October — December 2023

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אונדזער קורס⸗בלאַט

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אויסשניט פון דער הילע פון „יידיש לאָנדאָן“ נ. 1 (פרילינג 1938), רעדאַגירט פון י.א. ליסקי, נ.מ. סידאָ, אַ.נ.שטענצל

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דורכן זום דאָנערשטיק 3:30—5 נאָכמיטיק לויטן ניו⸗יאָרקער זייגער: 12, 19 און 26 אָקטאָבער; 2, 9, 16, 30 נאָוועמבער; 7, 14 און 21 דעצעמבער 2023

די באַשרײַבונג פונעם קורס: בײַם אַרבעטער רינג; בײַם אינסטרוקטאָר

קאָנטאַקטן: קאָאָרדינאַטאָר פונעם קורס: סאַבינאַ ברוקנער; אינסטרוקטאָר: דוד קאַץ; קאָאָרדינאַטאָר פון דער פּראָגראַם: ברוך בלום; דער דירעקטאָר פון דער פּראָגראַם: קאָליאַ באָראָדולין

ווערטערביכער וואָס קומען צו הילף בײַם לייענען די יידישע ליטעראטור

אָנטיילנעמער זײַנען פאַרבעטן באַזוכן דעם אינסטרוקטאָרס וועבזײַטל; אויך דעם ענגליש⸗יידישן ווילנער ווערטערבוך (פּאַמעלינקערהייט אין גאַנג פון דער אַרבעט), און געבן צו וויסן וועגן ווערטער וואָס פעלן נאָך, טעותן וכדומה; אַ יישר⸗כח אַפריער!

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די טעקסטן צום קורס

COURSE READINGS

A few words in English to participants: Classes are conducted entirely in Yiddish. In the context of our non-credit course, the instructor invites participants to read as much as possible beforehand with a dictionary, when possible, but cannot require or demand this. We all do the best we can in the context of our program which is designed to accommodate a wide diversity of levels, time limitations, and differing personal aspirations for the course. Where possible, NYBC links (for free access to the entire volumes from which our excerpts derive) are added (below) for those who wish to read more of the work of these London authors. This is followed below by a selection of academic and also more popular historic works that themselves contain many more references for a variety of research interests. Note also a listing of some resources on Esther Kreitman’s biography and the available translations in English for those interested. But this Yiddish-in-Yiddish reading course is sharply focused on enabling participants to enjoy, in the reading circle tradition, a close, in-depth and culturally literate reading of texts as well as, in this course, a diversity of original literary texts set in (or related to) London, thereby becoming acquainted first hand with the work of some of its leading authors, and hopefully inspiring those interested to go on to do great things in the field in the years to come. And, in any case, to enhance everyone’s skills, confidence and ease for reading Yiddish literature in the original.  — DK 

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א.נ. שטענצל: „אונדזער יידיש שאַפן אין ענגלאַנד“ (אינעם „יובל⸗אַלמאַנאַך“, לאָנדאָן ווײַטשעפּל 1956)  (פּראָפ. ז.ש. פּראַווערס שטענצל⸗לעקציע; פונעם לערערס יוגנט⸗זכרונות; צום צענטן יאָרצײַט)

שלום⸗עליכם: „לאָנדאָן, פאַרוואָס ברענסטו ניט?“  [NYBC]

מאָריס ווינטשעווסקי: „דרײַ שוועסטער“  [NYBC]

מאָריס ווינטשעווסקי: לידער (פון באַנד II פון קלמן מרמרס אויסגאַבע)  [NYBC] (פּראָפ. ביל פישמאַנס לעקציע צו ווינטשעווסקיס 128טן געבאָרנטאָג און צום הונדערטסטן יובל פונעם „פּוילישן יידל“)

יעקב⸗מאיר זאַלקינד: הקדמות צו זײַנע „יידישע גמרות“ ברכות און פּאה  [NYBC] (צו דער ביאָגראַפיע: אויף יידיש; אויף ענגליש)

אסתר קרייטמאַן: דערציילונג „צו שפּעט“ (פון איר בוך „יחוס“)  [NYBC] (ביאָגראַפיעס; איבערזעצונגען אויף ענגליש)

קייטי בראַון: „אַלץ אין איינעם“ (אויסצוגן)  [NYBC]

י.א. ליסקי: מלאכה בזויה [NYBC] (ביאָגראַפיע; פון לערערס יוגנט⸗זכרונות)

י. א. ליסקי: „פּראָדוקטיוויזאַציע“ (אויסצוגן)  [NYBC]

א. מ. קײַזער: „בײַ אונדז אין ווײַטשעפּל“ (אויסצוגן)  [NYBC]

יוסף הילל לעווי: „ווײַטשעפּל“ (ליד)

שמואל ווהייט: עטלעכע לידער פון „פּאַמאָכעט דער כעלעמער פּאָעט“  [NYBC]

פון א.נ. שטענצלס „ווײַטשעפּל שטעטל דבריטן“  [NYBC]

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צוגאָב⸗מאַטעריאַלן

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אויפן אינטערנעט (בחינמדיק):

וועגן שרײַבער ביז מיטן 1920ער יאָרן (לויטן מחברס נאָמען): אין זלמן רייזענס לעקסיקאָן  —  IV  ,III  ,II  ,I

וועגן יידישע שרײַבער (לויטן נאָמען פון מחבר): אין דער ענגלישער אינטערנעטישער אַדאַפּטאַציע פון נײַעם לעקסיקאָן 

Leonard Prager: A Bibliography of Yiddish Periodicals in Great Britain (1867–1967)

S.S. Prawer: Stencl of Whitechapel

William J. Fishman: Morris Winchevsky and his London Yiddish Newspaper

Nicole Jarasse (Le Foll): A Sociolinguistic Study of Yiddish in London

Vivienne Lachs: Yiddish Poetry and Popular Song of London (1884-1914)

Bruce Mitchell: London’s “Haredi” Periodicals in Yiddish

Bruce Mitchell: Yiddish among Britain’s Ultra-Orthodox Jews since 1945

William Marshall Pimlott: Yiddish in Britain. Immigration, Culture and Politics (1896-1910)

Anna Elena Torres: The Anarchist Sage/Der Goen Anarkhist: Rabbi Yankev-Meir Zalkind and Religious Genealogies of Anarchism [as PDF]

 Dovid Katz: Odds and ends over the years. Recordings on Youtube

אויף יידיש: ייוואָ בלעטער 43: שטודיעס צו דער געשיכטע פון יידן אין ענגלאַנד (נ.י. 1966)

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פאַרעפנטלעכטע ביכער (אָפּקלײַב):

Leonard Prager: Yiddish Culture in Britain. A Guide (Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main 1990)

וועגן שרײַבער (לויטן מחברס נאָמען): אין די אַכט בענד פון „נײַעם לעקסיקאָן“ (ניו⸗יאָרקער יידישער קולטור⸗קאָנגרעס, 1956–1981) פּלוס בערל כהנס מילואים⸗באַנד (נ.י. 1986)

William J. Fishman: East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914 (Duckworth 1975)

Josef Fraenkel: The Jewish Press in Great Britain 1823-1963 (British Section of the World Jewish Congress 1963)

Lloyd P. Gartner: The Jewish Immigrant in England 1870-1914 (Wayne State University Press 1960)

Vivi Lachs: Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884-1914 (Wayne State University Press 2018)

Vivi Lachs: London Yiddishtown. East End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story, 1930–1950 (Wayne State University Press 2021)

Joseph Leftwich, Great Yiddish Writers of the Twentieth Century. Selected and translated by Joseph Leftwich (Jason Aronson 1969); see selections from Leo Kenig, Jacob Maitlis, Rudolf Rocker, Aaron Steinberg

Joseph Leftwich, An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Literature (Mouton 1974); see selections from A.N. Stenzel (Stencl)

Dov Noy & Issachar Ben-Ami (eds.), Studies in the Cultural Life of the Jews in England (Magnes 1975); see esp. in English section: Leonard Prager, “The Beginnings of Yiddish Fiction in England”; in Yiddish section: Julian Gold, “Harendorf’s ‘King of Lampedusa'”; Morris Goldwasser, “Termini Techniki in Y.M. Zalkind’s Yiddish Translation of the Talmud”; Jacob Maitlis, “The YIVO Activities in London: Reminiscences from the 1930s”: Chone Shmeruk, “Three Yiddish Street Songs from London”

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אסתר קרייטמאַן: צו דער ביאָגראַפיע

Maurice Carr, The Forgotten Singer: The Exiled Sister of I. J. and Isaac Bashevis Singer (White Goat Press 2023)

Michael Boyden, “The Other ‘Other Singer’: Linguistic Alterity in Esther Kreitman’s Transit Fiction” in Prooftexts 31.1-2: 95-117 (2011)

Rita Calabrese, “La voce di Yentl: Esther Kreitman” in La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 71.2-3: 93-112 (2005)

Dafna Clifford, “From Diamond Cutters to Dog Races: Antwerp and London in the Work of Esther Kreitman” in Prooftexts 23.3: 320-337 (2003).

