Past Events

Have yourself a very Jewish Christmas with YIVO and learn about Yiddish translations of the New Testament with Naomi Seidman. A kosher Chinese food dinner will follow the presentation.

Join YIVO for a performance of Shir Hashirim, a musical comedy featuring several interlocking love triangles that include an aging composer along with his children and their lovers and friends.

Always a popular event, the Annual Hanukkah Concert celebrates this joyous holiday with music, story, and song. Join us for another memorable experience.

Join YIVO for Yiddish Club with actor, singer, filmmaker, and founder and artistic director of Chava Productions, Dylan Seders Hoffman.

Celebrate the launch of Yiddish Voices, a new series curated by Alyssa Quint and Elissa Bemporad to showcase first-time translations of enduring Yiddish texts. The program will feature performances of scenes from plays translated in the first volume of the series.

This discussion of Sholem Asch: Underworld Trilogy, complete with performances of scenes from the book’s new translations, focuses on three successful plays produced on the Yiddish stages of America and Europe, and their continued influence on the world’s theater today.

Meet the people behind the latest season of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies’ podcast, which is produced in partnership with YIVO. This season brings to life the story of the destruction of Vilna’s vibrant Jewish community through recorded survivor testimonies and Herman Kruk’s diaries.

Join YIVO for Yiddish Club with multi-instrumentalist, YIVO Sound Archivist, and founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Yiddish-American roots band, the Klezmatics, Lorin Sklamberg.

Ruth Wisse, Ofer Dynes, and Curt Leviant, in a panel discussion led by scholar and translator Justin Cammy, discuss Yiddish author Chaim Grade’s legacy.

Enjoy a screening of a short film adapted from Labzik: Tales of a Clever Pup, about the (mis)adventures of a clever mutt named Labzik and the working-class Jewish family that adopts him.

Sonia Gollance, in conversation with Josh Lambert, explores the significance of dance in 19th and 20th-century Jewish culture, its role in acculturation debates, and its metaphorical representation of community transitions.

YIVO Reference & Outreach Archivist Ruby Landau-Pincus leads a workshop about how to pursue a research project using the YIVO Archives.

View curated artifacts in YIVO's Media and Learning Center, and take guided, behind-the-scenes tours of the archive and library stacks as part of this year’s Open House New York Weekend.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner II students.

In a panel discussion led by Tina Frühauf, contributors Eléonore Biezunski, Jessica Roda, and Merav Rosenfeld-Hadad discuss a new handbook of Jewish music that addresses the diverse range of sounds, texts, archives, traditions, histories, geographic and political contexts, and critical discourses in the field.

Anna Fishman Gonshor delves into the beloved Yiddish children's poetry by Kadya Molodowsky and other poets.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner III students.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intermediate II students.

Join YIVO for Yiddish Club with actor, translator, and YIVO Yiddish Club host, Shane Baker, and featuring special guest host, playwright and Tablet Magazine columnist, Rokhl Kafrissen.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly conversational class develops grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for spring Intermediate II Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

Aleksandra Jakubczak examines the impact of industrialization, Hasidism, Zionism, and more on the Jewish family in Eastern Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries.

This weekly conversational class introduces new grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for spring Beginner II Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner IV students.

This weekly conversational class develops grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for spring Intermediate II Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

Join YIVO on a fascinating journey of discovery across northern Italy from Torino, Genova via Firenze, Siena, Parma, Modena, Ferrara, Padua to Trieste and Venezia, discovering the fabled Jewish history, unfamiliar to most of us.

Enjoy a concert by the Semer Ensemble, a group dedicated to performing music recorded by Jewish artists during the Nazi period on a little-known record label that was destroyed by Nazis in 1938.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intermediate II students.

Author Deborah Dash Moore and historian Robert W. Snyder explore the world and photography of working-class Jewish street photographers in midcentury New York.

For 2023’s commemoration of the Jewish community of Vilna, join YIVO for a screening of The Secrets of the Great Synagogue of Vilna. The screening will be followed by musical performances by Rita Glassman, Maria Krupoves, and Zalmen Mlotek.

This weekly conversational class covers grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for students who are new to the Yiddish language or have some exposure to Yiddish and would like a review.

This weekly conversational class introduces new grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for spring Beginner I Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring advanced intensive course students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner III students.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner IV students.

Explore the rich traditions and practices of Jewish magic from biblical times to the present with Elly Moseson, examining its cultural significance, integration, and the role of practitioners.

