Intermediate I Yiddish (Friday)

Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (Must register with valid university email address)

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 in Yiddish and English.

Instructor: Reb Noyekh (Noah Barrera)

Who should take this course?
This course is for those who have previously taken two semesters of Yiddish. It is appropriate for those who completed Beginner IV Yiddish in spring 2023.

What topics will this class cover?
Students will acquire intermediate speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in this course. They will strengthen the foundation set in the beginner course (based on Colloquial Yiddish, or equivalent textbook) through regular grammatical and conversational exercise and review. This course will sample chapters 12A-B, 14A-B, 15A-B, 17A-B (not in order) in volume 2 of Yiddish: An Intro by Sheva Zucker. Among the grammar topics reviewed and reinforced in this course are: word order, dative pronouns, comparative/superlative adjectives, complemented verbs/adverbial complements, the conditional, verbs with zikh, present participles, periphrastic verbs, relative clauses, dative and passive constructions. Students will continue reading Dos kluge shnayderl (Chapters 3-4) and will be tasked with writing two book reports. They will be expected to collectively (as a class) retell these chapters in their own words.

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

Course Materials:
This course will use Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature & Culture, Volume II by Sheva Zucker (Purchase). The audio and answer key for the textbooks are strongly recommended and may be purchased directly from Sheva Zucker. We will also be using Dos kluge shnayderl (Purchase). Additional materials, homework assignments as well as class video recordings will be on Canvas.

Also recommended are Colloquial Yiddish by Lilly Kahn (Purchase) and Basic Yiddish by Rebecca Margolis (Purchase).

Reb Noyekh is a Yiddish educator, writer, translator, and content creator. A native of California, he began learning Yiddish more than 10 years ago at UC Santa Cruz where he majored in Jewish Studies. He later studied and taught in the YIVO zumer program for several years and coordinated and taught Yiddish language classes at Der Arbeter Ring in New York. As a writer, his articles and original stories have appeared in the Forverts, Afn Shvel, Yiddish Branzhe, and elsewhere. He is preparing a book of his original short stories titled “Di feygelekh fun honolulu un andere mayses” [The Birds of Honolulu and other Stories]. Reb Noyekh is an accomplished translator. His academic translation, with Nathaniel Deutsch, of The Lost World of Russia’s Jews, was released in 2021 by Indiana University Press. Reb Noyekh is also a prolific content creator on both TikTok and YouTube, and recently launched an all-Yiddish podcast, Mit layb un lebn.

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