Newswise — Though Gina Glasman has been teaching Yiddish at Binghamton University for four years, she says the university has offered Yiddish language classes of different levels since the 1980s. It’s just more popular, now. “It's more or less had a continuous run to the present day, which makes BU unusual, I think, among most universities that offer Yiddish.” According to Randy L. Friedman, chair of Binghamton’s department of Judaic Studies, his university has one of the highest enrollments of any university offering Yiddish, usually more than 20 students, each semester. “While it’s hard to confirm the following claim,” he says, “we suspect that these are the highest enrollments of any [college or university] in the country in Yiddish-language instruction.”
While many of Glasman’s students are from the greater New York area, others come from elsewhere. One of them is Eliza Gellis of Flushing, Michigan. “I took Yiddish at Binghamton because I knew I'd probably never have the opportunity to do so at any other point in my life,” says Gellis, a senior at Binghamton. “An interest in languages certainly played a part in my choice, but over the course of my college years, I've become more connected to Judaism, and taking Yiddish was a way to reclaim my heritage and sense of identity--my dad's family is largely Ashkenazi, so this was their language.”
She says one of her goals in learning Yiddish is to gain a greater connection to and understanding of Ashkenazi culture. “Overall, I hope the trend of interest in Yiddish continues and that we as Jews can reclaim it as a spoken language outside of ultra-orthodox circles,” says Gellis. “To me, the preservation of Yiddish represents the triumph and perseverance of the Jewish people against hatred and genocide.”
Gina Glasman says the Yiddish class offers students a connection to a world that existed before the Holocaust of the mid-20th century: “There's a curiosity about the story of Yiddish as a culture and a language lost to history,” she says. “Many students are shocked to learn that there was a pre-Holocaust Jewish world that was fully modern, very urban and Yiddish speaking. For most, this chapter of Jewish history comes as a revelation and students of all kinds and backgrounds seem to become engaged with it, whether the topic is language-based, or something broader in scope.”
In addition to the Intro 101 Yiddish and Intermediate Yiddish language classes that are offered each semester, Glasman notes that classes in modern Yiddish culture and Immigrant Jewish New York are also offered and represent an informal concentration. “These courses are always oversubscribed so the university is seeking ways to create other offerings in this space. These courses include culture, history and study of cultural centers where Yiddish was spoken. The classes focus on history and the collective loss of this history in the pre-Holocaust era.”
While a majority of her Yiddish students are Jewish, Glasman says, the number of those taking it primarily as a language requirement are few. Rather, students take it as more of an elective--having a curiosity about the cultural content. “The language class includes songs and literature,” she says. “Many students share experiences of sharing content with grandmothers which reflects their curiosity about their culture that has been lost over time.”
Michael Kosowski, from Staten Island, N.Y., is graduating with a double major in Russian studies and art history, and a minor in global studies. Kosowski says he has been interested in Yiddish since his freshman year at Binghamton, and notes that his reasons for taking Yiddish are a bit complex. “As I progressed in my Russian Studies major, I developed a profound interest in Jewish Eastern European history,” he says. “I had been learning Hebrew since high school, but that isn't really a helpful language when delving into the Ashkenazi culture of places like Poland.”
He says his long-term goals are to go into academia and specialize in Eastern European Studies, and mastering Yiddish will provide him with a helpful resource on Jewish culture in Eastern Europe. “While it’s helpful to look at the past,” he says, “Yiddish needs a future, and I believe that Yiddish needs a revival, both in America, Eastern Europe--which is underway--and in the modern state of Israel.”
More on the department of Judaic studies at Binghamton University: https://www.binghamton.edu/judaic-studies/index.html
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