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At Home in Diaspora: The Spaces of Yiddish Literature
- Pacific Time Virtual Program
$72.00
Course Summary for Search and Accessibility
This course, At Home in Diaspora: The Spaces of Yiddish Literature, is an Educational Program offered by New Lehrhaus. It is scheduled for four sessions beginning October 8, 2026 and ending October 29, 2026. The sessions are held on Thursdays from 12:00 pm to 1:15 pm Pacific Time.
The total registration fee is $72.00. The course is conducted Online and focuses on Yiddish literature and diasporic belonging without a homeland, the shtetl, city, courtyard, and natural world as literary spaces, and modern Yiddish writers in English translation.
Where is a stateless culture at home? Yiddish is the language of one of the largest and longest-lasting diasporic cultures in the world, often defined by its lack of a homeland. But what if Yiddish speakers, artists, and writers did feel at home in diaspora, whether in a town their family had lived in for generations or a new city they'd just arrived in, an at-homeness with no claim to sovereignty or state? This course explores four spaces of Yiddish life and writing:
- Dos Shtetl (The Town) · Market days and mud, but also railways, factory work, political argument, and people planning their departure. Generally rooftop-fiddler-free.
- Di Shtot (The City) · Where millions went, wandering busy streets where technology, politics, economics, and art combined into new and disorienting possibilities.
- Der Hoyf (The Courtyard) · The urban courtyard that defined local life across central and eastern Europe, and reappeared as far away as Buenos Aires.
- Di Svive (The Natural World) · The forests of Belarus, the steppes of Siberia, the mountains of Quebec and New York, where the writing considers nature and landscape instead of people.
Through close reading, discussion, and weekly writing prompts, the course asks what these spaces can teach about diasporic belonging and the meaning of home without a state.
Who this is for
- Readers curious about Yiddish literature, Jewish diaspora history, or modern Jewish culture
- Anyone interested in place, migration, and belonging in literature
- Students of Jewish history or Eastern European Jewish life
What you'll leave with
- A map of Yiddish literature's key imaginative geographies: the shtetl, the city, the courtyard, the natural world
- A deeper sense of how diasporic communities build belonging without territorial sovereignty
- Firsthand familiarity with major modern Yiddish writers in translation
- Sharpened skills in close literary reading and discussion
- Your own short pieces of writing from the course's weekly prompts
Readings include Avrom Karpinowitz, Moyshe Kulbak, Mendel Mann, Anna Margolin, Mimi Pinzon, Fradl Shtok, Avrom Sutzkever, Miriam Ulinover, and more, all in English translation. No prior knowledge of Yiddish required.
Four Thursdays: October 8, 15, 22 and 29 at 12–1:15pm Pacific Time
IMPORTANT NOTE: Zoom link/details will be emailed to you once you complete registration, one week before your program AND the day before. Please keep this information in a location easy to find.
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