Yiddish Book Center

$What\'s New Inside...$

Montreal Trip

Jan 11, 2012

On Monday, December 12, I set off for Montreal with Christa Whitney, the director of the Wexler Oral History Project, and Sara Israel, one of my co-fellows, in order to pick up roughly 1,000 reel-to-reel tapes and 300 cassettes from the Jewish Public Library of Montreal so that they could be digitized as part of the Frances Brandt Online Yiddish Audio Library....

Book Center Projects, Ethnography, Jewish Community, Literature, Personal Stories, Posts by Jordan Kutzik, Travels, Tsum Yarid, Wexler Oral History Project, Bund, Medem Sanatorium, Montreal, Montreal Jewish Public LIbrary, TSHYSHO, Vilna, Vilnius, Yiddish Language, Yiddish Writers

What's your favorite Yiddish word?

Christa Whitney

Jan 10, 2011

In this video, meet Steiner Summer Program students as they describe their favorite Yiddish words. All material comes from interviews students conducted in their oral history practicum! Find out how to apply for this year's Steiner Summer Program.

Wexler Oral History Project, Steiner Summer Program, Wexler Oral History Project, Yiddish Language, Yiddish Words, Yidishe Vort

Education

Deadlines are fast approaching for this summer's educational programs: the Steiner Summer Program offers current college students a tuition-free, seven-week intensive course in Yiddish language and culture; and Great Jewish Books brings high school juniors and seniors together for a one week tuition-free program to read, discuss, argue about, and fall in love with powerful and enduring works of modern Jewish literature.

Josh Lambert to join the Yiddish Book Center as Academic Director

Lisa Newman

Jan 03, 2012

The Yiddish Book Center is pleased to announce the appointment of Josh Lambert as its new academic director. Lambert served most recently as the Dorot Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. He holds a BA from Harvard and a PhD from the University of Michigan. He is the author of American Jewish Fiction: A JPS Guide and a contributing editor of Tablet, an online Jewish magazine.

Book Center Projects, Education

Kicking Off the New Year

Emma Morgenstern

Jan 06, 2012

After the lull of late December (in the workplace, at least) twenty students are shaking things up once again at the Yiddish Book Center.

Education, Posts by Emma Morgenstern, Tsum Yarid

Flip Side: The Yiddish Book Center’s Next Great Adventure

Yiddish Book Center founder Aaron Lansky makes the case for restoring the other half of Jewish identity in Flip Side. His follow-up article, Road Map, is the takhles -- how we intend to translate that vision into practice.

Features

Audio | Listen

All Things Yiddish

This week Aaron updates us on the latest news: scanning Yiddish literature, learning Yiddish, Fellowship applications and oral history internship opportunities, and a sneak preview of our soon-to-be opened Discovery Gallery.

Tune in to our audio series!

Video | Watch

Jacob Glatstein on Yiddish Poetry after the Holocaust

Jacob Glatstein speaks about the role of a Yiddish poet after the Holocaust and shares his views on the changing role of poetry in modern Jewish history. The interview was conducted in New York's Central Park by Abraham Tabachnick in 1955.

Wach the video now.

of the largest and fastest-growing Jewish cultural organization in America.

Yidish far onheybers

Dr. Jean Jofen

Modern Yiddish language pedagogy is forever indebted to Uriel Weinreich’s College Yiddish, first published in 1949. Over half a century and six (relatively unmodified) editions later, this classic endures as the foundation for the overwhelming majority of university-level Yiddish language classes. Yidish far onheybers by Dr. Jean Jofen, a professor of Yiddish for many years at Brooklyn and City Colleges, offers an alternative to the Weinreich classic. First published in 1960 and digitized just last week by the Book Center, Yidish far onheybers is the ideal primer for the self-studying Yiddish enthusiast. In a mere sixty pages, Jofen moves nimbly through the basics of grammar, offering in each of ten lessons a reading selection, vocabulary, proverbs, a folksong, conversational material, and homework exercises. Here Jofen has achieved a wonderful minimalism without compromising the richness that Yiddish offers to those who seek to move beyond alef-beys.