Advanced II Yiddish
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: Karolina Szymaniak
Who should take this course?
This course is appropriate for those who have completed Advanced I Yiddish or equivalent coursework.
What topics will this class cover?
This course will take students on a journey into the world of Yiddish culture from the past through the present. The focal point of this course will be press texts and historical documents (archival documents, including recordings) from the 20th and 21st centuries, but we will also use literary texts such as poems and short stories. The grammar and vocabulary addressed in this course will be adapted to the content of the texts studied. A special focus this semester will be on more complex syntactic structures and on logical connectors. Speaking skills will include analyzing and debating texts, expressing opinions, and making a well-grounded argument. Listening skills will be developed based on selected recordings of the studied texts, interviews with the writers, and other audiovisual documents.
This course is designed for students who are already familiar with the basics of Yiddish grammar, including the declension of nouns and adjectives and the conjugation of verbs in the past tense and conditional mode. It requires familiarity with these topics but not their mastery. If you feel that these are topics you need to review, fear not – there will be space for that in the course, which will adopt a needs-based approach to learning.
Is knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet required?
Yes, knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is required.
Course Materials:
All course materials will be provided digitally on Canvas.
Questions? Read our 2025 Fall Classes FAQ.
Karolina Szymaniak is assistant professor of Yiddish at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Her research interests range across modern Yiddish literature, Polish-Jewish cultural relations, and translation studies. She is also co-founder of the Jewish Arts Institute/Yidisher Kunst-Institut, and co-editor-in-chief of East European Jewish Affairs. In addition to having taught Yiddish language and culture throughout Europe, she has also served as a consultant for the POLIN Museum in Warsaw and the Museum of Modern Art in Łódz. Her recent publications include Montages. Debora Vogel and the New Legend of the City and My wild goat. Anthology of women Yiddish poets (in Polish) and Hasidic Steam Engine and Other stories. Anthology of Yiddish short stories, 16th-21st centuries (in Polish). She is also the editor of Rachel Auerbach's ghetto writings, which received the 2016 Polityka History Award. Her new edition of Auerbach’s wartime and postwar writing is forthcoming in French.
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