A new Yiddish language course will be offered in the Spring, making UF the first Florida university to offer a class in the traditional European-Jewish language.
Dror Abend-David, a Hebrew literature and language professor and instructor for the Yiddish course, said the course will cover Yiddish language, history and culture.
“It will cover the basics of the language but also contextualize it and create an entire cultural experience from a language that is not being given as much attention as it could be,” Abend-David said.
The course is funded by the Center for European Studies and supported by the Department of Languages, Literature and Culture, and the Center for Jewish Studies, Abend-David said.
“I teach Hebrew, and one of the students asked me, ‘Well, why don’t you teach Yiddish?’” Abend-David said. “I said, ‘I don’t know. We should. We will.’”
Abend-David said the course will be offered as a general topics course that should fulfill language requirements, but students hoping to use the course to fulfill a language requirement should talk to their academic advisers.
The course is targeted toward beginners and beginning-intermediate students of Yiddish, but intermediate and advanced classes could be created in the coming years, according to a UF news release.
“Yiddish is this ancestral language — the language of folktales, of memories, of anything from superstition to secular culture,” Abend-David said. “I think one of the major differences between Yiddish and Hebrew in the United States is that Yiddish has a tremendous emotional appeal.”
Ari Sharfstein, president of the Jewish Student Union, said he thinks many Jewish students will feel a personal connection to the course.
“Hebrew we grew up hearing in synagogues and whatnot, but it’s Yiddish that our grandparents are yelling at us from across the house,” said Sharfstein, a 20-year-old UF philosophy sophomore.
Abend-David said it’s a language of personal history because grandparents speak it.
“In that case, I am hoping that it will fulfill a very sentimental role,” he said.
Jared Kaplan, a 20-year-old UF biochemistry and psychology sophomore, said he thinks the class will also appeal to other students who may not be familiar with Jewish culture.
“When you’re learning a language, you’re not just learning a language, you’re learning about the culture itself,” Kaplan said. “It gives you a different perspective on other cultures and a different way of thinking about things, in their own native tongue.”
Abend-David said intellectually, there is a lot to be gained by teaching Yiddish.
“It’s a very colorful, varied course,” Abend-David said.
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 10/16/2013 under the headline "Gators to schmooze in Yiddish this Spring"