Janet Hadda, Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Life (University of Wisconsin Press 2003) [relevant sections]

Anita Norich, “The Family Singer and the Autobiographical Imagination” in Prooftexts 10.1: 91-107 (1990)

Alicia Ramos González, “Diagnostics of a Writer: ‘The Case of Fraylin Esther S.’” in Mosaic 39.1: 131-146 (2006)

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אסתר קרייטמאַן: איבערזעצונגען

Maurice Carr (trans.), Ilan Stavans (intro.), Anita Norich (afterword), Deborah. By Esther Singer Kreitman (David Paul 2004)

Maurice Carr (trans.), The Dance of the Demons. By Esther Singer Kreitman (The Feminist Press 2009)

Dorothee Van Tendeloo (trans.), Blitz and Other Stories. By Esther Kreitman (David Paul 2004)

Heather Valencia (trans.), Diamonds. By Esther Kreitman (David Paul 2010)

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Jump to

COURSE MATERIALS

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GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION

• Program: This five-session online mini-course is part of the Workmens Circle Summer Program in Yiddish Studies in the summer of 2022.

• Inquiries:  coordinator Baruch Blum at: bblum@circle.org and/or program director Nikolai Borodulin at: nborodulin@circle.org.

• Sessions:  2 PM NY time (11 AM LA, 7 PM London, 8 PM Paris/Berlin, 9 PM Tel Aviv/Vilnius etc) on the following five Sundays: (1) 17 July, (2) 24 July, (3) 31 July, (4) 14 Aug. and  (5) 21 Aug.

• Recommended dictionaries: For advanced reading of Hasidic Yiddish texts, please consult the instructor’s list of works for reading Yiddish literature; and for 21st century Hasidic Yiddish specifically, Mrs. B. Roth’s indispensable Yidish verter oytser (Roth Publishers Inc., 2009 and subsequent revised editions); also: Yuta Rivka Shtein’s Milon l’sefat hayidish (Israel 2011).

• Instructor: Dovid Katz. Personal website. Facebook. Email: dovidkatz7@yahoo.com. You are invited to send missing English words (and corrections!) to the (English-Yiddish) Yiddish Cultural Dictionary. Works on Yiddish stylistics  (Tikney Takones). On Yiddish linguistics. Yiddish fiction. Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) studies. Holocaust studies. The Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA).

• Acknowledgments: Sincerest thanks to Genesis University and its CEO Robert Frankel, to Albert Rosenblatt; and to Mr. Charles R. Wein for their generosity of spirit in providing the needed corpus of 2022 (and 2021) Hasidic Yiddish periodicals to enable the course to proceed.

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Course Description

The five-session online summer course comprises readings from current Hasidic magazines (from 2022, some from 2021), in the classic Yiddish reading circle (léyenkrayz) spirit of taking turns reading selections. There will be emphasis on diversity of texts and their language, and discussion of style, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and “linguistic directionality” in the spirit of ascertaining the actual structure and grammar of current Hasidic Yiddish in print. This text-based course is concentrated on gaining familiarity, facility and comprehension of current published Hasidic Yiddish, with discussion of relationships to other forms of Yiddish, past, present and future. Please note that it is not  a course about contemporary Hasidim, or other Haredim, or their groupings and issues, or of modern religious Judaism. It is a  contemporary snapshot of a language in print, and the implications of this (standardized?) language in print for the history and future of Yiddish.

Texts read will be provided as scan-ins preserved in PDF format that will be added to this page during the course.

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Course Materials

Covers of Hasidic magazines that constitute the corpus from which selections will be excerpted for the mini-course.

Excerpts from Balaykhtungen, Jan. 2021.

Excerpts from Famílye, June 2022.

Excerpts from Glok, June 2022 (addendum).

Excerpts from Húndert, Jan. 2022.

Excerpts from Kindershrift, Jan. 2022.

Excerpts from Líkhtike Heym, Feb. 2022.

Excerpts from Máyles (Maalos), June 2022.

Excerpts from Moment, Jan. 2016.

Excerpts from Óysyes, Oct. 2021.

Excerpts from Di Vokh in Shrift, Oct. 2021.

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Five-Session Online Mini-Course (Summer 2022)

אונדזער קורס⸗בלאַט

14, 21, 28 July; 4, 11 August

Instructor: Dovid Katz

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• Website: The course is part of the Workmens Circle summer program 2022 in Yiddish Studies. A listing of the instructor’s courses within the program.

• Inquiries: Please contact coordinator Baruch Blum at: bblum@circle.org and/or program director Nikolai Borodulin at: nborodulin@circle.org. Note that the course is taught entirely in Yiddish.

• Sessions: 2—3:30 PM NY time (11 AM LA, 7 PM London, 8 PM Paris/Berlin, 9 PM Tel Aviv/Vilnius etc): (1) 14 July, (2) 21 July, (3) 28 July, (4) 4 Aug. and (5) 11 Aug.

• Instructor: Dovid Katz. Personal website. Yiddish Cultural Dictionary. Facebook.

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General background:

• Leyzer Ran, Yerusholáyim d’Lite [Jerusalem of Lithuania] (3 vols, New York 1974).

• Leyzer Ran, Vilna, Jerusalem of Lithuania. Fourth Annual A.N. Stencl Lecture at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies (Oxford 1987).

• Israel Cohen, Vilna (Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia 1943 and reprints).

• Yefim Yeshurun (ed), Vilne (Workmens Circle: New York 1935). 

• Czeslaw Milosz, Beginning with My Streets: Essays and Recollections (Farrar, Straus & Giroux paperback edition, 2010).

• Tomas Venclova, Vilnius: City Guide (2002).

• Irina Guzenberg, Vilnius: Traces of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. Memorable Sites of Jewish History and Culture (Pavilniai 2021).

• See also items in the Vilna Studies reading list on instructor’s Litvak Studies page.

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Course Materials 

• Vilna on the Jewish cultural map of Lithuanian Jewry (see 2 versions on instructor’s Lithuania page).

• Gaon of Vilna’s sons’ biography of their father (English translation of the original Hebrew in Dovid Katz, Lithuanian Jewish Culture, pp. 94-105, esp. pp. 99 and 102  on Vilna, in posted excerpts).

• Daniel Charney’s Vílne: Memuárn (Buenos Aires 1951). See also his A Litvak in Poyln (New York 1955); title pp. and excerpts.

• Abraham Joshua Heschel’s preface to Leyzer Ran’s Jerusalem of Lithuania, N.Y. 1974).

• Meyshe Kulbak’s 1926 poem: Vílne [as PDF].

• Khaykl Lunski’s Fun Vilner geto (1920). Excerpts from the book. 

• Leyzer Ran’s preface to his Jerusalem of Lithuania (in vol. 1, N.Y. 1974; title p.).

• Leyzer Ran’s Ash fun Yerusholáyim d’Líte (N.Y. 1959) [translation of book into English in progress]. Brief excerpts. Note: a draft translation of the book into English has been completed and will hopefully be published soon.

• Zalman Shneur’s Vílna (/Vílno) (in Hebrew) (Berlin 1923).

•  A. N. Stencl’s 1944 poem Vílne.

