WHAT IS YIDDISH AND WHY STUDY IT TODAY?

Yiddish was the language of most European (Ashkenazic) Jews for almost a thousand years. It moved with them from the Rhineland (present-day Germany ) eastward to the Slavic lands, then on to America —North and South— Australia , South Africa , and wherever they settled.

• You can satisfy your language requirement through the study of the vernacular of European Jewry and their descendants. 
• Experience the richness of Yiddish literature—and Yiddish humor—in the original.
• Enter the Hasidic world in song and story and understand the language spoken in its neighborhoods.
• Learn to speak, write, and read in Yiddish as you explore American and East European Yiddish literature, klezmer music,Yiddish film and theater.
• Gain direct access to Yiddish sources in the study of Jewish history and the Holocaust.

Elementary Yiddish at Harvard teaches reading, writing, listening, and speaking. You'll be surprised how much Yiddish you can learn in a year!

Yiddish has not yet said its last word. It contains treasures that have not been revealed to the eyes of the world. It was the tongue of martyrs and saints, of dreamers and cabalists—rich in humor and in memories that mankind may never forget. In a figurative way Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of the frightened and hopeful humanity.

   —Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Lecture, 1978

YIDDISH @ HARVARD THIS SPRING:

Yiddish A. Elementary Yiddish  (full course) (4623) MWF at 10 in Sever 107
Yiddish Bb. Intermediate Yiddish II (1239) MWF at 11 in Sever 101
Yiddish Cb. Advanced Yiddish I (8968) MWF at 1 in Sever 105

Jewish Studies 104: Introduction to Yiddish Culture (8611) W 3-5

For more information, contact instructor Yuri Vedenyapin

at vedenyap@fas.harvard.edu or 617-496-2315

Visit the Harvard Yiddish Program Website