2023–24 Yiddish Pedagogy Practicum Participants

Sasha Berenstein (she/they) is a Yiddish teacher, Klezmer musician, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity activist on unceded Duwamish territory in so-called Seattle. She began her work in transgender/queer inclusivity in the Yiddish language with compiling a glossary of Yiddish transgender/nonbinary/gender-neutral terms that can be found on the League for Yiddish's “Words of the Week” page and on Medium, which later became the primary vocabulary source drawn from by the authors of Undzer Mishpokhe: A Queer Yiddish Curriculum Supplement. Since then, Sasha has led related workshops and trainings for inclusivity in Yiddish pedagogy, while continuing Yiddish language instruction centering accessibility and identity for queer, trans, and disabled folks. Sasha is also especially passionate about creating inclusive educational environments for immunocompromised folks since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, adapting Yiddish curricula to online formats to meet the needs of the growing demographic of people who can't safely or reliably attend class in person.

Dr. Sara Feldman has been the Preceptor in Yiddish at Harvard University since 2018. Other interests include tango, OTD culture, and the labor movement.

Jessica Kirzane is the assistant instructional professor of Yiddish at the University of Chicago and the editor-in-chief of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies.  She teaches all levels of Yiddish language and coordinates all aspects of the Yiddish language program at the University of Chicago, including curricular design and assessment development. She also teaches in, and has been involved in curricular development for the Jewish Civilization sequence at the University of Chicago. As an instructor, she is committed to creating an inclusive learning environment that is responsive to the needs and unique interests of each student. She was a 2022 Pedagogy Fellow at the Chicago Center for Teaching and Learning and a 2018 Pedagogy Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center. In 2021 she was awarded the Glenn and Claire Swogger Award for Exemplary Classroom Teaching at the University of Chicago.

Oksana Sikorska is a teacher of the Yiddish language in Lviv at Ukrainian Catholic University. She teaches online courses for beginners. She graduated from Ukrainian Catholic University with an MA in history. Her research topic was Ukrainian-Jewish relations in Galicia in the first half of the 20th century.

Marianne (Mirl) Tatom teaches Yiddish to adults online through several organizations (Congregation Beth Shalom in Seattle; Edlavitch JCC in Washington, DC; and Northern California Workers Circle). She was inspired to learn Yiddish after meeting a beloved aunt in Antwerp and loves connecting with other Yiddishists worldwide. She lives in Seattle, WA, with her miniature long-haired dachshund, Menachem Mendel, who frequently makes an appearance in her classes. She has a PhD in music theory (and a book on Radiohead) and is also a freelance academic editor.