Between Two Worlds: Women in Yiddish Literature

Tuition: $450 | YIVO members: $350**
Students: $225 (Must register with valid university email address)

This is a live, online seminar held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, 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 in English.

Instructor: Sheva Zucker

Course Description:
It’s no accident that Yiddish has been called “Mame-loshn” (Mother Tongue) because it has been, in may ways, the language of the Jewish woman. This course will briefly explore the early history of women as readers and writers of Yiddish. Then, the course will explore more modern works of Yiddish women writers. Students will explore the poetry of Kadya Molodovsky, Anna Margolin, and Rokhl Korn, the prose of Salomea Perl and Esther Singer Kreitman, and the memoirs of Puah Rakowski and Hinde Bergner. These women wrote of a life in which Jewish tradition and modernity were in constant conflict, and of heroines who struggled to find their place within these two worlds.

Who should take this course?
This class is for students with at least a high-intermediate-level knowledge of Yiddish. The instructor will speak in Yiddish, and students may speak either in Yiddish or English. Course materials will be in Yiddish and in English translation, when available. The class discussion will focus on the Yiddish originals. All who register for this class should expect to read an average of 8 to 12 pages of Yiddish per week.

Those who have taken an intermediate or advanced Yiddish class with YIVO in a fall or spring semester (such as Intermediate III Yiddish, Intermediate IV Yiddish, Intensive Intermediate III&IV Yiddish, Advanced I Yiddish, Intensive Advanced I&II Yiddish, or Intensive Advanced III&IV Yiddish) or an intermediate or advanced Yiddish level of the Summer Program are especially encouraged to register.

Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

Sheva Zucker has taught 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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