Beginner II Yiddish (Tuesday)

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: Malena Chinski

Who should take this course?
This course is for those who have previously taken one semester of Yiddish. It is appropriate for those who completed Beginner I Yiddish in Spring 2023.

What topics will this class cover?
Drawing on a communicative approach, this class will build on the language background acquired in Beginner I Yiddish. Students will continue to work on each of the four language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The class will be based on Units II (chapters 5-8) and III (chapters 9-12) of In eynem. New communication goals and vocabulary will include the family, professions, hobbies and preferences, making plans, presence and absence, and physical appearances. Grammar study will address the imperative, the future tense, plural nouns, negation, verbs with separable prefixes, adjectives, and the accusative case. The class will also focus on the Jewish holidays falling during the current semester.

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

Course Materials:
This course will use the textbook In eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook, Vol I & II by Asya Vaisman Schulman, Jordan Brown, Mikhl Yashinsky (Purchase).

Malena Chinski studied Yiddish at the IWO Foundation of Buenos Aires with Ester Szwarc and Avrom Lichtenbaum. She has recently taught beginner and intermediate classes at the Maison de la culture yiddish in Paris and in the Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Literature in Berlin. Her doctoral dissertation, completed in 2017 at the Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento in Argentina, focused on the commemoration of the Shoah in Buenos Aires throughout the first postwar decade. During her postdoctoral fellowships in France at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah, she researched cultural initiatives and scholarly works undertaken by survivor Yiddish writers in Paris. Among her publications is a collective volume co-edited with Alan Astro, Splendor, Decline, and Rediscovery of Yiddish in Latin America (Brill, 2018).

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