life in Eastern Europe, down to the main cultural centers today in Israel and the Americas. Through transnational Yiddish folklore, literature, music, drama, and more, we examine how the Yiddish language became a powerful tool to respond to changes and challenges to Jewish life. We will consider the Jewish encounter with travel, exile, race, violence, and politics across several centuries, especially in the modern period. And we will consider more recent representations—and reinventions—of Yiddish culture in contemporary film, television, digital media, and popular culture. By the end of the course, students will be able to unravel the mystery, the wit, and the beauty of the mameloshn (mother tongue).
Mode of Instruction: Online