@Yiddishistke Language and Culture Resource Guide

Compiled by Sarah Biskowitz (find her website here).

  1. BEGINNER
  2. INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED
  3. OTHER MASTER LISTS
  4. RESOURCES IN ENGLISH
  5. RESOURCES FOR SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES - FRENCH, POLISH, SPANISH, AND GERMAN
  6. TRANSLATION SERVICE OPTIONS AND WHERE TO BUY BOOKS
  7. OTHER INSTAGRAM ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW
  8. THANK YOU TO

~Follow or check out our Instagram account @yiddishistke to see our posts on Yiddish culture and language!

~Our website

~@Yiddishistke links organized by post

~Our Heymish zine, featuring 26 contributors with original Yiddish prose, poetry, comics, and more

~Our Golden chain zine featuring the Nazi-resisting Paper Brigade, our thoughts on Yiddish queer cultural transmission, poems in original Yiddish and translation, and new art from our followers

~Our Yiddish music Spotify playlist 

BEGINNER

Resources to learn the alef beys (alphabet):

  • Yiddish Book Center chart and video
  • Yiddish alef-beys chart, phonetic charts, dialect vowel difference resources from Aarhus Universitet
  • Chart with labels in Latin and Cyrillic alphabets from Khayim Beyder, Illustrations by Natalia Kazak
  • Alef beys chart with standard romanization/transliteration from yiddishwit.com and YIVO
  • Yiddish alphabet song
  • Help with handwriting

Yiddish keyboards:

  • Open-source Yiddish keyboard from Isaac Bleaman
  • Yiddish keyboard Keyman that you can download or use online (you can type in Latin characters according to YIVO transliteration and it turns then into Yiddish letters)
  • Yiddish multilingual keyboard you can use on the site
  • Yiddish typer in chrome webstore
  • Yiddish typer by Yankl-Perets Blum
  • Forverts in English coverage of Apple’s Two Yiddish Keyboards, first released in the September 2022 operating system update called ioS16
  • Hasidifier (converts klal-sprakh writing to Hasidic spelling)

Resources to learn Yiddish:

Places offering online classes of various levels

Free online shmues (conversation) groups and other online events:

Online Yiddish studies conference:

In person summer and winter programs:

Self-study:

  • Textbooks (both can be used for self-study or in classes)
  • A guide to textbooks video from Leyzer Burko
  • In Eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook (truly excellent, available for order here)
  • College Yiddish by Uriel Weinreich (an old classic, available in various places for free as a PDF)
  • Also Dovid Katz’s Yiddish Grammar Textbook from 1987 is an oldie but a goodie (here)
  • Other textbooks and grammar books:
  • Colloquial Yiddish by Lily Khan
  • Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature and Culture, Vol. 1 by Sheva Zucker
  • Margolis’ Basic Yiddish: A Grammar and Workbook
  • Birnbaum’s Yiddish: A Survey and Grammar.
  • Neil Jacobs’ Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction
  • Yiddish Tsvey by Mordkhe Schaecter
  • Yidish af Yidish by David Goldberg
  • Vort ba Vort by Hanan Bordin
  • Videos that teach Yiddish:
  • Apps that teach Yiddish:
  • The helpful tips that are no longer available on the application are thankfully available here (though they are no longer updated): https://duome.eu/tips/en/yi
  • Private/small group tutors based in USA:
  • Facebook groups (great places to find community, ask questions, hear about online classes and events)
  • Online dictionaries

INTERMEDIATE OR ADVANCED

  • Vocabulary:
  • Reading:

  • Yidish af yidish: Grammatical, Lexical, and Conversational Materials for the Second and Third Years of Study from David Goldberg

  • Di naye Idishe shul, Yaakov Levin
  • Search Jewish Historical Press

https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/about/news/yiddish-ocr-live

  • Exhibit on Aaron Zeitlin
  • Der Yidisher Tam-Tam (highly recommend, accessible primary sources excerpted for intermediate/advanced students)
  • Download previous issues for free here
  • Leyenzayl–A Yiddish Literary Project from Isaac Bleaman, with recorded lectures and reading excerpts for advanced-intermediate Yiddish students

