28 | MAY 23 • 2024 
J
N

B

efore World War II and the 
Holocaust, there were an 
estimated 11 million Yiddish 
speakers around the world. In recent 
years, it’s estimated there are about a 
quarter million Yiddish speakers in the 
United States, about the same number 
in Israel, and another 100,000 or so in 
the rest of the world. 
The future of the language is 
interesting to ponder. Where does the 
next generation of Yiddish speakers 
come from?
At the University of Michigan, Elena 

Luchina has led a small but mighty 
group of students who are learning and 
immersing themselves in the language 
in new and creative ways. 
Luchina, originally from Moscow, 
Russia, has been a Yiddish lecturer at 
the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at 
U-M for five years. 
The class, consisting of only five 
students, recently presented their final 
projects — something they worked on 
for a long time. 
This was the first year Luchina 
offered the final project in this 

particular way, customizing it around 
what the students wanted to do. At the 
beginning of the sequence, which spans 
multiple semesters, students decided on 
a topic or area of specialization for their 
final project — whatever they were 
interested in. 
Throughout the year, the students 
built skills in the language through 
their research for the project.
Their projects were wide-ranging 
and unique — from translating the 
Haggadah and a popular comic 
book into Yiddish — to an English 
translation of Yiddish newspapers 
from post-Holocaust displaced persons 
camps.

A YIDDISH HAGGADAH
Two students from Metro Detroit, 
Atara Kresch and Raffi Klausner, fully 
translated the Haggadah from Hebrew 
to Yiddish. 
Luchina says the process of 
understanding the original text in 
Hebrew and then rendering it into 
Yiddish required a lot of knowledge 
and learnedness. The final result was 
62 pages long and it was a year-long 
project. 
“It was very advanced work,” Luchina 
says. 
Kresch commends Luchina for 
pushing the class to keep learning and 
exploring another Jewish language that 
connects them to their past. 
“Specifically with the Yiddish 
Haggadah, it was really special to be 
able to complete this ambitious project 
in time for Pesach,” Kresch said. “I was 
able to surprise my dad with it, and he 
was able to read through parts of the 
Yiddish during our seder in Israel.” 

AUTHENTIC VOICES 
FROM DP CAMPS
A student from Ann Arbor, Ari Leflein 
translated Yiddish periodicals from 
Jewish displaced persons camps in 
Germany after the Holocaust. 
These Yiddish newspapers provided 
an opportunity to hear authentic voices 
from those DP camps. 
There was no shortage of interesting 
excerpts Leflein found in his research: 

Elena Luchina led a small group of U-M students 
immersing themselves in the Yiddish language. 

A New 
Generation of 
Yiddish

DANNY SCHWARTZ SENIOR STAFF REPORTER

OUR COMMUNITY

Atara Kresch, 
Noah Givner, 
instructor 
Elena Luchina, 
Raffi Klausner 
and Ari Leflein