• Max Weinreich’s essay in Yefim Yeshurun’s 1935 collective volume Vílne.

• See also instructor’s: Lithuania page; Virtual Mini Museum of Old Jewish Vilna; Lithuanian Yiddish Video Archive (LYVA) — please scroll down to “Vílne”); relevant parts of Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish (2007), see “Vilna” in index; Seven Kingdoms of the Litvaks (2009); Vilna Book Stamps: Windows to a Lost Jewish Past; Lithuanian Jewish Culture (2010) [note that years of publication refer to latest revised edition].

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Summer 2022

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 אונדזער קורס⸗בלאַט

(זומער תשפ″ב \ 2022)

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• Website: online course is part of the Workmens Circle summer program in Yiddish studies.

• Inquiries:  coordinator Baruch Blum at: bblum@circle.org and/or program director Nikolai Borodulin at: nborodulin@circle.org. Note that the course is taught entirely in Yiddish.

• Sessions: Tuesdays 2—3:30 PM NY time (10 AM LA, 6 PM London, 7 PM Paris/Berlin, 8 PM Tel Aviv/Vilnius etc): (1) 12 July, (2) 19 July, (3) 26 July, (4) 2 Aug. and  (5) 9 Aug.

• Instructor: Dovid Katz. Personal website. Yiddish Cultural Dictionary. 

 

• General background:

• Hans Peter Althaus, “Yiddish” in Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. 9: Linguistics in Western Europe, Mouton: The Hague 1972, pp. 1345-1382.

• Emanuel S. Goldsmith, Architects of Yiddishism at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. A Study in Jewish Cultural History (Fairleigh Dickinson: Rutherford 1976; further editions retitled Modern Yiddish Culture).

• Cecile Esther Kuznitz, Yivo and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture (Cambridge University Press 2014).

• Naomi Seidman, Marriage Made in Heaven : The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish (University of California Press 1997).

• Barry Trachtenberg, The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish: 1903-1917 (Syracuse University Press: Syracuse 2008).

• Kalman Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation: Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland (University of Toronto Press 2011).

• Instructor’s  articles on the history of Yiddish linguistics: in Yiddish; in English;  “On Ber Borokhov” (1980); “On Max Weinreich (1982); “Reflections on the 110th Anniversary of Czernowitz” (2018). Relevant parts of instructor’s books: Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish (2007) (via ‘Vilna’, ‘Yivo’, ‘Borokhov’, ‘Weinreich’ etc. in index); Yiddish and Power (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke 2015); works in the fields of Yiddish linguistics and Yiddish stylistics.

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Materials    מאַטעריאַלן

Notes: Only select pages will be read from each; entire texts are provided for reference for participants who might wish to have these materials to hand in the future. The list may grow during the five sessions of summer 2022.

1. Matisyohu Mieses (Mates Mizish), paper read at the Czernowitz Language Conference of 1908, first published in M. Weinreich, Z. Reyzen (eds), Di ershte yidishe shprakh-konferents (Yivo: Vilna 1931), pp.  143-193. As PDF. Entire volume available online at NYBC.

2. Zalmen Reyzen’s entry for Matisyohu Mieses in Leksikon vol. 2, pp. 375-379 (Vilna 1927). As PDF.

3. Esther Frumkin, “Tsu der frage vegn der yidisher folks-shul” (Di Velt: Vilna 1910). As PDF.

4. Ber Borokhov, “Ufgabn fun der yidisher filologye” & “Biblyotek funem yidishn filolog” in Sh. Niger’s Pínkes (Vilna 1912/1913). As PDF. Entire volume available online at NYBC; both reprinted in modernized orthography in Nakhmen Mayzl’s Ber Borokhov: Shprakh-forshung un literatur-geshikhte (Tel Aviv 1966). As PDF. Entire volume available online at NYBC.

5. Zalmen Reyzen’s Gramatik fun der yidisher shprakh (Vilna 1920). As PDF.

6. Max Weinreich’s Shtaplen (Berlin 1923). As PDF. See also his Marburg dissertation of 1923, now available as: Jerold C. Frakes (ed), Max Weinreich: Geschichte der Jiddischen Sprachforschung. Dissertation Universität Marburg 1923  [=South Florida Studies in the History of Juaism, 27] (Scholars Press: Atlanta 1993).

7. The 1925 publication of Organizatsye fun der yidisher visnshaft. Nokhem Shtif’s and Max Weinreich’s essays. Available from Goethe Universität (Frankfurt).

8. The 1928 table of contents of volume 2 of the Yivo’s Filológishe shríftn.

9. The Minsk 1930 publication of Der fashizirter yidishizm un zayn visnshaft  (Minsk 1930). As PDF.

10. Solomon A. Birnbaum’s Geúle fun loshn [Geíle fin lushn] (Lodz 1931). As PDF.

11. Max Weinreich’s article in the 1935 American Vilna volume. As PDF.

12. The 1938 debate on “daytshmerish” between Max Weinreich and Noyakh Prilutski on the pages of the Yivo’s magazine Yidish far ale. Cf. comments on pp.  166-228 of instructor’s 1993 book, Tíkney takónes.

13. Max Weinreich reminiscing in 1965 on the origins of the Yivo. Yivo audio.

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וואָס איז געדאַנקען⸗געשיכטע (אינטעלעקועלע געשיכטע)?

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אַ ביסל פאָרגעשיכטע…

די טראַדיציאָנעלע ציוויליזאַציע אשכנז און אירע דרײַ יידישע לשונות (אָנהייבנדיק בערך מיט טויזנט יאָר צוריק)

די (שפּראַכיק) איינהייטלעכע בערלינער השכלה (פון 18טן יאָרהונדערט): דײַטש

די די מזרח⸗אייראָפּעאישע השכלה (פון 19טן יאָרהונדערט) און אירע באַלדיקע צעגייאונגען: (א) העברעאיש ווי אַ מאָדערנע אייראָפּעאישע שפּראַך; (ב) יידיש ווי אַ מאָדערנע אייראָפּעאישע שפּראַך; (ג) די „בערלינער שיטה“: רוסיש, דײַטש, פּויליש וכו′

דער אויסערגעוויינטלעכער דערפאָלג סײַ פון העברעאיש און סײַ פון יידיש אין מזרח אייראָפּע אין 19טן יאָרהונדערט

די בהדרגהדיקע פּאָליטיזירונג: יידיש + „דאָאיקײַט און סאָציאַליזם“; העברעאיש + „ציוניזם און נאַציאָנאַליזם“

אָבער: צי איז „יידישיזם“ ניט נאַציאָנאַליסטיש אויך? („גלות⸗נאַציאָנאַליזם“, „אשכנזצענטרישקײַט“; אָפּגעזונדערטקײַט ווי אַ בפירושדיקער ציל)

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דער אויסגאַנגפּונקט: מלוכהלאָזיקײַט; נידערסטאַטוסדיקײַט; פאַרבײַטעוודיקײַט

ליבשאַפט: ′פאַר⸗זיך′ צי ′לאָגיש מאָטיווירט′?

ליבשאַפט פאַרן ′לשון גופא′ צי פאַרן ′פאָלק′ צי ′פאַר אייגענע′?