  • Videos:
  • Corpus of Spoken Yiddish in Europe: an Open Access digital language archive sourced from interviews with Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivors with videos and transcripts and other resources)
  • Beth Sholom Aleichem YouTube
  • Interviews in Yiddish such as
  • Cooking in Yiddish videos like this one
  • Yoga in Yiddish
  • Yiddish Branzhe from the Forverts and Boris Sandler
  • Especially recommend Mikhl’s #Yiddishalive videos in Yiddish playlist
  • Bund Melbourne
  • Yidlife Crisis (videos in Yiddish with bro-y humor, subtitled in English or French)
  • Culture of Jewish Congress (Di Zogerin)
  • Yidish haynt (Yiddish Today) is a YouTube series in which the League for Yiddish’s Eli Benedict interviews people involved in Yiddish culture. The conversation is conducted in Yiddish (from Zach Golden)
  • Dovid Katz’s YouTube channel on Yiddish Language and Culture; Litvak Yiddish; Dialects of Yiddish;  Lithuanian Jewish Culture; Holocaust in the Baltics; Menke Katz and his family
  • Audio:

https://j-air.com.au/the-kadimah-show/

  • Another Australian Yiddish podcast:

https://omny.fm/shows/amol-un-haynt

  • program broadcast from Birobidzhan:

https://biratv.ru/category/novosti-radio/mame-loshn/

  • Swedish Yiddish Sveriges Radio archives:

https://sverigesradio.se/jiddischfaralle

  • Two resources from Zach Golden
  • Yiddish 24 is a Hasidic website and app that brings you lots of music, talk shows and analyses throughout the day. Pinchus Glauber, whose show you can find in the “analysis” section, is particularly good — he explains complicated aspects of politics and science in clear Yiddish.
  • Israel’s national radio network KAN devotes an hour a week to Yiddish programming on its foreign language REKA station. Avrumi Zaks hosts the show, called KAN Yiddish, interviewing guests and talking about current affairs in the Yiddish world and in Israel.
  • EYDES: Electronic Version of the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazi Jewry
  • The Cockney Yiddish Podcast: Stories of a forgotten London subculture: The Cockney Yiddish Podcast explores the unknown Yiddish popular culture of London’s East End through an array of newly discovered stories and songs from the 1880s to the 1950s. (In English with texts available in Yiddish)
  • Old Yiddish movies:
  • Mamele
  • Az Men Gibt – Nemt Men 
  • Der Dybbuk
  • Yidl mitn fidl
  • New TV shows/movies in Yiddish:
  • Beyle from the Yiddish Book Center
  • Yiddish: Un film de Nurith Aviv (sometimes in French, sometimes in other languages including Yiddish with French subtitles)
  • Woodski’s World, Swedish Public television show from January 2020 with Tomas Woodski (article)
  • Itst yidish!: Swedish intro to Yiddish language and culture in New York. A beautiful series of eight episodes, each 10 minutes.
  • Who Will Write Our History? (mostly in English with some subtitled Yiddish)
  • Menashe from A24 (2017)

OTHER MASTER LISTS:

RESOURCES IN ENGLISH

Books:

  • A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969 by Noam Sienna, foreword by Judith Plaskow (2019)
  • Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof by Alisa Solomon (2013)
  • Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers, edited by Frieda Forman, Ethel Raicus, and Sarah Silberstein Swartz, 1994
  • A Few Words in the Mother Tongue: Poems, Selected and New (1971-1990) by Irena Klepfisz

  • Dreams of an Insomniac: Jewish Feminist Essays, Speeches and Diatribes Hardcover – January 1, 1993 by Irena Klepfisz  (Author), Evelyn Torton Beck (Introduction)

  • Diary of a Lonely Girl, Or The Battle Against Free Love by Miriam Karpilove, translated by Jessica Kirzane, 2019
  • Drunk from the Bitter Truth: The Poems of Anna Margolin, a bilingual book with translation by Shirley Kumove
  • Queer Expectations: A Genealogy of Jewish Women's Poetry by Zohar Weiman-Kelman
  • Words on Fire by Dovid Katz (read free here)
  • Yiddish: Biography of a Language by Jeffrey Shandler
  • Glikl: Memoirs 1691-1719, translated by Sara Friedman (2019)
  • Adventures in Yiddishland by Jeffrey Shandler (2005)
  • The Dyke and the Dybbuk by Ellen Galford (1993)
  • Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land by Harvey Pekar and others (graphic novel) (2011)
  • When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers by Ken Krimstein (2021)
  • Tubercular Capital: Illness and the Conditions of Modern Jewish Writing by Sunny Yudkoff (2018)

