Join us at the cozy Zeitgeist Zentrum in Wedding for a six-hour starter workshop on Yiddish, the international language of Ashkenazi Jews, and its rich and eclectic culture.

In participatory intro sessions led by instructors from Berlin’s Yiddish-speaking community, you will have your first conversation and learn some basic grammar and vocabulary. After a traditional honey-on-paper ceremony that celebrates the sweetness of literacy, you’ll even learn a few letters of the alphabet and read your first words. And we’ll bake and eat triangular hamentashen pastries for the upcoming festival of Purim.

In between, you’ll get bites of contemporary Yiddish culture ­– from Hassidic music videos to secular film clips and drag performances.

By the end, you’ll have answers to questions such as: How is Yiddish related to German, Hebrew, and Slavic languages? Who can I speak it with? And what does the letter aleph (א) taste like?

Participants are invited to stick around after the workshop for a drink at the Zeitgeist bar.

This workshop is also suitable for German speakers and those who already know the Hebrew alphabet – we will divide into groups along those lines for certain sessions.

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Instructors

Katerina Kuznetsova is an experienced Yiddish teacher with an MA in Yiddish Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She co-founded the group Yiddish.Berlin, which organizes a variety of events, activities, and exhibitions. She is also the initiator of the Berlin Yiddish poets’ circle, and her Yiddish prose and poetry have been published in Yiddishland, the Birobidzhaner Shtern, and Afn Shvel.

Jake Schneider gives public presentations on subjects such as queer Yiddish culture, the history of Yiddish in Berlin, and strategies for community building in a minoritized language. He is the founding coordinator of Berlin’s Yiddish-speaking social club, Shmues un Vayn, which meets twice a month. His popular walking tours of Jewish immigrant history in Mitte, “Visit Berlin’s Yiddishland,” will resume in the spring.

Rose Mintzer-Sweeney is a writer, linguist, and Yiddishist who has been an active member of Yiddish-speaking communities in New York, Edinburgh, and now Berlin, where she organizes a beginners’ Yiddish group.

Zeitgeist Zentrum brings together language, culture, and wellness in a community space set in the heart of Berlin. Made up of elements that nurture the cross-cultural exchange, learning and growth of all who gather here, Zeitgeist Zentrum is a language school paving the way for modern day learning.