THE YIDDISH STUDIES FACULTY

Columbia's Yiddish Studies Program is directed by Jeremy Dauber, an assistant professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. Professor Dauber received his doctorate in modern Jewish studies from the University of Oxford in 1999, where he wrote his dissertation on the usage of Biblical and rabbinic texts by the Hebrew and Yiddish writers of the Haskala, or the Jewish Enlightenment. His research interests include the Haskala, the origins of modern Jewish literature, and the development of the Yiddish theater: he is currently collaborating with Professor Joel Berkowitz of Oxford on a series of translations of early modern Yiddish plays.

Miriam Hoffman is the full-time lecturer in Yiddish, with responsibility for most undergraduate instruction in Yiddish language and culture. Born in the Soviet Union in the years before World War II when her parents fled Poland, she possesses first-hand knowledge of east European Jewish culture. Educated in the Yiddish secular high school of New York and the Jewish Teachers Seminary, she received an M.A. in Yiddish Studies at Columbia. An experienced teacher of Yiddish from the introductory to the advanced level, she brings to Columbia unique materials and methods for teaching university students. An active playwright, director, and producer of theater in Yiddish and English, Miriam Hoffman is also director of the Joseph Papp Yiddish Theater and a weekly columnist for the Yiddish newspaper Forverts.

The Interdepartmental Committee on Yiddish Studies

Michael Stanislawski (chair)
Nathan Miller Professor of East European Jewish History

Jeremy Dauber
Assistant Professor and Director of Yiddish Studies
Department of Germanic Languages
Arthur A. Goren
Russell Knapp Professor of American Jewish History
David Weiss-Halivni
Lucius Littauer Professor of Religion
Marvin I. Herzog
Atran Professor Emeritus of Yiddish Studies (ex officio)
Andreas Huyssen
Villard Professor of Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature
Dan Miron
Leonard B. Kaye Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature
Yosef H. Yerushalmi
Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture, and Society

Yiddish Studies
The Advisory Council
Elie Wiesel
Honorary Chairman
Molly Freedman
Robert Freedman
David Gildin
Melvin Gold
Sherry Gold
Bel Kaufman
Laurence Newman
Harold Ostroff
Robert Pollack
I. Bernard Weinstein

Click here to return to the Yiddish homepage.