Adi Mahalel dives into Sholem Aleichem's classic work Motl peyse dem khazns, exploring both the adapted and original versions, along with literary and language analysis.

Richard Wolin explores our understanding of Martin Heidegger, arguably the most important philosopher of the twentieth century, and of his ideas—and why his legacy remains radically compromised.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner I students.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

Dovid Braun delves into Nokhem Stutshkov's monumental lexicological work, a treasure trove of Yiddish language, Jewish lore, learning, and life.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner I students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner II students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner III students.

Jessica Kirzane, in conversation with Anita Norich, discusses her newly published book featuring translations of a collection of stories by Miriam Karpilove originally published in the Forverts in the 1930s.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intermediate I students.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intensive Intermediate I&II students.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

Join us for a concert of Brazilian Jewish music to celebrate the 23 Brazilian Jews who, in 1654, arrived in North America and helped to build a city then called New Amsterdam, which later became New York.

Should a radical anarchist love going to the opera? To answer this complicated question, join Dr. Samantha M. Cooper for a lecture about the curious case of Emma Goldman.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intermediate I students.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intensive Advanced III&IV students.

Join us for a screening of the documentary A Estrela Oculta do Sertão (The Star Hidden in the Backlands) followed by a Q&A with the producers. This program celebrates the 23 Brazilian Jews who, in 1654, arrived in North America and helped to build a city then called New Amsterdam, which later became New York.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intermediate III students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Beginner I students.

Join us for a concert of Brazilian Jewish music to celebrate the 23 Brazilian Jews who, in 1654, arrived in North America and helped to build a city then called New Amsterdam, which later became New York.

This twice-weekly intensive class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intensive Beginner I&II students.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intensive Beginner III&IV students.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for spring Intensive Intermediate III&IV students.

This twice-weekly intensive class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for students who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly reading class covers grammar and how to read Yiddish texts with the help of a dictionary. It is for students new to Yiddish, especially those interested in obtaining reading proficiency for academic or archival research.

Miriam Trinh explores the distinct periods of Chaim Grade's literary works, analyzing his poetry and prose to understand the unique characteristics of each period. Delivered in Yiddish.

Shachar Pinsker examines Yiddish's impact on Hebrew cultural production from the establishment of the state in 1948 until today, from literature, journalism, visual art, film, to popular culture.

In honor of Chava Lapin ע”ה on the occasion of her shloyshim we will make a siyum mishnayes, Mishna Ta'anit using the well-known Yiddish translation by her uncle Symcha Petrushka. The program will be conducted by the writer and researcher Michael Wex.

Dr. Avi Blitz explores the enduring popularity and unique characteristics of the Tsenerene, arguably the most popular book in Yiddish literature.

Chaya Nove provides an overview of Hasidic popular culture, the ideological and cultural diversification within the community, and the the capacity of Hasidim to preserve their traditional lifestyle and adapt to the modern world. Delivered in Yiddish.

Where was Yiddish theater born? And where was its bar mitsvah? With backstories in English and performances in Yiddish-with-supertitles, Presents from Romania is an evening of songs, scenes, stories, and "snippets" that will make you laugh and cry.

Glenn Dynner examines how Hasidic rebbes underwent a pedagogical revolution after World War I, becoming educators to counter secularization and political challenges through devotional Torah study.

Jonathan Boyarin delves into the captivating world of Yechiel Hofer's book Reb Zalmen, which offers a glimpse into the Aleksanderer Hasidim with whom he studied, prayed, and argued. Delivered in Yiddish.

Marion Aptroot explores Isaac Wetzlar's ideas for reforming Jewish education in Ashkenaz in the mid-18th century. Delivered in Yiddish.

Daniela Smolov Levy examines the intriguing interest of Yiddish-speaking Jews in early twentieth-century America with operatic excerpts and explores the cultural influences that drove this fascination.

Join YIVO for an enlightening journey to Lithuania and Poland. Examine the life that was lived as you reconnect with your own heritage. Discover the remarkable treasures of old Warsaw, Kraków, Vilnius, and Białystok.

Naomi Seidman, Kenneth Moss, and Jeffrey Shandler, in this panel moderated by Kalman Weiser, examine Max Weinreich's evolving understanding of the meaning of Yidishe visnshaft and the role of Yiddish in Jewish life throughout his career.

Join us for the concert premiere of A Dying Person (A Goyses), a new chamber opera by Evan Rapport and Daniel London, which explores the anxiety surrounding the potential loss of Jewish civilization through the story of a researcher interviewing an older woman on her deathbed.