′ליבשאַפט′ + ′פּאָליטיק′ (\לינקע פּאָליטיק?) אינעם יידישיזם

סעקולאַריזם (אַנטי⸗קלעריקאַליזם) און אַנטי⸗ציוניזם (\אַנטי⸗העברעאיזם) אינעם יידישיזם: די מדרגות פון אָפּאָנענטישקײַט ביזקל שנאה ממש

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פּאָפּולערער יידישיזם ← אַקאַדעמישער יידישיזם

עלעמענטן: ′ליבשאַפט′ + ′גלײַכבאַרעכקטיקײַט′  + ′אַקאַדעמישקײַט ← ′תכלית′

′תכלית′ = ווערטערביכער, גראַמאַטיקעס, שפּראַך⸗ און ליטעראַטור⸗פאָרשונג, געשיכטע וכו′ ← אינסטיטוציעס (′ככל⸗הגוימדיקײַט′) ← קינדערשולן ← מיטלשולן ← העכערע (אַקאַדעמישע) אינסטיטוציעס

פּאָטענציעלע סתירות און שוועריקײַטן:

′ליבשאַפט גופא′ (ס’איז ווי ס’איז) און — ′אַקאַדעמישע איבערמאַכונג′ (דעסקריפּטיוויזם ≠ נאָרמאַטיוויזם)

באַציאונג מיט אַנדערע שפּראַכן: לשון קודש \ איווריט \ די לאַנדשפּראַכ(ן)

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צווישן די פאָרגייער און אינטעלעקטועלע בויער

(אויסגעשטעלט לויט די געבאָרן⸗יאָרן) 

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יהושע⸗מרדכי ליפשיץ (בערדיטשעו; 1829 – 1878)

אלכסנדר האַרקאַווי (נאַוואַרעדאָק; 1863 – 1969)

באָריס קלעצקין (האַראָדיטש; 1875 – 1937)

נחום שטיף (בעל⸗דמיון) (ראָוונע; 1879 – 1933)

אסתר (אסתר פרומקין; מלכה ליפשיץ) (מינסק; 1880 – 1943)

בער באָראָכאָוו (זאָלאָטאָנאָשע\פּאָלטאַווע; 1881 – 1917)

נח פּרילוצקי (בערדיטשעוו; 1882 – 1941)

מתתיהו מיזעס (מאַטיס מיזיש) (פּשעמישל; 1885 – 1945)

זלמן רייזען (קוידענאָוו; 1887 – 1940±)

שלמה בירנבוים (ווין; 1891 – 1989)

מאַקס ווײַנרײַך (גאָלדינגען, 1894 – 1969)

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די אינעווייניקסטע צווישנשיידן בײַ זיי (און אַנדערע):

אַקאַדעמישקײַט כנגד קעמפערישקײַט

טראַדיציאָנאַליזם כנגד סעקולאַריזם

אויפאַנאָרטיקע קולטור⸗אויטאָנאָמיע כנגד ציוניזם

דרומיזם כנגד צפוניזם

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Readings for Workmens Circle Online Yiddish Courses

(1) Autumn 2021, (2) Spring 2022, (3) Summer 2022, (4) Fall-Winter 2022

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 אונדזער קורס⸗בלאַט

ווערטערביכער וואָס קענען צו הילף קומען

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Melech Epstein, The Jew and Communism: The Story of the Early Communist Victories and Ultimate Defeats in the Jewish Community, U.S.A., 1919-1941, New York Trade Union Sponsoring Committee (1959) [see esp. chapter 12].

Gennady Estraikh, In Harness: Yiddish Writers’ Romance with Communism, Syracuse University Press (2005).

William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals,  1875-1914, Duckworth (1975; 2nd ed. Five Leaves 2004).

Amelia Glaser & David Weintraub (eds), Proletpen: America’s Rebel Yiddish Poets (University of Wisconsin and Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture (2005). Volume includes: Dovid Katz, “The Days of Proletpén in American Yiddish Poetry” pp. 3-25 (also: personal memoir covering the period and milieu appeared as introduction to 2005 edition of Menke Katz’s collected Yiddish works in English translation of Benjamin and Barbara Harshav).

Matthew Hoffman, “The Red Divide: The Conflict Between Communists and their Opponents in the American Yiddish Press” in American Jewish History 96.1: 1-31 (March 2010).

Mathew B. Hoffman & Henry F. Srebrnik (eds), A Vanished Ideology, State University of New York Press (2016).

Ezra Mendelsohn, On Modern Jewish Politics, Oxford University Press (1994).

Tony Michels, A Fire in their Heart. Yiddish Socialists in New York, Harvard University Press (2005).

Barry Trachtenberg, The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917, Syracuse University Press (2008).

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „פרײַהײַט“

(דעצ. 1922)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „פרײַהײַט“

(זומער – האַרבסט 1923)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „פרײַהײַט“

(דעצ. 1925 — יאַנ. 1926)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „פרײַהײַט“

(נאָוו. – דעצ. 1927)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „מאָרגן פרײַהײַט“

(יוני – יולי 1929)

דער נוסח פון מרים פײַערמאַנס דערציילונג „אָלגאַ“ אין איר שפּעטערדיקן בוך (ל.א. 1972)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „מאָרגן פרײַהײַט“

(אויגוסט 1929)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „מאָרגן פרײַהײַט“

(אַפּריל – מאַי 1932)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „מאָרגן פרײַהײַט“

(מאַי – יוני 1932)

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אַ בינטל זײַטלעך פון דער „מאָרגן פרײַהײַט“

(מאַי 1938)

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• Website: online course is part of the Workmens Circle summer program in Yiddish Studies.

• Inquiries:  coordinator Baruch Blum at: bblum@circle.org and/or program director Nikolai Borodulin at: nborodulin@circle.org. Note that the course is taught entirely in Yiddish.

• Sessions: 2—3:30 PM NY time (10 AM LA, 6 PM London, 7 PM Paris/Berlin, 8 PM Tel Aviv/Vilnius etc): (1) 6 July, (2) 13 July, (3) 20 July, (4) 27 July. and  (5) 3 Aug.

• Instructor: Dovid Katz. Personal website. Yiddish Cultural Dictionary. 

• General background: Emanuel S. Goldsmith, Architects of Yiddishism at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century. A Study in Jewish Cultural History (Fairleigh Dickinson: Rutherford 1976; further editions retitled Modern Yiddish  Culture). Instructor’s  Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish; papers: “Hebrew, Aramaic, and the Rise of Yiddish (1985); Reflections on the 110th Anniversary of Czernowitz (2018). Relevant parts of Yiddish and Power (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke 2015); works in the fields of Yiddish linguistics and Yiddish stylistics.

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Materials for Sessions 1-2 (6 & 13 July 2021)

1. Matisyohu Mieses (Mates Mizish), paper read at the Czernowitz Language Conference of 1908, first published in M. Weinreich, Z. Reyzen (eds), Di ershte yidishe shprakh-konferents (Yivo: Vilna 1931), pp.  143-193. As PDF. Entire volume available online at NYBC.

2. Zalmen Reyzen’s entry for Matisyohu Mieses in Leksikon vol. 2, pp. 375-379 (Vilna 1927). As PDF.

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Materials for Session 3 (20 July 2021)

1. Ber Borokhov, “Ufgabn fun der yidisher filologye” & “Biblyotek funem yidishn filolog” in Sh. Niger’s Pínkes (Vilna 1913). As PDF. Entire volume available online at NYBC.

2. The same two works reprinted in standardized orthography in Nakhmen Mayzl’s Ber Borokhov: Shprakh-forshung un literatur-geshikhte (Tel Aviv 1966). As PDF. Entire volume available online at NYBC.

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Materials for Session 4 (27 July 2021)

1. Readings from Nakhmen Mayzel’s edition of Ber Borokhov’s writings on Yiddish language and literature, Ber Borokhov: Shprakh-forshu.ng un literatur-geshikhte (Tel Aviv 1966). As PDF. Entire volume available online at NYBC.

2. The 1925 publication of Organizatsye fun der yidisher visnshaft. Nokhem Shtif’s and Max Weinreich”s essays. Available from Goethe Universität (Frankfurt).

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Materials for Session 5 (3 August 2021)

1. Max Weinreich’s Shtaplen (Berlin 1923). As PDF.

2.  Der fashizirter yidishizm un zayn visnshaft  (Minsk 1930). As PDF.

3. Solomon A. Birnbaum’s Geúle fun loshn [Geíle fin lushn] (Lodz 1931). As PDF.

4. Dovid Cohen’s Yidish: Hasofo hakedoysho [The Sacred Language Yiddish]. As PDF.

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• Website: online course is part of the Workmens Circle summer program in Yiddish Studies.

• Inquiries:  coordinator Baruch Blum at: bblum@circle.org and/or program director Nikolai Borodulin at: nborodulin@circle.org. Note that the course is taught entirely in Yiddish.

• Sessions: 1—2:30 PM NY time (10 AM LA, 6 PM London, 7 PM Paris/Berlin, 8 PM Tel Aviv/Vilnius etc): (1) 5 July, (2) 12 July, (3) 19 July, (4) 26 July. and  (5) 2 Aug.