  • Di froyen women and Yiddish : tribute to the past, directions for the future : conference proceedings (1997) (available for free here)

  • Other titles of women in translation:

Websites:

  • Read excerpts of books including a children’s book and Tom Sawyer in English and Yiddish
  • Unquiet Pages, great Yiddish Book Center online museum with articles on the Yiddish Torah, Soviet Yiddish, Yiddish of Holocaust survivors, Yiddish dictionaries, women writers, sweatshop poets and more
  • Celebrating Yiddish women writers resources (articles, podcast interviews, translations)
  • “Pakn Treger, member magazine from the Yiddish Book Center with great translations and articles about Yiddish history and culture
  • The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe--amazing biographies of Eastern European important Yiddish figures and info about everyday life
  • Discovering Yiddish--online exhibits based on Ontario Archives
  • In Geveb--academic articles, more casual blog, side-by-side, translations, teaching guides, the hip and fascinating online journal of Yiddish studies 
  • Yiddishkayt--beautiful art and information about Yiddish past and future
  • Yiddishkayt Initiative--classes and information about Yiddish culture
  • Amanda Seigel’s blog for New York Public Library
  • Cool blog about Jewish family genealogy from Hollander-Waas Jewish  Heritage Services
  • Lost Jews UK: Discovering and Documenting England’s Lost Jews
  • We Refugees Archive is a digital archive on refugeedom, past and present. It focuses on individual micro-histories and the city as a microcosm of refuge and new beginnings. Yiddish sources here
  • Inside the Yiddish Folk Song: scholarship and practical instruction and resources on the Yiddish folk song
  • The Klezmer Institute was founded in the fall of 2018 to advance the study, preservation, and performance of Ashkenazic Jewish expressive culture through research, teaching, publishing and programming
  • Bat Kama At?: an archive documenting the history and culture of Lithuanian Jewry through the lens of Jewish education for girls in Telz, Lithuania during the interwar period.
  • Tongue’s Memory | Thoughts on Learning Yiddish, On Poetry, On Loss and Renewal, blog by David Forman
  • Rad Yiddish past event bilingual political and creative progressive Yiddish materials
  • Der Tekhines Project by Noam Lerman: Yiddish Tkhines are Ashkenazi supplications that were regularly written and prayed by, and centered the experiences of women, trans, and gender non-conforming people. Der Tkhines Proyekt offers resources and interactive workshops which teach new melodies paired with old Yiddish tkhines, and uplifts the tradition of zogn tkhines, of speaking and writing spontaneous prayers as practiced by generations of Jewish grandmothers and trAncestors.
  • Pulling at Threads: Rediscovering the forgotten rituals of Eastern European Jewish Women including feldmestn (laying wicks), tekhines, and demons and evil eye
  • https://www.yiddishculture.co/ –Education Program on Yiddish Culture–When these streets spoke Yiddish–That site — “https://www.yiddishculture.co/” — is more than a digital exhibit; it’s an act of cultural restitution. Each page restores the sound, movement and texture of Jewish life that once animated the streets of Poland and Lithuania, before silence fell.
  • Yiddishculture.co. is the latest project by sociologist and educator Adina Cimet, founder of the Educational Program on Yiddish Culture (EPYC). The site opens with a single, evocative idea: that language is not only speech, but atmosphere….At first glance, the site’s interface feels deceptively simple: a rotating globe dotted with the names Vilna, Lublin, Lodz, Kuzmir and Czernica. Click on any of them, and the screen opens on an illustrated panorama — markets alive with movement, children’s schools, synagogue facades and Yiddish signs appearing quietly amid the rhythm of Jewish life. The pages are not static memorials, but invitations to explore. (text from https://forward.com/yiddish-world/778171/website-yiddish-life-prewar-eastern-europe-photos-maps-children-yivo/)