A new film explores the story of the Jewish Partisans who blew up trains, bridges, police stations, and telegraph lines, making the forests so dangerous that Nazi soldiers were afraid to enter.

Ross Benjamin and Jonathan Brent discuss Benjamin's recently published English translation of Franz Kafka's diaries, which include new content such as details, names, literary works, and previously omitted passages of a sexual nature.

In this talk, Uri Schreter will explore the evolution of Jewish wedding music in the early postwar period across different sectors of New York’s Jewish community.

What if Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem were transported to 2023 Berkeley and asked to teach at New Lehrhaus? Three distinguished New Lehrhaus teachers will enact an imaginary debate followed by schmoozing and refreshments a la 1920 Frankfurt.

In this lecture, Rachelle Grossman will give an overview of global Yiddish after the Holocaust by focusing on competing publications made in honor of two literary jubilees of I.L. Peretz, “the father of modern Jewish literature.”

In this presentation, Andrii Bolianovskyi will elucidate the key figures and main aspects of Ukrainian-Jewish relations, as well as the intervention of "transnational players" in a broad global geopolitical context.

Join us for a screening of The Last Laugh, an outrageously funny and thought-provoking film that asks uncomfortable questions about just how free speech can really be, with unexpected and hilarious results. A Q&A will follow with director Ferne Pearlstein and special guest Alan Zweibel.

Roy Ginsberg examines the factors that led poet Peretz Markish to pivot from his early abstract expressionism to increasingly ideological writing and demonstrates how this shift is revealed through his verse.

By considering the resonance of Psalm 137 through the music of two ghettoized peoples—Italian Jews of Mantua during the period of the Counter-Reformation, and African Americans before, during, and after the Harlem Renaissance—explore minority musicians and their contributions to the music we listen to today.

David Stromberg and David Roskies discuss Stromberg’s newly published bilingual edition of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Simple Gimpl, which tells the story of the deathbed confession of an orphaned baker who is targeted by his own community for ridicule and practical jokes.

Michael Casper explores Baruch Vladeck's unique place as a pioneer in the public housing movement in New York.

YIVO and the International Association of Yiddish Clubs (IAYC) join forces to present a Yiddish club mixer, allowing Yiddish clubs around the world the opportunity to share a bit about themselves, and to meet fellow Yiddish enthusiasts.

Barbara E. Mann, in conversation with Justin Cammy, tells a history of modern Jewish literature, from novels and poetry to graphic novels and artists’ books.

Heym Un Veg (Between Home and The Way) tells an illuminating tale, weaving Zhenya Lopatnik’s original compositions with Ukrainian folk songs. The show is a theatrical journey through time with storytelling that conveys life in Ukraine and, particularly, in the Ukrainian Jewish Community.

Elaine Wilson discusses Peretz Markish’s Yiddish long-form poems, Di kupe (The Mound) and Radyo (Radio), in relation to the architectural aspirations of the Soviet avant-garde.

Meryl Frank speaks with Laura E. Adkins about how her searching for her cousin’s story through archives across four continents revealed a lost world destroyed by hatred, and illuminated the cultural haven of Vilna and its resistance during World War II.

Alison B. Curry examines how politics, modernity, and tragedy altered traditional uses of Jewish cemeteries in Poland.

Explore Jewish immigrant New York City of yesteryear through musical performances from inside the recreated 1890s parlor of the Levine family, immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Join us for an interactive Yiddish-language workshop in honor of Yiddish poet Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim z"l.

The Congress for Jewish Culture, Friends of the Bund, Jewish Labor Committee, the Workers Circle, and YIVO join together to commemorate and remember the bravery of the partisans of the Warsaw Ghetto. This event takes place in Warsaw Ghetto Memorial Plaza in Riverside Park, NYC.

In a discussion with Samuel Norich, Joseph Berger presents Elie Wiesel as both a revered Nobel laureate and a man of complex psychological texture and contradictions.

Yiddish enthusiasts the world over, join the YIVO Yiddish club to celebrate Mame-loshn. This session features Josh "Socalled" Dolgin, a pianist, accordionist, producer, journalist, photographer, filmmaker, magician, cartoonist and puppet maker based in Montreal, Quebec.

Bożena Keff examines Polish-language literature about the Holocaust, asking whether those literary works contain a diagnosis of Polish culture that corresponds with its assessment by critical humanities and arts today.

In a discussion led by Eddy Portnoy, Michael Steinlauf, historian of Polish-Jewish culture and child of Holocaust survivors, and anthropologist and artist Elżbieta Janicka examine critical moments in Jewish, Polish, and American history.

