Erika Dreifus

Want to study beginning Yiddish online? The National Yiddish Book Center brings you the opportunity to do so, via the University of Massachusetts’ online instructional program.

“The course is for students who wish to explore the language and culture of Ashkenazic Jewry. There are no prerequisites, and no knowledge of any Jewish language or the Jewish alphabet is expected. Over the course of the semester, students will learn to read, write, and converse in Yiddish and will be introduced to a number of Yiddish songs, poems, and folktales. By the end of the term, students should be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of topics and to read simple Yiddish texts.

The instructor, Yuri Vedenyapin, is the academic director of the National Yiddish Book Center’s Summer Yiddish Program. He teaches Yiddish language and culture at Harvard University, and his scholarly interests include old and modern Yiddish literature, East European Jewish folklore, and the history of Yiddish dialects and literary standards. He is especially interested in ethnographic fieldwork and has conducted numerous interviews with Yiddish writers, actors, and members of Hasidic communities. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.A. from Columbia University. In addition to his work at Harvard, he has taught Yiddish at Columbia University, Moscow State University, and the Yiddish Summer Program in Warsaw, Poland. Besides his academic pursuits, he also performs songs in Yiddish, Russian, and Polish.”

More info here.