• Instructor: Dovid Katz. Personal website. Yiddish Cultural Dictionary. 

• General background: Leyzer Ran’s Yerusholáyim d’Li te [Jerusalem of Lithuania] (3 vols, NY 1974); Israel Cohen, Vilna (Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia 1943 and reprints); Yefim Yeshurun (ed), Vilne (Workmens Circle: New York 1935).  Participants invited to visit instructor’s: Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish: on Yiddish dialects (Basic Books: N.Y. 2007, free online; see index at: ‘Vilna’); and his  Lithuanian Jewish Culture (2nd revised edition, Baltos Lankos: Vilnius 2010); maps, excerpts and other studies on the instructor’s Lithuania page.

• See also items in the Vilna Studies reading list on  instructor’s Litvak Studies page.

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Materials for Session 1 (5 July 2021)

• Vilna on the Jewish cultural map of Lithuanian Jewry (see 2 versions on instructor’s Lithuania page).

•  A. N. Stencl’s 1944 poem Vílne.

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Materials for Sessions 2-3 (12, 19 July 2021)

• Max Weinreich’s essay in Yefim Yeshurun’s 1935 collective volume Vílne.

• Meyshe Kulbak’s 1926  poem Vilne.

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Materials for Session 4 (26 July 2021)

• Excerpts from Leyzer Ran’s Ash fun Yerusholáyim d’Líte (N.Y. 1959) [translation of book into English in progress].

• Excerpts from Khaykl Lunski’s Fun Vilner geto (1920). Book available at NYBC.

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Materials for Session 5 (2 August 2021)

• Further readings from  the excerpts from Khaykl Lunski’s Fun Vilner geto (1920). Book available at NYBC.

• Introduction to instructor’s Virtual Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna (descriptions of exhibits in Yiddish, index page in English).  Online. Visitors welcome also to visit his Lithuania page. (Please advise of typos and errors in both, with thanks in anticipation.)

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GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION

• Website: online course is part of the Workers Circle summer program in Yiddish Studies.

• Inquiries:  coordinator Baruch Blum at: bblum@circle.org and/or program director Nikolai Borodulin at: nborodulin@circle.org.

• Sessions: at 1 PM NY time (10 AM LA, 6 PM London, 7 PM Paris/Berlin, 8 PM Tel Aviv/Vilnius etc): (1) 20 June, (2) 11 July, (3) 25 July, (4) 1 Aug. and  (5) 8 Aug.

• Instructor: Dovid Katz. Personal website. Yiddish Cultural Dictionary. Course Notes text is © Dovid Katz 2021, all rights reserved. 

• Acknowledgments: Sincerest thanks to Genesis University, and to Mr. Albert Rosenblatt (NY) for their generous assistance in assembling materials for the course.

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Materials for Session 1 (20 June 2021)

1. Excerpts from the magazine הונדערט (Hindert/Hundert), issue for 6 June 2021.

2. Entry for אויסגעהאַלטן from Mrs. Roth’s dictionary. Yidish verter oytser. Published by Roth Publishers, POB 1058, Monsey NY 10952 USA. Email for inquiries: sales@rothpublishers.com.

3. Entry for אויסגעהאַלטן from Judah A. Joffe and Yudel Mark, Groyser verterbukh fun der yidisher shprakh, vol.  1, NY 1961, p. 174.

4. Entry for the Toysfes Yontef (Yomtov Lipman Heller, ±1579–1654) in Simkhe Petrushka’s Folks-entsiklopedye (Montreal 1949).

5. Excerpt from 19th century trilingual edition (Hebrew-Aramaic-Yiddish + commentaries) of the Book of Psalms, for first passages of Psalm 130

6. General background from instructor’s Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish: on Yiddish dialects (pp. 14-154); on Hasidism in the history of Yiddish (pp. 154-172); on more recent debates (pp. 375-392). Advanced students interested in the instructor’s views on various stylistic details are invited to visit his page on the subject, and to look at his related  book. See also a codification of the modern Yiddish literary orthography  variant more compatible with traditionalist communities.

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Materials for Session 2 (11 July 2021)

1. Further excerpts from the magazine הונדערט (Hindert/Hundert), issue for 6 June 2021, dding the genrest (a) Travel Log, (b) Jewish history of a European city, (c) page of prizes awarded to children for different genres of Yiddish essays to 

2. Excerpts from the “mixed” Hasidic (+ some secular Yiddish impact) handbook, The Easy Weezy Guide to Yiddish.

3. A twelve-year-old boy’s  poem in the journal Máyles.

 

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Aspects of Alphabet, Diacritics, Orthography

• Semitic attitude toward the alphabet as:

• letters of the alphabet (conceived as: ancient, primeval, permanent, unchanging)

• בראשית ברא

• conceptually distinct from 

• diacritics added usually below or above letters (variable according to context, need, style)

• בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא

• This is in sharp contrast with Western concept of a ‘letter of the alphabet’ comprising letter with or without a fixed diacritic, together comprising a conceptually unified entity (e.g. French é, German ü, Czech/Lithuanian š). Persistence of diacritics as distinct entities in Semitic languages contrasts with their Western status as inseparable parts of (individual, usually historically added-on) letters.

• In the history of Yiddish: Wholly Semitic patterning until German-Jewish adaptation of אָ (komets-alef) and אַ (pasekh-alef) for Germanized texts (from the late eighteenth century) later adopted into  later 19th century East European Yiddish, where אַ and אָ were joined by פּ (dogesh-pey, pey with a dot to be distinguished as [p] from unmarked פ = [f]). This threesome became a “minimal package” of “three new letters” in the European spirit of clear separate vowels and have served as the most universal features of all Yiddish publishing (and much writing) for around a century and a half.

• Cf. Old Yiddish:

• זך (\זאך); בארד; פונקט

• vs. pan-Modern Yiddish

• זאַך; באָרד;  פּונקט

• In many educational and academic circles, from the 1920s onward,  ײַ was added for [vowel 34] Northern [ay] (vs. [ey]) and Southern [a:] vs. [ay], e.g. ווײַס ‘white’ vs. [vowel 22/24] ווייס ‘(I’) know’ (which yields Northern [ey] and Southern [ay]). The upshot: Universal Yiddish ended up with three or four “Western” symbols comprising fixed ‘letter+diacritic’ that function as single ‘new letter’. The use of komets-alef אָ, pasekh-alef אַ and pey mit a pintl פּ became universal spanning all ideologies, styles and camps. By contrast pasekh tsvey yudn  became emblematic for Yiddishist educational, academic and increasingly (to a lesser extent and more slowly) some literary circles and publishers. In the US published works of master prose writer Chaim Grade, for example, the universal threesome (of אָ ,אַ, and פּ)  was joined by  pasekh tsvey yudn (ײַ) in his later published works of the 1960s and 1970s.

• Soviet Yiddish orthography (1920s, codified 1928), followed by Yivo orthography (1930s, codified 1937), both in a spirit of anti-traditionalist (= anti-religious) radicalism  added the ‘new letters’ (fixed letter+diacritic symbols): וּ (for [u] in certain positions), יִ (in certain positions), and בֿ and פֿ (cf. classic 20th century Yiddish literature פריאיקע וואונטשן vs. the secularists’ codified פֿריִיִקע וווּנטשן). The irony of radicalism via ancient Hebrew diacritics (vowel points) historically introduced for religious (biblical) texts is instructive on the significance for symbology of the cultural contextual result rather than the “physical” origin.

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• In 21st century Hasidic Yiddish publications:

• Two major options for everyday use:

• (a) following classic  20th century secular Yiddish norms by using just אַ  ,אָ  and פּ, or

• (b) using no diacritics at all (as per Hebrew for adults and/or seasoned readers), continuing the oldest traditions of Hebrew and Aramaic going back thousands of years, wherein native speakers of Semitic languages knew the words from the consonantal text alone. Fast forwarding to the largely Indo-European (Germanic) language Yiddish,

אַראָפּ or אראפ?

• For children:

• Full Hebrew pointing for pupils (as per Hebrew for children and in the classic religious Yiddish translation/commentary texts of 19th century Eastern Europe that gave rise to the modern Yiddish literary language in the first place).