David Biale, in a conversation with Sarah Abrevaya Stein, discusses his new anthology exploring power, sexuality, and secular Jewish thought.

Commemorate the 80th anniversary of the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews with this concert featuring music performed by members of the Bulgarian Concert Evenings in New York (BCENY) and students from the Mannes Sounds Festival.

Celebrate the memory of Chana Mlotek, the longtime YIVO Music Archivist who played a key role in crafting the historical memory of Yiddish songs in our time.

This weekly conversational class introduces new grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for fall Beginner I Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

This weekly conversational class covers grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for students who are new to the Yiddish language or have some exposure to Yiddish and would like a review.

Through excavating the truth about Irena Sendler’s life, and the stories of the children she saved, Anna Bikont reveals numerous silenced facts pertaining to the stances and behaviors of Polish society during the war and what came after.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

Drawing on archival and press findings, Dr. Samantha M. Cooper explores the enduring relationship that Jewish women nurtured with New York opera culture from the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries. A response to this talk will be provided by Judith Pinnolis.

David Berger and Joyce Rosenzweig reflect on their new album “REFUGE,” featuring music from composers who came to the United States as refugees fleeing antisemitism.

Explore Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, focusing not only on acts of confrontational or violent resistance, but also on acts of resistance intended to record a historical record, resist the destruction of Jewish culture, and preserve individual and collective dignity.

David Birnbaum examines the themes and questions raised by close readings of tales of Rebbe Nakhman of Bratslav, considered by his followers to contain his most holy and mystical teachings, and seen by secular Yiddish literary critics as a foundational text of modern Yiddish literature.

Yiddish enthusiasts the world over, join the YIVO Yiddish club to celebrate Mame-loshn. This session features Rukhl Schaechter, the editor of the Yiddish Forward (Forverts) and the producer and star of the YouTube series “Yiddish Word of the Day.”

This weekly conversational class introduces new grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for fall Beginner I Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

This weekly conversational class develops grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for fall Intermediate I Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly conversational class develops grammatical skills and sets of vocabulary. It is primarily for fall Intermediate I Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners students.

Musician-scholar Ronald Robboy offers a guide through Molly Picon’s long career, choosing selected songs to show how she marshaled her writing skills not only to show off her singing to best advantage, but to flesh out characterizations and further the dramatic action of the many musicals in which she starred.

This twice-weekly intensive class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for students who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner IV students.

Explore the conflicted, multifaceted, and multilingual French Jewish experience from 1789 to the present.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner III students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner III students.

Jeremiah Lockwood, in a conversation with journalist and playwright Rokhl Kafrissen, explores the Yiddish folksong tradition, Yiddish music today, and his new arrangements of Yiddish ballads. The presentation will culminate in a video-premiere of one of his songs.

Dovid Braun offers a continuation of the study of fundamental Yiddish grammar and vocabulary using the classic textbook College Yiddish: An Introduction to the Yiddish Language and to Jewish Life and Culture by Uriel Weinreich.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner II students.

This weekly reading class covers grammar and how to read Yiddish texts with the help of a dictionary. It is for students new to Yiddish, especially those interested in obtaining reading proficiency for academic or archival research.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner II students.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intermediate II students.

This weekly standard class covers the alef-beys and grammar, vocabulary, and conversational basics. It is for those who are new to the Yiddish language or would like a review.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner II students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner II students.

Sandra Fox, in a conversation led by Philissa Cramer (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), explores how a cultural crisis birthed summer camp as a rite of passage that remains a significant influence in American Jewish life.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intermediate I students.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner IV students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner II students.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intermediate I students.

This weekly standard class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intermediate III students.

This weekly standard class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Advanced I students.

Are you thinking of returning to the Summer Program to continue your advanced studies? Join Summer Program faculty and staff for a brief information session about YIVO’s advanced levels.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner I students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner III students.

Experience a selection of the music whose composers were branded as 'degenerate' and is being rediscovered thanks to the Exilarte Center in Vienna works to rediscover musical treasures of the 20th Century that were suppressed by the Third Reich.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intensive Beginner III&IV students.

This twice-weekly intensive class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intensive Beginner I&II students.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intensive Advanced III&IV students.

This twice-weekly intensive class enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intensive Intermediate I&II students.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Intensive Intermediate III&IV students.

This twice-weekly intensive class further enhances listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall advanced intensive course students.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner I students.

