Yiddish Hoyz
“Lomir zikh oyslebn”
(English: see below)

יִדיש־הױז, אַ נײַע פּראָגראַם פֿון ייִדיש־זומער װײַמאַר, איז אַ שטיקל ייִדישלאַנד בײַם יערלעכן פֿעסטיװאַל פֿאַר ייִדיש־קולטור און מוזיק. די גרופּע ייִדיש־רעדערס װױנט צוזאַמען און פֿאַרברענגט אַ גאַנצע װאָך אױף ייִדיש. פֿאַרן ערשטן יאָר האָבן מיר מער נישט קײן פֿרײַע פּלעצער אין הױז, נאָר איר קענט אַװדאי נאָך פֿאַרברענגען מיט אונדז אין דער פֿעסטיװאַל־װאָך אָדער, מירצעשעם, קומעדיקס יאָר.

ערשטע װאָך׃ 10-3 אױגוסט 2025
צװײטע װאָך׃ 18-10 אױגוסט 2025

Speaking a language together is like musical improvisation – spontaneous, collaborative communication – and good improvisation requires practice and experience. Sadly, there’s no easy flight to Yiddishland, and few chances for new speakers to be surrounded by the language they have learned in class.

Yiddish Hoyz, a new project of Yiddish Summer Weimar (YSW), is an immersive Yiddish-speaking space where conversational speakers (intermediate or above) will live in the language for one or two weeks during the festival, cooking and eating together, playing games, watching Yiddish films, and simply hanging out in Yiddish. This will complement and deepen the learning of our classroom language programs. Hoyz-mates will discover and fill gaps in their vocabulary and grammar (vi zogt men “hot tub”?), create new Weimar Yiddish slang, and quickly become more confident speakers by chatting with new friends.

Like Yiddishland, Yiddish Hoyz moves around. In this first year, we will be in three locations.
Week 1 begins in an exclusive house in a village just outside Weimar, which we’re calling the Datshe, and ends with two nights in town at Hotel Leybl (our affectionate Yiddish name for the four-star Leonardo Hotel).
In Week 2, which is YSW’s 25th anniversary Festival Week, we will be living at the Gortnhoyz, located on the campus of the European Youth Education Center (EJBW) between two huge parks, just across a bridge from Weimar’s City Palace and the Old Town.

Hoyz-mates commit to speaking Yiddish exclusively at home and on the grounds of the Datshe and the Gortnhoyz. However, Yiddish has always existed in multilingual contexts, and of course you can still speak other languages around Weimar as appropriate.

After our group breakfast, your schedule is up to you. While living in the Hoyz, you can choose to take one of the YSW music or dance workshops (not included), attend concerts and other cultural events, explore the city and the region, do some remote work on your laptop, or spend festival week immersed in Yiddish culture with the free mini-workshops at the Other Music Academy: singing, dancing, reading, and chatting with the larger YSW community. The program ends on the 17th with a grand public celebration of the festival’s 25th anniversary.

Registration for Yiddish Hoyz 2025 is now closed. But if you come to Weimar for the Festival Week, you can still meet the Hoyz-mates during the Mini-Workshops at the Other Music Academy and, if you know some Yiddish, speak it with us!

Initiator and coordinator: Jake Schneider, Yiddish poet and founding coordinator of Shmues un Vayn, Berlin’s Yiddish-speaking social club.

Week 1: 3-10 August 2025 - “Oyf datshe biz shabes”

We will spend the first five days at our own private datshe in the village of Gaberndorf, in the hills outside Weimar (20 minutes by bus), then move into town to the four-star Leonardo Hotel (aka Leybl), where we’ll celebrate shabes with the wider YSW community at Friday’s Shtim fun Harts evening and the Saturday night dance ball.

Week 1 is ideal for those seeking maximum immersion: you can easily speak Yiddish all week if you want, and we will plan all sorts of informal activities together in the Datshe and the countryside such as barbecues, nature walks, movie nights, games, and more. There’s even a hot tub!



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Week 2: 10-18 August 2025 - “Oyf der yidisher gas”

Week 2 is Yiddish Summer Weimar’s 25th anniversary festival week, so the Hoyz-mates will have a full calendar of Yiddish culture and will spend much less time at home.

At the Gortnhoyz, we will speak Yiddish at breakfast and a group gathering every morning. Then a group of us will take the scenic walk to the Other Music Academy (OMA), which is hosting free mini-workshops on Yiddish culture every day: singing, dancing, instrumental music, reading Yiddish poetry, plus a daily Yiddish-speaking hang-out with games and other activities. Your registration also includes lunch at the OMA, where we will establish a Yiddish-speaking table for the week.
The festival week program also includes a series of film screenings about Yiddish music, concerts every evening, and the Late Night Cabaret, an open mic where you are welcome to perform. You can decide for yourself how much or little to attend.

The week will conclude with an all-star anniversary concert of Yiddish musicians, performers, and ensembles on Weimar’s Marktplatz square. We will say a tearful zay gezunt to Yiddish Hoyz the next day at check-out.


Mini-Workshops in the Festival Week