• The upshot? The overriding conclusion is that published Hasidic Yiddish maintains, in mainstream use for adults, the classic Semitic/Hebrew/Aramaic tradition of no diacritics, alongside occasional use of the three pan-Yiddish combination letter-with diacritics (אַ , אָ  and פּ) as per virtually all Yiddish publications (regular or secular) from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century.

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• Orthography (salient points only)

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• Silent áyin:

• Old Yiddish and the new 19th century East European Religious Printed Yiddish did not have a silent ע (ayin). It was ether orthographic ø (zero) or yud (לאכן and 19th century לאכ(י)ן or לַאכִין). The radical, socialist, daytshmerizing movements introduced ע on the model of modern German, giving e.g. זאָגען and קומען (in place of זאָגן and קומן or זאָגין and קומין). This ע, retained in the secular Yiddish press through the 1970s and 1980s, was a symbol of radical worldliness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth  century, and of the genre of the dynamic mass media newspaper thereafter (of secular and religious papers alike, with very few exceptions, e.g. New York’s leftist Frayhayt).

• However, from 1920 (year of publication of Zalmen Reyzen’s grammar and the 1920 school conference in the new Polish Republic), building on Ber Borokhov’s 1913 proposed reform, modern literary, educational and academic Yiddish deleted the silent  ע except where Borokhov kept it: after מ, after נ, and the combinations נג  and נק (by extension: after syllabic ל and a stressed final vowel, though in these cases the ayin is not silent).. This remains literary Yiddish orthography to this day: זוכן and וויסן but: קומען (after מ), געפינען (after נ), זינגען  (after נג), זינקען (after נק).

• For much of the 20th century, however, the same “silent áyin” (דער שטומער עין) that started its Yiddish life as a symbol of ant-religious radicalism and socialism, had become the symbol of Haredi/Hasidic conservatism (with its secularist origin being no problem!), esp. once the secular Yiddishists had dumped it! It is a telling chapter in the history of linguistic and orthographic symbolism.

From the late 20th century, many Hasidic publications themselves dropped the silent áyin, either in accordance with the secular Yiddishist Borokhov-Reyzen rules (לאַכן but קומען), or everywhere (giving לאכן and קומן).

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• The ending יג / -יק and אונדז / אונז

• Old Yiddish constantly used -יג- for the adjectival ending, and אונז for ‘us’.

• The Yiddish academic, educational and ultimately literary world’s attachment to the modernized  post-1920 spellings of the ending יק- (~in place of older יג-) and the possessive objective plural pronoun אונדז remained, in general, anathema to Haredi/Hasidic publications, and they retain יג- and אונז. These two details have acquired emotive status for both camps as symbols of traditionalism vs. radicalism, second only to the traditional Haredi world’s uncompromising aversion to the ultra-radical reforms of Soviet and Yivo spelling (three consecutive vovs (e.g. וווּ for וואו and פּרוּוון for פּרואוון), two consecutive yuds designating ii (פֿריִיִק for פריאיק), and three yuds sequentially (e.g. שטיייִק for שטייאיק). In all such cases, the radical modernists ditching of the thousand year old silent alef led (a) to the unreadable sequences, and then to (b) their being fixed by the “Europeanizing” solution of introducing וּ and יִas “new letters” that must always be produced, in handwriting and print, with the diacritic. Both the problem created and the solution imposed remain anathema not only to the modern Haredi and traditionalist eye, but had the same effect on most late twentieth century Yiddish authors. The Yivo spelling became “standard” in secular clubs and settings only after the collapse of the infrastructure of secular Yiddish publishing in America. See the relevant chapters in the instructors Amended Amendments: Issues in Yiddish Stylistics (Oxford 1993, available free online). The instructor also edited a codification of the more traditional branch of modern literary Yiddish spelling, beloved of most great authors, and proposed as a bridge with Haredi spelling in an effort to unify the two by minimizing the differences between them (Code of Yiddish Spelling, Oxford 1992, available free online).

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• Various Details

• Use of עה for ey:

• For Hasidic readers of all but fully pointed materials for children, the digraph two yuds (tsvey yudn) can represent Hasidic Yiddish ay (as in vays ‘(I) know’, vowel 22, standard Yiddish veys) or Hasidic Yiddish a: (as in va:s ‘white’, vowel 34, standard Yiddish vays). For native speakers, the digraph two yuds without diacritics serves well (just as it did for most secular Yiddish writers through to the end of the twentieth century). What is however not acceptable to the Hasidic Yiddish eye is the use of two yuds for vowel 25, Hasidic Yiddish ey (as in beytn ‘ask for’, vowel 25, standard Yiddish betn). Historically vowel 25 was written and in the overwhelming majority of cases continues to be designed by simple ayin (ע), which easily carries the load of 25 as well as 21 (pan Yiddish betn ‘beds’). The issue  arises in those cases of Hasidic ey  which for various reasons secular Yiddish represented with two yuds. This explains Hasidic Yiddish retention of daytshmerish-era עה (ayin hey) to designate a long e: (realized as [ei], transcribed ey). In other words Hasidic Yiddish orthographic עה represents ey, avoiding the use of two yuds, whose coverage is already full what with vowels 22 and 34.

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• Use of apostrophes:

• Another feature inherited from secularist Yiddish of the late nineteenth century onward, and persisting in the daily press through late in the twentieth century, thoush shunned by academic, educational and literary circles since the early interwar period, are apostrophes denoting possession and marking contractions, e.g. פונ’ם (corresponding to standard Yiddish פונעם)  or נאָכ’ן (corresponding to standard נאָכן).

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Materials for Session 3 (25 July 2021)

1. Three samples of the Mame-loshn column in the magazine מעלות. As PDF.

2. Two extracts (poem plus advice column) from the 7 July 2021 issue of בחצרות סאַטמאַר. As PDF.

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Materials for Session 4 (1 August 2021)

1. Advertisement-style exhortation in the magazine Momént to husbands to avoid letting their eyes go astray when they are out, so that they can return home to their families in the appropriate happy spirit. As PDF.

2. Advertisement in the magazine Máyles for purchase of slide show on the history of the Titanic for women’s and  girls’ study groups. As PDF.

3. Children’s cartoon from the Itsi, Pitsi and Tsipi series in the magazine 100.  Pitsi may have gone over the top when she figures out a brilliant way to make her little brother Itsi correct his aggressive, angry behavior. As PDF.

4. Continuation from the previously read cartoon series for Jewish history lessons on the arrest of the Toysfes Yontov from the magazine 100. As PDF.

5. Advertisement on “creating your own masterpiece” in design, in the spirit of “every person according to their own desire” (Esther 1: 8). As PDF.

6. Page of warning against myths and self-delusions about the vaccines for covid-19. Seven points of misinformation are listed and countered. As PDF.

7. Introduction to the dictionary Milon Lisfat Yidish and sample of a sing page contrasting the definition of oysgehaltn with that in Mrs. A. Roth’s Yidish verter oytser (email provided in the book for inquiries: sales@rothpublishers.com). The Milon lists “Land of Israel, 5771” (2010-2011) as place and date of publication. There is no author’s name as such noted, but copyright is asserted by Yutta Rivka Shtein for whom two telephone numbers are provided on the reverse title page (03-6768085 and 050-4173-774). Cover & single sample page as PDF.

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Materials for Session 5 (8 August 2021)

1. Detailed readings of the rabbinic response in בחצרות סאַטמאַר to a reader asking what to do in the event of a competitor in his own field opening up a nearby business and perhaps violating his rights in Jewish law and lore.  Exploration of the rabbinic and folkloric sources cited and comparison with use in modern Yiddish literature.

2. Excerpts from poems, language teaching pages and an article on a delicious Passover product that was just too expensive to purchase before the holiday (and the author’s skillful treatment of suspense in everyday life) in the magazine בנות ציון.

