Creative Writing in Yiddish

Tuition: $240 | YIVO members: $180**
 

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This is a live, online course held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 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.

Instructor: Boris Sandler

די וואָס טראָגן אין זיך אַ קינסטלערישע נטיה און ווילן דאָס אַנטוויקלען בכּתבֿ װעלן האָבן דורך דעם סעמינאַר די מעגלעכקייט צו פֿאַרזוכן, זאָל זײַן אויפֿן שפּיץ מעסער, דעם טעם פֿון ייִדישער שאַפֿערישקייט. אויפֿן סמך פֿון ליטעראַטור־מוסטערן וועלן באַטראַכט ווערן די וויכטיקע באַשטאַנדטיילן פֿון פּראָזע — שפּראַך, סטיל, דיאַלאָג, געשטאַלט, פּייסאַזש. עס װעלן פֿאַרגעבן װערן פּראַקטישע געניטונגען װאָס וועלן רעדאַגירט און אַנאַליזירט ווערן אין קלאַס. די בעסטע מוסטערן פֿון די פּירות וועלן זײַן געדרוקט אינעם עלעקטראָנישן זשורנאַל „ייִדיש־בראַנזשע.“

פֿאַר קענערס פֿון ייִדיש אויפֿן העכערן מיטנדיקן ביזן סאַמע אַװאַנסירטן ניװאָ.

Those who desire to develop their expressive gifts in writing will find in this mini-course an opportunity, modest though it may be, to experience a taste of creativity in Yiddish. Using samples from literature, students will consider the components of prose: language, style, dialog, form, landscape. Participants will engage in practical exercises which will then be edited and critiqued. The best tokens of the group's productivity will be published in the electronic journal Yidish-branzhe.

For higher intermediate students through very advanced.

Yiddish Level:
This course, conducted in Yiddish, is designed for upper intermediate and advanced Yiddish students, or those with a strong ability to write and to speak Yiddish.

Course Materials:
All course materials will be provided digitally on Canvas.

Boris Sandler was born in 1950 in Beltz (Bessarabia). In 1975 he graduated from the Music Conservatory of Kishinev and played violin in the Moldavian Symphony Orchestra. From 1989-1992, Sandler was the President of the Yiddish Cultural Organization of Moldavia, and from 1990 until his immigration to Israel in 1992, was the Yiddish Editor of the bilingual journal Undzer Kol (Our Voice) in Kishinev. In 1981 Sandler was among the first cohort of Yiddish writers and poets to study Yiddish literature at the graduate level in the USSR since Stalin's purge of Yiddish writers in the late 1940s. He is the author of 27 books of fiction and poetry in Yiddish and translated into other languages: Russian, English, French, German, Hebrew, Dutch and Romanian. Sandler is the author of two documentary film scripts, Don't Give Up, Yiddish (1991) and Where is My Home? (1992), which dealt with the fate of Bessarabian Jewry. In 1998 Sandler moved to New York to begin working at the Yiddish edition of Forverts (The Forward). Besides his work as a writer and editor Sandler also produced a series of ten documentary films about the lives of Yiddish writers. Additionally, Sandler oversaw the production of several thousand hours of Forverts’ weekly Yiddish radio show, and produced a dozen CDs of Yiddish music and audio books, which were released under the aegis of Forverts. Sandler retired from the "Yiddish Forward" in 2016 after 18 years as editor-in-chief. He continues to publish his own fiction as well as the works of others in the online publication Yidish Branzhe, which he founded and edits.

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