Beginner IV Yiddish

Class starts Sep 17 11:00am-12:30pm

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: Malena Chinski

Who should take this course?
This course is appropriate for those who have completed Beginner III Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

What topics will this class cover?
This class will build on the language background acquired in Beginner III Yiddish. Drawing on a communicative approach, students will continue to work on each of the four language skills, reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The class will be based on chapters 13-14 and 16 of In eynem, as well as additional holiday chapters. New communication goals and vocabulary will include food; furniture and domestic objects; places and activities; and the time. Grammar study will address prepositions, contractions, declension of articles, adjectives, pronouns and common nouns in the dative case, and word order concerning indirect and direct object. The class will also focus on Jewish holidays that fall during the semester. We will also engage with additional materials, such as songs and short literary pieces.

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

Course Materials:
This course will use the textbook In eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook, Vol. I & II by Asya Vaisman Schulman, Jordan Brown, and Mikhl Yashinsky (Purchase). Additional resources will be provided by the teacher through Canvas.

Questions? Read our 2024 Fall Classes FAQ.

Malena Chinski is a PhD in Social Sciences from the National University of General Sarmiento, in Argentina. Her doctoral dissertation addressed Shoah commemoration within the Jewish community of Buenos Aires during the first postwar decade. She completed a postdoctoral stay in France at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales with support from the Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah. Her current research addresses the reconstruction of Yiddish culture in Paris in the immediate postwar period, the itineraries of surviving Yiddish writers and scholars from Eastern Europe, and memories of the Shoah in the Parisian Yiddish press. She has published research articles in various specialized journals and collective volumes and co-edited with Alan Astro the collective volume Splendor, Decline, and Rediscovery of Yiddish in Latin America (Leiden, Brill, 2018).

Malena studied Yiddish at the IWO Foundation of Buenos Aires with professors Ester Szwarc and Avrom Lichtenbaum. She has taught beginner and intermediate classes at the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) and the Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Literature in Berlin. Currently, she teaches regular Yiddish classes in the virtual programs of YIVO and the Maison de la culture yiddish.

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