Contemporary Haredi Yiddish Bilingual Pedagogical Materials

Abstract

This article examines Hebrew- and English-medium pedagogical materials aimed at Haredi learners of Yiddish. Our main findings are 1) the materials are produced by and for the community, which reflects the commonly held Haredi view that knowledge of Yiddish is a key element of in-group identity and therefore must be maintained and taught, 2) the learning materials tend to adopt an inductive approach informed by the traditional Ashkenazic taytsh educational model, where forms and structures are absorbed through exposure, rather than a deductive one, which differs from most non-Haredi Yiddish pedagogical resources, 3) some features (e.g., personal pronouns) presented in the materials are more conservative than those typically used in spoken Haredi Yiddish, and there is considerable variation among the different resources vis-à-vis the grammatical elements presented (e.g., noun case and gender, which supports earlier research demonstrating that these features are absent from or in flux in Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish).