O

n July 28, 82 students 
graduated from the 
Uriel Weinreich 
Summer Program in Yiddish 
Language, Literature and 
Culture, the world’s lon-
gest-running Yiddish summer 
program.
The program, offered by 
YIVO Institute for Jewish 
Research, saw a diverse range 
of graduates that included 
Armenian native and current 
Ann Arbor resident Emma 
Avagyan, 27, who is work-
ing toward her degree at the 
University of Michigan.
Avagyan, a U-M Ph.D. can-
didate in Middle East Studies, 

is also completing a graduate 
certificate program in Judaic 
Studies. Yet Yiddish is just 
one of many languages that 
Avagyan has picked up during 
her extensive international 
studies.
She currently speaks six 
languages: Armenian, English, 
Russian, Arabic, Hebrew and, 
most recently, Yiddish.

PASSION FOR LEARNING
While studying in Yerevan, 
Armenia, Avagyan — whose 
great-grandfather was Jewish 
— grew close to the Armenian 
Jewish community. It’s a small 
community that the World 

Jewish Congress estimates 
includes some 500 to 1,000 
Jews, who are mostly of 
Ashkenazi origin with some 
Mizrahi and Georgian Jews.
Through her connections to 
the community, Avagyan began 
to learn Hebrew, but “not very 
well,” since there weren’t many 
(if any) Hebrew speakers with-
in it.
To pursue her Hebrew 
learning further, Avagyan 
completed a master’s degree at 
Israel’s Ben-Gurion University 
of the Negev in Hebrew and 
Israel Studies, returning home 
to teach Hebrew in her local 
Jewish community in Armenia.
She also worked as a 
Hebrew teacher for two years 
in Armenia, where her efforts 
contributed to the creation of 
a center for Hebrew language 
and Judaic studies in part-
nership with the Consul of 
Armenia and the head of the 
Armenian Jewish community.
In addition, Avagyan stud-
ied at Paideia-The European 
Institute for Jewish Studies in 
Sweden and then continued to 
a joint program at Heidelberg 
University in Germany, where 
she began to explore the 
Yiddish language.
With Yiddish roots in the 
German language, it was not 
uncommon for Avagyan to 
encounter Yiddish speakers in 
Germany. 
“In the beginning, I thought 
it was very hard,” she says of 
trying to learn the Yiddish lan-
guage. Yet Avagyan could read 
Hebrew, and from there she 
went on to learn the nuances of 
Yiddish grammar and dialects.

BREAKING THE NORM
After moving to Ann Arbor 
last year to pursue her studies 
at U-M, where her research is 
focused on a sociolinguistic 
analysis between the Armenian 
and Hebrew language and the 
revitalization of both languag-
es, Avagyan heard of YIVO 

through a friend and decided 
to apply for their summer 
Yiddish program.
The program consists of six 
weeks of intensive study of 
Yiddish language, literature 
and culture that includes more 
than 180 course hours. This 
year’s electives featured unique 
courses on Yiddish song, cook-
ing, pickling, archival research 
and the art of translation. 
The program also included 
the Yiddish Civilization Lecture 
Series, a lecture series covering 
broad topics such as Yiddish 
opera, poetry and literature to 
education, popular culture and 
the development of the Yiddish 
language. 
Avagyan was one of many 
Yiddish candidates in this 
year’s summer cohort break-
ing the stereotype of who is 
studying Yiddish nowadays. 
Her graduating class included 
an astronomer specializing in 
climate imagery and a student 
from Russia who fled Moscow 
and is currently living in 
Germany, for example.
Upon Avagyan’s graduation, 
her baby son, Tigran, who is 8 
months old, also received an 
honorary certificate and made 
an appearance at the virtual 
graduation ceremony.
Throughout the online 
summer program, Tigran 
spent many classes “learning” 
Yiddish himself as he sat on his 
mother’s lap, thus receiving a 
certificate from YIVO for “par-
ticipating” in the program.
As Avagyan nears her antic-
ipated 2027 graduation from 
U-M, she has big goals for 
what she plans to do with her 
Yiddish knowledge. In addition 
to continuing to teach Hebrew 
in her native country, she plans 
to return to Armenia to write 
the first Yiddish-Armenian 
book that can be used for 
teaching and to study Yiddish.
“It’s going to be really inter-
esting,” she says, “and a new 
thing to bring to Armenia.” 

Connecting 
Armenian and 
Yiddish Culture

80 | AUGUST 31 • 2023 

SPOTLIGHT

Armenian native and Ann Arbor student 
graduates YIVO Yiddish Program.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Emma Avagyan

