Zoom Yiddish class for kids, parents & grandparents
Image by pixy.org
By Rukhl Schaechter December 24, 2020
Read this article in Yiddish.
The week before Hanukkah the Forverts shared a video of how I make potato latkes with my grandson, Leyzer.
A number of commenters on Facebook wrote how nice it was that I was speaking Yiddish with my grandchild, and how they wish they could do that, too. Over the years people have told me how they sing Yiddish songs to their eynikl, or grandchild, and pepper their own English (or Hebrew or French) with Yiddish words and phrases but that actually speaking to them in Yiddish wasn’t practical since few of them live in the same neighborhood as their children and grandchildren.
And since the outbreak of the coronavirus, it’s become even less likely since they see their eyniklekh only virtually, through Zoom or Facetime.
There are also many grandparents who enjoy hearing Yiddish, but can’t speak it.
Well, this Sunday, December 27, Yiddish teacher Naomi Miller is starting a weekly five-part Yiddish class on Zoom aimed precisely at children, parents and grandparents. The mood will be light and fun, and vocabulary will be taught through songs, storytelling, word games and short skits.
The first class is free but for the other four sessions, a donation of $10-$15 is requested.
Classes will take place at 1 pm EST; 10 am on the west coast; 6 pm in Great Britain; 7 pm in most of Europe and 8 pm in Israel.
Naomi Miller, an accomplished cabaret singer, is a native Yiddish speaker. She was born in a DP camp in Landsburg, Germany and as a child would sing aloud in the acoustically tiled walls of the mikvah run by her parents in Paterson, New Jersey.
In order to register for the class, click here.
The Yiddish class is sponsored by the Yiddish Arts and Academics Association of North America, better known as YAAANA.
To see how Miller teaches Yiddish to kids, check out this video of a previous class she taught called “Fun with Yiddish”:
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rukhl Schaechter, Yiddish Editor
