Advanced Topics in Yiddish Literature & Grammar: Autobiographical Writing in Yiddish

Tuition: $850 | YIVO members: $675**
Students: $425 (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: Sheva Zucker

Who should take this course?
This course is appropriate for those who have completed Advanced II Yiddish or have completed Sheva Zucker’s Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature & Culture, Vol. II or an equivalent course of study.

What topics will this class cover?
The class will continue the study of Yiddish through speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and literature. We will read autobiographical writings which describe marriage, political activism, immigration (to various countries), the nurturing or squelching of creativity, and Yiddish life in the post-Holocaust Soviet Union. Readings are drawn from the works of such people as Mordkhe Alperson, Yitskhok Bashevis, Malke Li, Kadye Molodowsky, Velvl Chernin, and others, spanning from the late nineteenth century to the present. Grammatical topics will be drawn from the texts and will include Yiddish verbal prefixes (such as der, ba, tse), adverbial complements, use of zikh, prepositions and conjunctions of time, structure of complex sentences, and other advanced points of Yiddish grammar. The teacher will provide the materials.

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

Course Materials:
All course materials will be provided digitally on Canvas.

Sheva Zucker has taught in YIVO’s Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture for over two decades. She is the author of the textbooks Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature & Culture, Vols. I and II, which are used widely in university and adult classes around the world. She has taught and lectured on Yiddish and Yiddish literature on five continents and at major universities, including Columbia, New York University, Duke, Bar-Ilan, and Russian State Humanities University. From 2005 to 2020 she served as the executive director of the League for Yiddish and the editor of its all-Yiddish publication Afn Shvel. Her research and translation work focus mainly on women in Yiddish literature.

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