Lesbian poet, child Holocaust survivor, and political activist Irena Klepfisz discusses her newly published book, the first and only complete collection of her work, in conversation with Julie Enszer.

This weekly standard class develops listening, speaking, writing, and reading skills. It is primarily for fall Beginner I students.

Irena Grudzińska Gross and Konrad Matyjaszek explore how, by addressing the anti-Jewish violence perpetrated through Polish history, that past violence can be overcome and prevented in the future.

Yiddish enthusiasts the world over, join the YIVO Yiddish club to celebrate Mame-loshn. This session features Eleanor Reissa, a Tony-nominated director; Broadway, film, and television actress; a prize-winning playwright, and an international singing artist.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at YIVO’s Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of YIVO's Summer Program for a brief information session.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at YIVO’s Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of YIVO's Summer Program for a brief information session.

Widely regarded as the “oldest hatred,” antisemitism is experiencing an alarming revival in the contemporary world. Join us for a panel discussion on antisemitism, past and present, in conjunction with the new exhibition at the United Nations, #Fake Images: Unmask the Dangers of Stereotypes.

Vivi Lachs looks at how and where Gentile characters appear in the Yiddish press and fiction and their relationship to the Jewish immigrant.

Join us in commemorating 700 years of the founding of Vilnius, featuring a presentation by Laimonas Briedis, and a discussion moderated by Jonathan Brent with Briedis, Laima Laučkaitė, Irena Grudzińska Gross, and David Roskies.

Have you always wanted to study Yiddish at YIVO’s Summer Program? Are you wondering what it would be like to take the program online or in person? Join faculty and staff of YIVO's Summer Program for a brief information session.

Conducted in English, this seminar will teach Yiddish songs and chants to adults. Parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, and educators who want to bring Yiddish into the world of young children (or to enrich one's own inner child!) are encouraged to register.

Conducted in Yiddish, this seminar will explore potatoes in Yiddish literature, art, and recipes. Potato enthusiasts will have the option to cook along in real time during class. The course is designed for advanced-beginner and lower-intermediate Yiddish students.

Join Alan Steinweis and Jonathan Brent for a discussion on how understanding antisemitic discourse in Nazi Germany can be used to understand antisemitism in other historical contexts, including the contemporary United States.

Jonathan Brent examines works by S. An-ski, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and Joseph Roth between World War I and World War II, and how they address the profound threats to Jewish culture and historical memory.

Retracing the history of the forced labor camp Treblinka I (1941-1944), the extermination camp Treblinka II (1942-1943), and a railway station at the village of Treblinka, Elżbieta Janicka explores the geographic, topographic, social, economic, political, culture, and religious contexts of Treblinka.

From the origins of Ashkenazi civilization to twenty-first century Yiddish debates, Dovid Katz provides a thorough overview of the Yiddish language through linguistical, sociological, and historical lenses.

Maya Benton explores the unique contributions of Jews to shaping the history and medium of photography in relation to exile, social change, and the imagination of possible futures.

Tony Michels explores what drew Jews to the garment industry in the early 1900s and how it became a hotbed of social protest.

Ilan Stavans explores the origins of the Jewish novel in Spain after the expulsion in 1492 and the world of so-called marranos.

Jeffrey Herf examines the events before, during, and after the State of Israel’s founding, challenging misconceptions about who supported and who opposed the Zionist project.

From the origins of Ashkenazi civilization to twenty-first century Yiddish debates, Dovid Katz provides a thorough overview of the Yiddish language through linguistical, sociological, and historical lenses.

Maya Balakirsky Katz explores Jewish attitudes towards death to provide a lens for studying the construction of identity, selfhood, and collective memory across various periods of Jewish history.

Marek Tuszewicki unveils Ashkenazi Jewish folk medicine in historical, cultural, and social contexts, going beyond the stigma of harmful superstition to understand it in connection with other aspects of daily life.

Anita Norich examines works by Yiddish writers (in English translation) who came to the U.S. and reflected both on the European past and American present and future.

Conducted in Yiddish, this seminar will read short stories that evoke writer Yosl Birstein's childhood in Poland and the heavy historical baggage of 20th century Jewish life. The course is designed for upper-intermediate and advanced Yiddish students.

Conducted in English, this seminar will offer a close reading of Sholem Yankev Abramovish's grand satire of shtetl life. While the course will use an English translation of the novel, Yiddish-readers may use the original text.

In this lecture, Justina Smalkyté examines the social differentiation in the partisan camps based on possession of certain scarce objects such as boots, better food rations, and arms.