Videos:

HASIDIC CULTURE

RESOURCES IN OTHER LANGUAGES

FRENCH

Grammaire de la langue yiddish

La Maison de la Culture Yiddish Medem Bibliotheque

POLISH

The Alef-Beys in Polish

Dictionary:

Classes:

  • Centrum Kultury Jidysz: Oferujemy lektoraty jidysz i hebrajskiego, bogaty program zajęć w ramach Uniwersytetu Trzeciego Wieku oraz Żydowskiego Uniwersytetu Otwartego, warsztaty dla dzieci, warsztaty kaligrafii, wspólne śpiewanie w jidysz, spotkania w ramach Dyskusyjnego Klubu Filmowego Shalom i ciekawe rozmowy z autorami ważnych książek.
  • Język jidysz

  • Warsztaty językowe: Fundacja „Dzielnica Wzajemnego Szacunku Czterech Wyznań” organizuje warsztaty, w trakcie których uczestnicy poznają podstawy cztrech języków: jidysz, hebrajskiego, starocerkiewnego i łaciny. Oprócz nauki pisania i czytania w poszczególnych językach prowadzący przybliżą uczestnikom historię, literaturę i kulturę każdego z nich. Warsztaty będą trwały 10 godzin dla każdego z języków w 5 blokach po 2 godziny każdy.

Other important links:

  • Polish Association for Jewish Studies–you can write and request them for Yiddish-Polish translation

Instagram:

  • @szkola_jidysz

Books:

  • Majses: Free Bilingual Polish/Yiddish Children’s Books

SPANISH

GERMAN

TRANSLATION SERVICES OPTIONS:

PLACES TO BUY YIDDISH BOOKS:

OTHER INSTAGRAM ACCOUNTS:

Yiddish:

@karowegner, peterudeshiyiddish, @ontariojewisharchives, @yidishwordoftheday, @yiddish_balagan, @yiddishbooks,@mayn_shtetele_riverdeyl, @vaybertaytch, @yiddishnewyork, @kulturkongres, @yaaana_yiddish, @in.geveb, @yiddishchicago, @greatjewishbooks, @yiddish_stories, @yiddish_book_center, @yivoinstitute, @dirozevepave, @mikhldarling, @dylanseders, @bikher_chick, @yiddish_vinkl, @parisyiddish, @divsy

Yiddish Music:

@isleofklezbos, @tsibelemusic, @socalledentertainment, @theklezmatics, @lipa_schmeltzer, @tsveybrider, @burikes, @yiddishprincess

Jewish feminist publications:

@lilithmagazine, @jewishwomensarchive, @hey.alma, @newvoicesmagazine, @jewishcurrentsmag, @jewishbookcouncil, @prtcls

Specifically Sephardi/Mizrahi:

@sephardicstudies, @sephardicbortherhood, @sephardicheritagemuseum, @sephardivoices, @smqnetwork, @zamancollective

Focus on Jews of Color:

@joctorahacademy, @jewishmultircialnetwork, @globaljews

Jewish activism:

@JFREJnyc, @Truahrabbis, @progressivejews, @Jews4BlackLives, @adameli, @popchassid, @never_again_action, @jcua_chicago, @abbychavastein, @bendthearc,

Jewish art and artists:

@Rena.Yehuda, @KarlaGudeon, @Adamkylometers, @jessica_tamar_deutch, @Maimonidez_nuts, @repealhyde, @micahbazant, @tsukunst, @aitchemel, @kayinayinhara, @songsofshira, @karolinakaseova

Jewish religious or cultural practices:

@modern_ritual, @jewitchry, @ethnicjewess, @radicaljewishcalendar, @ritualwell, @jewishqueeryouth, @rabbisandra, @rabbisaama, @rabbidanyaruttenberg, @hasidiminusa, @cookinggene

        

THANK YOU TO:

  • Some sources taken from lists by Professor Jessica Kirzane and Shane Baker. Additional contributions by Cameron Bernstein. A few sources were suggested by or I learned from Karo Wegner, Zach Golden, Kolya Borodulin, and Rivke Margolis.