FACULTY
The Steiner Summer Program faculty reflect a wide range of interests in contemporary Yiddish scholarship and a variety of disciplines and knowledge. Over the summer, interns participate in a daily, 90-minute Yiddish language course, followed by a 90-minute class taught by visiting faculty who are in residence at the Book Center for a week or two at a time. Supplementary lectures and workshops are taught by leading scholars of Yiddish and Jewish Studies and prominent Yiddish cultural activists. Among the faculty members teaching in 2008 are:

Core Faculty:

Samuel Kassow is the Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and a master of science from the London School of Economics. The author of numerous articles and scholarly talks in English, Russian, Polish and Yiddish, Professor Kassow has also lectured and taught in Mexico, Lithuania, Russia and Poland. He is currently a lead consultant to the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. His latest book, Who Will Write Our History: Emanuel Ringelblum and the Secret Ghetto Archive, was published by Indiana University Press.

Ellen Kellman is an assistant professor in Yiddish Language and Literature at Brandeis University. She has her Ph.D. in Yiddish Literature from Columbia University. She researches and writes about modern Yiddish literature and East European Jewish cultural history, especially the history of Yiddish print culture. She has been teaching Yiddish language and literature at the university level since 1987, including at Columbia University, the University of Toronto and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Poland.

Hankus Netsky, is the National Yiddish Book Center's Vice President of Education. He is the founder and director of the internationally renowned Yiddish music ensemble Klezmer Conservatory Band and serves as research director of the Klezmer Conservatory Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to research in and perpetuation of Yiddish music. Mr. Netsky has taught Yiddish Music at New England Conservatory, Hebrew College, and Wesleyan University and holds a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and Bachelor's and Master's degrees in composition from New England Conservatory.

David Shneer is associate professor of history and director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver. He is the author of Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture, co-author of New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora and editor of Queer Jews. He has lectured in Russia, Germany, Canada, and across the United States on modern Jewish culture and Soviet Jewish history, and he has served as scholar-in-residence at the Hebrew Union College and as the Pearl Resnick Postdoctoral Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His academic articles have appeared in journals in the United States, Britain, Israel, and Russia.

Naomi Seidman grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home in Boro Park, Brooklyn, earned her BA at Brooklyn College and her PhD at the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently the Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and the director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Seidman is the author of A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish, which explores the gendered relations between Yiddish and Hebrew; and of Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation. She is also coeditor and translator of a collection of short stories by Dvora Baron and the author of numerous scholarly articles.

Yuri Vedenyapin grew up in Moscow, and received his B.A. from Harvard and subsequently entered the graduate program in Yiddish studies at Columbia University, receiving his M.A. in 2006. His interests in Yiddish include old and modern Yiddish literature, East European Jewish folklore, and the history of Yiddish dialects and stylistic standards. He is particularly devoted to oral sources, and much of his research has drawn on his interviews with Yiddish writers, actors, and members of Hasidic communities. He has taught Yiddish at Columbia University, Moscow State University, and the Yiddish summer program in Warsaw, Poland. In addition to his academic pursuits, he performs songs in Yiddish, Russian, and Polish.

Guest Artists & Lecturers:

Michael Alpert is a pioneering figure in the current renaissance of East European Jewish klezmer music. He is internationally known for his performances and award-winning recordings with Brave Old World, Khevrisa, Kapelye, David Krakauer, and other artists. He is adept at 20 languages and is recognized for his command of ethnic vocal styles from Russian to Mexican. Alpert's appearances have included concert halls, festivals and clubs throughout North America, Europe, Israel, and Australia. He is active as a scholar, writer, producer and educator in Jewish ethnomusicology and cultural history, and is the leading contemporary researcher and teacher of East European Jewish traditional dance.

Jeffrey Shandler is an associate professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. He received a PhD and master's degree from Columbia University and a B.A. from Swarthmore College. He regularly teaches classes on modern Yiddish literature and culture, American Jews and the media, and shtetl life. He is the translator of Emil and Karl, 2006; and the author of Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture, published in 2005, among other books.

Jeff Warschauer is internationally renowned as a mandolinist, guitarist, Yiddish singer and teacher. He is a member of the faculty at Columbia University and a program director for KlezKanada. Jeff is also a composer whose music has been heard in films and theater productions, on Public Radio International and on HBO. His solo CD, "The Singing Waltz: Klezmer Guitar and Mandolin," has received widespread critical acclaim.

Michael Wex is a Canadian novelist, playwright, lecturer, performer, scholar and author of books on language and literature. His specialty is Yiddish and his book Born to Kvetch was a surprise bestseller in 2005. He has lectured and taught widely.

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