 

 

 

 

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Fall-Winter 2023: online in Yiddish at Workmens Circle

Jan. 2023: History of the Yiddish Language (online in English, at Yivo)

2022-2023: online in Yiddish at Workmens Circle

Recorded online seminars

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Autumn-Winter 2023

Details can be obtained as needed from the Workmen Circle’s webpage, and via email to the program’s director, Nikolai Borodulin (nborodulin@circle.org), or its coordinator, Baruch Blum (bblum@circle.org).

Readings in Isaac Bashevis Singer

Mondays 2:30 – 4:00 PM: Oct. 9, 16, 23, 30, Nov. 6. 13, 20, 27, Dec. 4, 18

Course Goals: The premise here is that intermediate students are ready and willing to read a modern Yiddish master in the unadulterated original edition (not in a watered-down version for students). We will read together, slowly and deliberately, in the classic Yiddish reading circle tradition of everybody having an opportunity to read, with emphasis on enjoying cultural, linguistic and historical nuance. The aim is to sharply enhance students’ abilities to cope with bona fide literary Yiddish of the modern masters. Because of the active language-enhancement focus, each session will, however, start with a conversational warm-up enabling practice of spoken Yiddish before we move on to the selections from Bashevis Singer.

Additional Info: For intermediate students only.

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Readings in London Yiddish Literature 

Thursdays 3:30 – 5:00 PM: Oct. 12, 19, 26, Nov. 2, 9, 16, 30, Dec. 7, 14, 21

Course Goals: The course aims to present a diversity of shorter readings from Yiddish literature created in London (and in most cases about London) in the century from around 1880 to around 1980. In the classic tradition of the Yiddish reading circle, participants will take turns reading selections which are then discussed (entirely in Yiddish). The course will get underway with excerpts from Sholem Aleichem, Morris Rosenfeld, Morris Winchevsky, and Dovid Eydlshtat reflecting on London during their sojourns in the city. After a brief excerpt from Rudolf Rocker, the focus will shift to a selection of works from the twentieth century, featuring first and foremost, A. N. Stencl, and, among others, Katie Brown, L. Sh. Kreditor, Esther Kreitman (Hinde-Ester Singer), Y. Kh. Klinger, Yosef-Hilel Leyvi, I.A. Lisky, Morris Myer, Moyshe Oyved, N.M. Seedo (Sonia Chusid), Ben. A. Sochachevsky. Dovid Zaydnfeld. The course will conclude with retrospectives by Mayer Bogdanski and A.N. Stencl. Plays and daily press, which merit separate courses, are not included. The list is subject to modification as the course moves along.

Additional Info: Conducted entirely in Yiddish. For advanced students. Intermediate students are welcome with the usual understandings that they may follow much or most but perhaps not all of the points covered in class, and they may be called upon to read only brief segments of the text being studied.

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Autumn-Winter 2022-2023

Details can be obtained as needed from the program’s director, Nikolai Borodulin (nborodulin@circle.org), or its coordinator, Baruch Blum (bblum@circle.org).

Six of the online Workmens Circle Yiddish courses, all via Zoom, now scheduled for the autumn-winter 2022 semester. More details on these (and many other courses by other instructors) appear on the WC Yiddish courses webpage. Five of these six courses comprise ten 1.5 hour sessions, running weekly from late October to the end of Dec. 2022 (and in one case, Hasidic Yiddish, with two final sessions in January); the sixth (on A.N. Stencl) is a five session mini-course in October and November. 

Five of these courses are held entirely in Yiddish, and one is in Hebrew. In either case, participants who can follow the language, are passionate about the texts read and analyzed, are welcome to sign up even if not (yet) fluent. Course titles, dates and times, and brief descriptions follow in sequence of days of the week. Times are New York City, please check for corresponding time in your location. LA and San Francisco are three hours before NY; London and Manchester five hours later; Paris and Berlin six hours later; Tel Aviv and Vilnius seven hours later.

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Mondays: Readings from the 1920s-1930s New York Leftist Yiddish daily Fráyhayt (Advanced; Intermediate students welcome)

2—3:30 PM NY time on Oct. 24, 31; Nov. 14, 21, 28; Dec. 5, 12, 26 (2022); January 2, 9 (2023)

Readings from scan-ins of original pages from the New York leftist Yiddish daily, the Fráyhayt from the 1920s and 1930s with emphasis on diversity: front page headlines and news columns on the bustling everyday American Yiddish life as well as wider American culture of a century ago; also on international affairs of the day; editorials and opinion pieces; original poetry and prose (with emphasis on women authors); literary criticism and passionate debates on writers and works; views on Yiddish and issues of usage; women’s and children’s sections; secular Yiddish education in North America. Discussions of attitudes toward free love, religion, social and political activism and the battles within the distinct lanes of the Yiddish progressive environment; nostalgia for the East European Old Country; advertisements for products and esp. for social events (ranging from multiracial balls featuring dancing until sunrise, spanning the spectrum to religious events and kosher upstate hotels). Note: The course is not a history of the Jewish labor movement or any part of it, though students thereof may find some relevant materials toward their own further research in that field. Conducted entirely in Yiddish. See the course page for background readings and samples of texts read. The course is affectionately dedicated in honor of S. Chic Wolk of Santa Monica, California, who made it possible in the first place.

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Tuesdays: Reading Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Yentl in the Original (for Intermediate students only)

2—3:30 PM NY time on October 25; November 1, 15, 29; Dec 6, 13, 20, 21, 27 (2022); January 3 (2023)

The premise here is that some Intermediate students are ready and willing to read a modern Yiddish master in the unadulterated original edition! We will read together, slowly and deliberately, in the classic Yiddish reading circle tradition, with emphasis on enjoying cultural, linguistic and historical nuance. The aim is to sharply enhance students’ abilities to cope with bona fide literary Yiddish of the modern masters. Because of the active language-enhancement focus, each session will, however, start with a conversational warm-up enabling practice of spoken Yiddish before we move on to Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Yentl der yeshíve-bókher. Students are warned that Bashevis Singer’s prose includes explicit sexual content.

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Wednesdays: Introduction to Ashkenazic Hebrew

3—4:30 PM NY time on Oct. 19, 26; Nov. 2, 9, 16, 30; Dec. 7, 14, 21, 28 (2022)

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Thursdays: Chaim Grade’s Shorter Fiction set in Old Jewish Vilna (Advanced)

2—3:30 PM NY time on October 20, 27; November 3, 10, 17; December 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 (2022)

Each of the ten sessions will comprise two components: (a) a close, detailed reading from a Chaim Grade novella set in old Jewish Vilna (Yiddish Vílne) and (b) presentation of a select aspect of (or artefact from) Vilna Jewish culture. The instructor will provide stylistic, cultural, linguistic, religious and Vilna-specific commentary, sharing relevant extracts (and maps) from his book, Lithuanian Jewish Culture and exhibits from his online Mini-Museum of Old Jewish Vilna. Those interested are invited to visit the Lithuania page of the author’s website at www.dovidkatz.net. NOTE: Readings will not repeat those of previous courses (but some of the cultural artefacts will have been displayed in earlier courses). Conducted entirely in Yiddish.

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Fridays: Poems, Prose, & Life of A. N. Stencl

(a five-week advanced-level mini-course)

11 AM —12:30 PM NY time on October 21, 28; November 4, 11, 18 (2022)

The mystic Yiddish poet A. N. Stencl (1897-1983), scion of grand hasidic and rabbinic masters, is remembered for two distinct periods: Weimar (and, remarkably — Nazi) Germany (1921-1936), where he published a series of expressionist, avant garde works; and London (1936-1983), where he arrived in 1936 and became the Yiddish Bard of Whitechapel in London’s East End. He was a guru-like figure to generations of Yiddishists, instituting a weekly literary gathering, while publishing exquisite anthologies and a folksy magazine that elevated Whitechapel to the permanent repository (and lore) of Yiddish literary history. The instructor (who was a close friend of Stencl’s) will recount from his memories and share some keepsakes and reports on Stencl’s personal (often controversial) views on Yiddish and Yiddishism. But the core of this course is an actual close reading of extracts from a limited number of selected works from both the Berlin/Leipzig and London-Whitechapel periods (in the classic Yiddish reading circle spirit of taking turns reading followed by group discussion). Those interested may look at the instructor’s 1993 essay published on Stencl’s tenth yórtsayt in Itche Goldberg’s Yidishe kultur (online). In Stencl’s memory, the instructor established the A.N. Stencl Lecture at Oxford University, edited its first 6 years’ published lectures, starting with Professor S. S. Prawer’s Stencl of Whitechapel (1983) and William J. Fishman’s Morris Winchevsky’s London Yiddish Newspaper, and coordinated the successful efforts to rescue Stencl’s library and archive at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. See also instructor’s other work on Stencl and London Yiddish literature. Conducted entirely in Yiddish.

