Steiner Summer Yiddish Program Students Test Drive Yiddish Typewriter

Recently, Yiddish Book Center fellows Adah Hetko and Sophia Shoulson brought out eight of the newly repaired Yiddish typewriters from our collection for a special class with our Steiner Summer Yiddish Program students. The fellows set the scene by introducing students to Yiddish typewriter vocabulary and reading aloud pieces about typewriters from Yiddish literature. They then gave students time to type whatever they chose on the historic machines. Watch the short video clip (below) to get a sense of the experience.

For many of the students, this marked the first time using any kind of typewriter, let alone a Yiddish typewriter, and the results varied widely–some wrote letters to their family; some typed biblical passages from the Yehoash Yiddish translation; others transcribed textbook material. Whatever the type (and, yes, that’s a typewriter pun), much fun was had by all!