The New Zamlers
Yiddish Oral Histories for the 2020s
Wednesdays at 5pm CET, 50 minutes, 15 October to 10 December on Zoom
Workshop fee: €90
Adrien Smith (center-right) at a Yiddish-speaking gathering in Austin, Texas.
This fall, the Other Music Academy (best known as the organizer of Yiddish Summer Weimar) invites intermediate Yiddish students to join The New Zamlers, a seven-session online workshop that connects Germany and the United States through storytelling. Inspired by the historic zamlers—volunteers who once gathered words, folklore, and everyday accounts for the Yiddish archives—participants will interview each other to collect and present contemporary Yiddish life stories. The course, led by Adrien Smith (University of Texas at Austin) and Jake Schneider (Berlin-based Yiddish activist and poet), combines language practice with oral history training, peer-to-peer interviews, and reading and discussions about present-day Yiddish culture and community.
All sessions will be conducted in Yiddish, appropriate for students who are able (or currently learning) to ask questions and express opinions on familiar topics. Over two months, participants will strengthen their speaking and listening skills, gain hands-on experience with oral history methods, and participate in the creation of new Yiddish narratives. As a final project, students will create short multimedia stories based on their interviews and share them in celebratory “watch parties.” Alongside developing language and research skills, the project offers the chance to build connections with fellow learners across the Atlantic and to think about how Yiddish is lived, reclaimed, and narrated today.
This workshop is an online exchange between the Other Music Academy and the University of Texas-Austin in partnership with the Yiddish Book Center, and it will bring together participants from across North America, Europe, and beyond.
If you have any questions, contact .
is a Yiddish activist, poet, translator, collagist, and independent researcher. In addition to initiating the Yiddish Hoyz, a language immersion program at Yiddish Summer Weimar, in 2025, he is the founding gabbai of Berlin’s Yiddish-speaking social club Shmues un Vayn, the founding MC of Shtetl Berlin’s open mic cabaret "Nu? Yiddish in All Art Forms," and a member of Yiddish.Berlin. He also gives talks about Yiddish culture and walking tours of Berlin’s Jewish immigrant history, partly inspired by the flâneur-poet A.N. Stencl, whose memoirs he is translating as a Fellow of the Yiddish Book Center. His own Yiddish poems have appeared in the Forverts, Afn Shvel, Yiddish branzhe, Yiddishland, and Di goldene pave and have been translated into five languages.
Photo: Shendl Copitman
Assistant Professor of Instruction, Department of Germanic Studies,
University of Texas-Austin
Adrien's research looks at Yiddish speech style in Russian literature and performance in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as at Soviet science fiction. She teaches Yiddish, Jewish folklore, and Eastern-European Jewish history. She is also a member of the faculty at the Steiner Summer Yiddish Program at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA.
>> University of Texas Faculty
Photo: Yiddish Book Center
Workshop Outline
Adrien Smith teaching at the Yiddish Book Center.
History of the Yiddish Present I: A velt mit veltelekh
15 October (with Jake Schneider)
An opening discussion about the past and present of Yiddish communities and documentation of this ongoing cultural history, including recent Yiddish journalism.
Oral History Workshop I: Doing Oral History in Yiddish
22 October (with Adrien Smith)
An introduction to oral history methods, the tradition of the zamler, and how to conduct engaging interviews in Yiddish.
History of the Yiddish Present II: Berlin and the “Post-Postvernacular”
29 October (with Jake Schneider)
A look at language reclamation and creative projects in Berlin and Weimar that use Yiddish as a living medium for art and community.
Oral History Workshop II: Evaluating and Trying Out Interviews
5 November (with Adrien Smith)
Practice analyzing and conducting interviews, applying established oral history models (Wexler, Voces) to contemporary Yiddish experiences.
Oral History Workshop III: Refining Your Interview Style
19 November (with Adrien Smith)
Develop interviewing techniques through interactive oral history activities and Hassidic card games.
Peer Oral Histories
Scheduled in pairs (Independent)
Students conduct and record interviews with overseas partners—either fellow students or volunteer narrators—using collaboratively developed questions and supporting materials, then craft 3–5 minute multimedia stories from their interviews.
Festivals of Present-Day Yiddish Storytelling
The week of 1 December, various times (with Adrien Smith & Jake Schneider)
Premieres of the completed multimedia stories in celebratory “watch parties,” both online and at optional local gatherings.
Concluding Discussion
10 December (with Adrien Smith & Jake Schneider)
A closing conversation reflecting on the stories, the learning process, and the future of Yiddish storytelling.
Recordings
Sessions will be recorded in the event of absences and the recordings will be shared only with your fellow students.
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