Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures University of Toronto
Creativity in and Beyond the Yiddish Classroom
It’s been another eventful year for undergraduate and graduate students in the Yiddish program. In GER260: Elementary Yiddish, taught by Miriam Schwartz (first term) and Jacob Hermant (second term), students began their Yiddish journeys with an introduction to grammar, vocabulary, and conversation skills. They also learned about some of the cultural, religious, and artistic traditions of Eastern European Jews. Both instructors commend their students on their outstanding work and enthusiasm for Yiddish over the course of the year.
In spring 2025, GER361: Yiddish Literature in Translation, taught by Miriam Borden, focused on nostalgia in Yiddish literature, but extended far beyond the literary—and far beyond the classroom. Students attended a film screening of the 1937 Yiddish masterpiece The Dybbuk. They sat in on Yiddish lectures outside of class. They took a memorable “field trip” to the stacks at Robarts—where they all crammed into a study room to discuss the material history of the literature they were reading. For her final project, one student created a beautiful 3D pop-up book based on a 1926 poem about the city of Vilna.
Yiddish Pop-up Books 
Last year’s cohort of three Yiddish MA students was our largest yet, and the diverse skills and interests they brought to the department were greatly appreciated. Emily Glass organized and led an interactive public workshop on Yiddish dance styles. Lesley Turner wrote and performed an original puppet play in Yiddish, co-starring friend of the Yiddish program Graeme Myers, PhD student in Comparative Literature (Lesley and Graeme first became colleagues in GER260 back in 2020!). Josh Horowitz was awarded a fellowship at the Yiddish Book Center, where he will be working in 2025-2026.
Our PhD students have been busy too. Hannah Wickham’s article “Between Words and Mouths: Sarah Bas Tovim in the Hands of Her Readers” has been accepted for publication in a special issue of Women’s Writing on Jewish women’s writing from the 1700s to the 1920s. Miriam Borden was awarded a Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellowship. Between June 2025 and June 2026, she will translate the work of Shimon Nepom (1882-1939), a writer – and TTC streetcar conductor! – with revolutionary sympathies and a flair for the Baudelairian aesthetic.
Congratulations to all on a successful and exciting year!
