Yiddish at PENN!

Courses Offered Fall Semester, 1998:

• GRMN 401/JWST031
  Beginning Yiddish I
  T-Th 1:30-3:00

  Introduction to Yiddish language. Learn the basic skills of reading, writing, and speaking Yiddish. Discover the treasures of Yiddish culture: songs, literature, folklore, and films. Contact instructor for more information. Four semesters of Yiddish fulfill language requirement

• GRMN 408/JWST438
  Readings in Yiddish Literature
  T-Th 3:00-4:30

  This course will survey modern Yiddish literature through readings of Yiddish prose and poetry from the end of the nineteenth century through the 1980s. The class will be conducted in English; the texts are in Yiddish. Reading knowledge of Yiddish is required. Contact instructor for more information.

• GRMN 261/JWST 261
  Jewish Films and Literature
  T-Th 10:30-12:00

  From the 1922 silent film Hungry Hearts through the first "talkie," The Jazz Singer (1927), and beyond Schindler's List (1993), Jewish characters have confronted the problems of their Jewishness on the silver screen for a general American audience. Alongside this Hollywood tradition of Jewish film, Yiddish film blossomed from independent productions between 1911 and 1939 and interpreted literary masterpieces, from Shakespeare's King Lear to Scholem Aleichem's "Tevye the Dairyman," primarily for an immigrant and urban Jewish audience. In this course we will study six or seven films and their literary sources (in fiction and drama), focusing on English-language and Yiddish films within the framework of three problems of interpretation:

  • the different ways we "read" literature and film
  • the various ways that the media of fiction, drama, and film "translate" Jewish culture
  • how these translations of Jewish culture affect and are affected by their implied audience

  All texts will be read in English. All films are in English or are subtitled.

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For inquiries regarding this site, contact: Avi Kempinski
Page updated: December 1998