Rakhmiel Peltz Appointed YIVO’s Inaugural Atran Visiting Professor of Yiddish Language and Linguistics

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Rakhmiel Peltz as the inaugural Atran Visiting Professor of Yiddish Language and Linguistics.

Dr. Peltz, a specialist in the social history of Yiddish language and culture, is the Founding Director of the Judaic Studies Program and Professor of Sociolinguistics at Drexel University. His numerous articles and publications include “From Immigrant to Ethnic Culture: American Yiddish Culture in South Philadelphia,” (Stanford University Press, 1997). Dr. Peltz has been a fellow at the Center for Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania, the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Patt and Choseed Fellowships at YIVO. He is currently working on a book on Uriel Weinreich’s research oeuvre, as well as a book on the future of the Yiddish language.

As Atran Visiting Professor, Dr. Peltz will teach a class in YIVO’s Winter Program on Ashkenazi Civilization January 6-22, 2015, titled “A Feeling for Place: Yiddish, Ethnography, and New York’s Jewish Neighborhoods”. The course will explore the deep affinity and attachment of Yiddish-speakers to New York City and its neighborhoods and will introduce students to ethnographic studies in print and film. For more information, please click here.

On January 11, 2015, Prof. Peltz will chair a one-day seminar for advanced Yiddish students, Yidishe limudim-seminar far vaythalters, using text study and discussion on the theme of Vilna: The Jerusalem of Lithuania, Vilne: yerusholayim d’lite. Beginning February 2015, Prof. Peltz will also convene a new Max Weinreich Center Yiddish Research Colloquium at YIVO, where emerging Yiddish scholars will present works-in-progress to peers and senior scholars.

The new Atran Visiting Professor in Yiddish Language and Linguistics was made possible by a generous grant from the Atran Foundation. The Atran Foundation, for over 50 years, has been instrumental in the preservation and education of the Yiddish language, providing for Chairs at various esteemed educational institutions, while also supporting many smaller organizations in the fields of labor rights, community activism, Jewish culture, music and the arts, along with many other charitable and worthy causes.

“The 2015 Atran Visiting Professorship in Yiddish Language and Linguistics is a vital step forward for the YIVO Institute. This new position will expand our base of education and research and provides YIVO and the YIVO community worldwide with renewed commitment to the Yiddish language—its history and its future. Rakhmiel Peltz’s combination of breadth of interest and intensity of focus makes him the ideal inaugural Atran Visiting Professor. We are grateful to the Board of the Atran Foundation for its generosity and support.”

– YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent

The Atran Visiting Professorship in Yiddish Language and Linguistics is the third such professorship established at YIVO in 2014. With the creation of the new Atran Visiting Professorship in Yiddish Language and Linguistics, students and scholars of Yiddish worldwide will benefit from a renewed commitment to the future of the Yiddish language and scholarship.