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Sundays: The Yiddish of Today’s Hasidic Yiddish Periodicals (Advanced)

Sundays 2:00–3:30 PM NY time on October 23, 30; November 6, 13, 20; December 4, 11, 18 (2022); January 8, 15 (2023)

Readings from current Hasidic periodicals, primarily magazines (in the Yiddish reading circle spirit of taking turns reading selections) with emphasis on diversity and discussion of style, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and “linguistic directionality” in the spirit of ascertaining the actual structure and grammar of current Hasidic Yiddish in Print. This text-based course is concentrated on the readings, with opportunities for open and tolerant discussion on varying interpretations of the data presented. Note that it is not a course about contemporary Hasidism or its groups and issues. Conducted entirely in Yiddish. The course has been developed with the generous assistance of Genesis University and Mr. Albert Rosenblatt of New York City.

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Summer 2022

Online courses in the New York Workmens Circle Yiddish Studies program. Registration information. Details can be obtained as needed from the program’s director, Nikolai Borodulin (nborodulin@circle.org), or its coordinator, Baruch Blum (bblum@circle.org). Four of these five-session courses are held entirely in Yiddish, and one is in Hebrew. In either case, participants who can follow the language, are passionate about the texts being read and analyzed, are welcome to sign up even if not (yet) fluent. Course titles, dates and times, and brief descriptions follow in sequence of days of the week. Times are New York City, please check for corresponding time in your location.

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Winter-Spring 2022

January 2022:

History of the Yiddish Language [in English] Six-session online seminar course taught in English  at the Yivo-Bard Winter Program on Ashkenazi Civilization. Choice of afternoon or evening sections. Details and registration information here.

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March-May 2022:

Online courses in the New York Workmens Circle Yiddish Studies program [in Yiddish]. Registration information. Details can be obtained as needed from the program’s director, Nikolai Borodulin (nborodulin@circle.org), or its coordinator, Baruch Blum (bblum@circle.org). The five ten-session courses offered are held entirely in Yiddish, but folks who follow Yiddish, are passionate about the texts being read and analyzed, are welcome to sign up even if not (yet) personally fluent in Yiddish. Course titles, dates and times, and brief descriptions follow in sequence of days of the week.

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May 2022:

Scholar on Board [in English] for the Lithuania component of the Workmens Circle Yiddishland trip to Lithuania and Poland 22-31 May 2022. Details here. UPDATE: POSTPONED & RESCHEDULED FOR 21–30 MAY 2023. 

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AUTUMN-WINTER SEMESTER 2021

Isaac Bashevis Singer. Chaim Grade & Old Jewish Vilna. Current Hasidic Yiddish Publications. Ashkenazic Hebrew. Yiddish literature in 1920s & 1930s New York in the old radical daily Fráyhayt.

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Information & Registration at

the Workmens Circle website

Inquiries: please contact program coordinator Baruch Blum: bblum@circle.org

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SUMMER SESSION 2021

Information on registration at the Workmens Circle website

(email for queries)

All times listed are North American Eastern, please check your local time!

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SPRING SESSION 2021

Workmens Circle list of all offered courses

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1: Intermediate via Sholem Aleichem

2: Advanced via Chaim Grade

3:Topics in Semantics, Grammar, Stylistics & Dialectology

4: Ashkenazic Hebrew

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(1) Intermediate via Sholem Aleichem:

Course goals: The course follows the “read together and discuss in Yiddish” method of the classic Yiddish reading circle. Emphasis on development and enrichment of participants’ language capabilities. Texts will be analyzed for cultural nuance and dialect as well as religious and civilizational background (including the nature of Yiddish humor). Course Tools: Texts, to be provided as online PDFs of excerpts from Sholem Aleichem, including Menakhem-Mendl, Tevye der milkhiker, Motl Peyse dem khazns, and Funem yarid. (Readings from previous semesters will not be repeated, so “veterans” are welcome to re-enroll if they feel the format is useful to their ongoing Yiddish development.) Additional Information: This course is suitable for those who have completed one year of college-level Yiddish instruction or the equivalent. This course is taught entirely in Yiddish.

TENTATIVE SLOT: Mondays 1—2:30 PM  NY time: on 1, 8, 15 & 22 March; 5, 12, 19 & 26; April; 3 &10 May.

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(2) Advanced via Chaim Grade:

A close reading of Chaim Grade’s short story (/novella) Di Shvúe (The Oath). Course goals: To  read the text of a modern master as a group with analysis focused on linguistic, stylistic, cultural, historical and religious elements “of every sentence” (rather than aiming for some great number of pages covered). Participants take turns reading with each segment followed by discussion. Course Tools: PDF of the text provided online to participants. Additional Information: This course is taught entirely in Yiddish.

TENTATIVE SLOT: Thursdays, 1—2:30 PM NY time: on 4, 11, 18 & 25 March; 8, 15, 22 & 29 April; 6 & 13 May.

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(3) Topics in Grammar, Semantics, Stylistics & Dialectology:

Intended for a wide spectrum of students of Yiddish (at intermediate and advanced levels). No specialized background in technical linguistics required. The course will look  both at issues that continue to confront many Yiddish students in our times, and at others where prevalent variation itself makes way for an array of meaningful observations on usage, including the secular-religious, normativist-descriptivist, and purist-variationist axes, as well as the centuries-old “north-south division” in grammar, semantics and pronunciation. At the first session, students will be invited to propose specific issues under these rubrics that interest them, which will, in the event of wider interest among participants, be added as possible and appropriate. Additional information: The course is conducted entirely in Yiddish.

TENTATIVE SLOT: Tuesdays 2—3:30 PM NY time: on 2, 9, 16 & 23 March; 6, 13, 20 & 27 April; 4 & 11 May.

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(4) Ashkenazic Hebrew:

A five-session mini-course whose prime object is to help participants gain the skills and confidence to speak and communicate in Ashkenazic Hebrew as a living language and better enjoy classic works written in the language as well as ancient texts as recast in the language over a period of many centuries. The course, conducted in Ashkenazic Hebrew (with occasional explanations as needed in Yiddish, English, or Israeli as appropriate to participants) is appropriate for participants who have working proficiency in some form of Hebrew (whether ancient, medieval or modern — or Israeli) and who have some passion for East European Jewish culture. Knowledge of Yiddish very helpful but not required.

Far from being a monolith, Ashkenazic comprises an array of variants that are systematically differentiated on two axes. First, that of basic type: (1)  formal synagogue Torah, Haftorah and Megillah reading; (2) prayers; (3) Talmud study; (4) Creators of modern Hebrew (“pre-Israeli”) poetry (Bialik, Gordon, Imber, Lebensohn, Tchernichovsky etc.) and prose (Mendele, Berdichevsky, Gnessin, early Devorah Baron) (5) the Semitic (Hebrew & Aramaic) component in Yiddish per se. Second, the dialect variation for each of these five categories (following the sound patterning of the coterritorial Yiddish dialect). Beyond the sound system, Ashkenazic Hebrew, a vital (and understudied) component of East European Jewish culture, has its own specificities in vocabulary, semantics, syntax and idiomaticity, collectively a manifestation of a unique Jewish (and European) milieu.

Participants interested also in more technical linguistic aspects, particularly in relation to Yiddish linguistics (which will not be the focus of this course) are invited to have a look at the instructor’s papers in English and Yiddish (more: here and here; on the origins of Ashkenazic stress; on the Ashkenazic of a poem by Y. L. Gordon; see also Yiddish linguistics page).

TENTATIVE SLOT: Wednesdays 3—4:30 PM NY time: on 24 February; 3, 10, 17 & 24 March.

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