YIVO's Summer Program Teaches and Celebrates Yiddish and Its Civilization Worldwide

Today, Friday, August 2, 2024, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City celebrated the 57th annual graduation of the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.

Established in 1968, the YIVO Summer Program is the world’s first and longest-running Yiddish summer program; it has become the major academic force for the maintenance, dissemination, and appreciation of the body of knowledge that comprises Yiddish and the thousand-year-old cultural heritage that has emerged alongside the language.

For the third year in a row, the summer semester featured two tracks running concurrently, one online and one in-person. This made it possible to meet students wherever they were, whether they traveled to New York for the summer or opted to study from the comfort of home.

With students and faculty from around the world, the YIVO-Bard Summer Program reflects the worldwide cultural reach of Ashkenazi Jewish civilization. This summer’s program brought together 78 students from 24 states in the US and from 12 countries: Canada, China, Germany, Spain, France, Great Britain, Georgia, India, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, and the US. The faculty hails from 10 countries: Argentina, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Moldova, Poland, Ukraine, and the US. The program features a unique intergenerational learning environment, with this year’s students ranging in age from 16-84.

“Every year, it’s inspiring to see students from all walks of life, from all ages and from many continents, come to study in the Summer Program,” said Ben Kaplan, YIVO’s Director of Education. “The diversity of our student body proves that there is no one typical Yiddish student; what really unites our students is their passion to learn and to grow with Yiddish.”

YIVO’s Summer Program shares with its students the 1,000-year history of Yiddish civilization – its richness, complexity, beauty, and significance to the Jewish people and beyond. Alumni from the Summer Program have gone on to careers as leading academics, scholars, and authors; world-renowned musicians and artists; archivists, librarians, and conservators; educators whose work promotes the continued legacy of Ashkenazi Jewish life and lore; and laypeople who are committed to the spiritual nourishment that the Yiddish language and its culture provides. More than half the faculty are graduates of the Summer Program themselves, as are current YIVO staff members.

“The intensive study of Yiddish at a university program is not a typical 'bucket list' item. Yet scores of students of all ages come to YIVO to be taught every summer, and that has been the case for the past 57 years. They come already committed to making the Yiddish language and its cultural heritage a lifelong part of them. Our work at YIVO is exceptionally gratifying during this season," said Dovid Braun, the Academic Director of the YIVO-Bard Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture.

Participants in the Summer Program spend six to seven weeks immersed in the study of Yiddish language, literature, and culture. With over 180 course hours, students are eligible to receive university credit through Bard College.

Beyond obligatory morning classes, this year’s curriculum included seminars on: Yiddish theater; Hasidism in Yiddish literature; changing political trends in the 127-year-old Yiddish newspaper The Forward; East European Jewish cooking; and the skill of deciphering handwritten documents in Yiddish for research and genealogical purposes. Electives were offered on archival research, Yiddish song, and vegetable pickling.

The program also featured the Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series which presented cutting edge online lectures by today’s foremost researchers of Yiddish life, letters, and lore. Half were delivered in English, the other half in Yiddish, and are now available on YIVO’s YouTube channel.

Pre-Shabes gatherings were held every couple of weeks which allowed students to engage with guest speakers or performers widely known for their contributions to Yiddish arts and culture. Featured this summer were Cantor Yanky Lemmer, a virtuoso of Yiddish song; David Mazower, bibliographer, editor, and exhibitions curator (and great-grandson of Yiddish writer Sholem Asch); and Rukhl Schaechter, editor-in-chief of the Yiddish Daily Forward.

Off-campus activities included a visit to CYCO, the USA’s only bookstore devoted exclusively to Yiddish titles; a historical tour of the Lower East Side; and two tours – one in English for beginners, one in Yiddish for higher-level students – of the Yiddish-speaking Hasidic neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

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Shelly Freeman
Chief of Staff

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, now in its Centennial year, is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story