Beginner IV Yiddish (Friday)

Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (Must register with valid university email address)

This is a live, online course held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, assignments, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in Yiddish and English.

Instructor: Reb Noyekh (Noah Barrera)

Who should take this course?
This course is for those who have previously taken three semesters of Yiddish. It is appropriate for those who took Beginner III Yiddish in fall 2022.

What topics will this class cover?
Students will strengthen their beginner speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills in this course. Among the grammatical topics covered are: unstressed prefixed verbs, conditionals, converbs, and periphrastic verbs. This class will begin with Unit 12 of Colloquial Yiddish by Lily Kahn and conclude with Unit 15, the final chapter of the textbook. Throughout the course students will read their first Yiddish book, Dos kluge shnayderl (The Clever Little Tailor), a work of children's literature by Solomon Simon. They will be expected to write two book reports in which they summarize the first two chapters of the book and identify examples of the grammar taught in Colloquial Yiddish. Dos kluge shnayderl makes great use of unstressed prefixed verbs, converbs, and other grammatical points taught in the textbook! Later, as a class, the students will be asked to retell these chapters in their own words “Af eyn fus” (like Rabbi Hillel did “on one foot,” so to speak).

Is knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet required?
Yes, knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is required.

Course Materials:

• This course will use the textbook Colloquial Yiddish by Lily Kahn (Purchase). The audio files for the textbook are available free of charge on the publisher's website.
• This course will also use the book The Clever Little Tailor by Solomon Simon (Purchase).

Reb Noyekh is a Yiddish educator, writer, translator, and YouTube content creator. A native of California, he began learning Yiddish at UC Santa Cruz where he majored in Jewish Studies. He later studied and taught in the YIVO zumer program for several years and coordinated and taught Yiddish language classes at Der Arbeter Ring in New York. His articles and original stories have appeared in the Yiddish Daily Forverts, Afn Shvel, and elsewhere. His academic translation, together with Nathaniel Deutsch, of Abraham Rechtman's ethnographic account of the Ansky expedition, will soon be published by Indiana University Press. Reb Noyekh is also a prolific YouTube content creator; together with his partner Gustavo Emos, he has created over 100 hours of Yiddish content on YouTube.

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