Jewish Languages

Class starts Jan 7 4:00pm-5:15pm

Tuition: $360 | YIVO members: $270**

This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, 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 English, and any readings will be in English.

Instructor: Ilan Stavans

What constitutes a Jewish language? Why have some developed more than others? When and where do Jewish languages emerge? What kind of development do they have? And how do Jewish languages die, if and when they do? Similarly, what effects do Jews have on non-Jewish languages, from standardized ones like English, Spanish, and Russian to dialects and “auxiliary” languages such as Esperanto? And in what way are Jewish languages connected with nationhood or the lack thereof? Do Jewish languages preserve tradition in unique ways? The course will tackle these and adjacent questions by studying literary (poems, short stories, essays, recipes, memoirs), political (speeches), and lexicographic texts (dictionary pages, personal correspondence, oral histories) across time and space from the Destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem to the present.

Course Materials:
Students should purchase the following texts:

Juan Gelman, Otrarse: Ladino Poems (University of New Mexico Press)
Resurrecting Hebrew (Nextbook)
On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language (Penguin)
How Yiddish Changed America (Restless Books)

The instructor will provide all other course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

Questions? Read our 2025 Winter Program FAQ.

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Cultures at Amherst College, publisher of Restless Books, host of NPR’s podcast In Contrast, and a regular contributor to the New York Times en Español. An international bestselling author, his books include On Borrowed Words (2000), Spanglish (2002), Dictionary Days (2010), and Quixote (2015). Among his graphic novels are Latino USA: A Cartoon History (2000), El Iluminado (2012), Angelitos (2017), and an adaptation of Don Quixote of La Mancha (2018). He is the editor of, among others, The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories (1998), The Schocken Book of Sephardic Literature (2008), Norton Anthology of Latino Literature (2011), Becoming Americans (2013), and Oy Caramba!: An Anthology of Jewish Stories from Latin America (2017). His work, adapted into theater, TV, film, and radio, has been translated into twenty languages.

**Become a member today, starting at $54 for one year, and pay the member price for classes! You’ll save on tuition for this course and more on future classes and public programs tickets.