The Shoemaker’s Plums: Yosl Birstein’s Yiddish Tales of Jerusalem
Tuition: $325 | YIVO members: $250**
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This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, etc.) will be accessible in Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website.
Instructor: Vera Szabó
Perhaps the best-known Yiddish prose writer in Israel, Yosl Birstein has been dubbed Sholem Aleichem’s Israeli literary heir on account of his seemingly effortless style, compassionate humor, sensitive insightfulness, and attention to minute detail. Walking around in the streets of Jerusalem, Birstein’s narrator encounters people, objects, sights, sounds, and smells that evoke memories of his childhood in Poland and reveal the heavy historical baggage of 20th century Jewish life that Birstein and his characters carry.
In this course students will get a taste of Birstein’s masterful storytelling through reading a selection of short stories from Dayne geslekh – Yerusholayim and watching Boris Sandler’s film Yiddish Writers’ Monologues: Yosl Birshteyn.
Yiddish Level:
This seminar will be conducted in Yiddish, and any readings will be given in Yiddish. It is suitable for upper-intermediate and advanced Yiddish students, such as those who took Intermediate III Yiddish, Intermediate IV Yiddish, Advanced I Yiddish, Intensive Intermediate III&IV Yiddish, Intensive Advanced I&II Yiddish, or Intensive Advanced III&IV Yiddish in the fall 2022 semester.
Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas. Students may access Dayne geslekh – Yerusholayim online and watch Yiddish Writers Monologues: Yosl Birshteyn online.
Vera Szabó was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. She holds an M.A. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University as well as an M.A. in English and German Studies from ELTE University, Budapest.
She has taught Yiddish language, literature and folklore at various universities in the US (University of Michigan, Stanford, the University of Washington) and in Israel (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) as well as in various intensive summer programs (NYU/YIVO, Vilna, and Tel Aviv University.) She currently teaches various levels of Yiddish at Beth Shalom Aleichem.
Vera also translates literary and non-literary texts from Yiddish and Hungarian into English. Her research interest is Yiddish folklore. A certified yoga teacher, Vera has been teaching yoga in Yiddish for the past five years in Jerusalem, where she resides. More information on her website: www.verele.com
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