Michael Yashinsky CV
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Michael Yashinsky Yiddish Instructor and Researcher, Writer, Director, Actor [email protected] | www.yashinsky.com ——————————————————————————————————————— EDUCATION Harvard College, A.B. Cum Laude, 2007-2011 Concentration: History and Literature (Modern Europe subfield) Awarded Highest Honors by department Secondary concentration: Government (International Affairs subfield) Citation in German language Focuses of coursework: history and literature of 19th and 20th century Britain, Austria, and Germany; European languages; European Jewish history, languages, and literature; playwriting; theatre; agrarian society and the dairy industry; culinary history; poetry; children’s literature Yiddish Teachers’ Seminar, August 2016—Copake, NY1 Selected for a fellowship to attend this seminar on the best practices of Yiddish pedagogy, led by master Yiddish instructor Sheva Zucker, who invited me to present my own session at the seminar, on teaching Yiddish through theatre Vilnius Yiddish Institute Summer Program, July-August 2015—Vilnius, Lithuania Student in the most advanced of four available levels, studying Yiddish literature, language, and the Jewish history of Vilna, “the Jerusalem of Lithuania”; for final project, wrote a Yiddish-language screenplay, A vilner tsimes [A Vilna stew] that I filmed on the streets of Vilnius and am in the process of editing Steiner Summer Yiddish Program, June-July 2014—Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA 2-month intermediate Yiddish course combined with work for the Center; in internship portion, worked in education and research, doing biographical research on Yiddish writers for an anthology of short stories in translation then being planned by Anita Norich of the University of Michigan and Josh Lambert, YBC Academic Director, and creating unique Yiddish-language pedagogical materials (under Asya Schulman, Director of the YBC’s Yiddish Language Institute) RESEARCH INTERESTS Current fields of research: pockets of Yiddish culture in the Midwestern, Southern, and Western regions of the United States, as well as Latin America; Ashkenazic Eastern European food; Yiddish theatre; Yiddish encounters with the occult; interactions between Christians and Yiddish-speaking Jews PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP October 2012: Became a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists (as a stage director) LANGUAGES Fluent: English (native), Yiddish, German, Hebrew, Spanish Intermediate: Italian Have studied at the collegiate level: Ladino (Judæo-Spanish), Russian 1 Bolded activities are those directly related to Yiddish-language teaching, research, writing, and performance. !1 Michael Yashinsky Yiddish Instructor and Researcher, Writer, Director, Actor [email protected] | www.yashinsky.com ——————————————————————————————————————— EMPLOYMENT Yiddish Book Center, September 2015-August 2018—Amherst, MA Fellow; Applebaum Fellow; Applebaum Senior Fellow; Education Specialist —Most recent project was collaborating in the creation of a new first-year multimedia Yiddish textbook, In Eynem, to be published by the Yiddish Book Center. My chief domain in this project is authentic texts: finding authentic Yiddish-language materials in a variety of mediums (film, poems, stories, songs, radio, newspaper advertisements, etc.), devising ways to present them in the textbook, and writing exercises using them, along with surrounding cultural information. At the same time, co-taught a beginners Yiddish course for the Five Colleges; created and edited educational resource kits on Jewish literature and culture for the new site, Great Jewish Books Teacher Resources (teachgreatjewishbooks.org); undertook a trip to Jerusalem to advise on a potential Yiddish exhibition at a Holocaust museum in the capital; and wrote on and translated Yiddish literature for the Center’s website and journal, Pakn Treger. —Before this, I was the first recipient of the Applebaum Fellowship, a position awarded to young Yiddishists who show promise in the field, to work and research at the YBC as full- time staff. My other responsibilities in this and my current position have included: teaching Yiddish to visiting high school and college classes; leading educational opportunities for our students and advising them in their Yiddish-language activities (discussion groups, Yiddish nature walks, language lessons, theatre workshops; a summer Theatre Club, etc.); serving as a facilitator for a Reboot fellowship, curating and interpreting Yiddish materials in our collection for the creative use of a group of artists; planning and executing a weeklong lecture tour representing the Yiddish Book Center at various locations around Detroit, in which, among other appearances, I taught courses to teachers and students at the Frankel Jewish Academy and a seminar on Yiddish in Detroit at Wayne State University’s Cohn- Haddow Center of Jewish Studies; returning to Detroit on a voluntary basis to build, curate, and catalogue a new Yiddish library at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, drawing from the shul’s basement archive; serving as managing editor for the 2016 Translation Issue of our magazine, the Pakn Treger; administrating a program to train Yiddish-English translators; participating in book rescue expeditions (including a week in Mexico saving nearly 10,000 Yiddish books); researching and writing original content on Yiddish literature and culture for the YBC’s website; translating from Yiddish and Hebrew (essays, poems, archival clips of authors speaking); and conducting oral history interviews in Yiddish. Frankel Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit, 2013-2015—West Bloomfield, MI —Directed a Yiddish play with the students, the first Yiddish-language play performed by a non-Chassidic high school in the United States since the Holocaust, as reported by the Yiddish newspaper Forverts [Forward], which called the production “historish” [historic] —Taught two classes of Spanish III and Spanish IV—created engaging curriculum (including the examination of linguistic and historical connections between Sephardic Jews and Spanish society), taught Spanish grammar and vocabulary, as well as culture and history of the Hispanophone world, guided students through short performances of Spanish- language songs and scenes, and composition of papers, poetry, and fables based on Ladino proverbs —Also worked as Communications Specialist, producing a weekly newsletter for this college preparatory Jewish high school (my alma mater); editing and proofing; writing articles for and running a news website (fjanews.org); writing for and editing Annual Reports, grants, !2 Michael Yashinsky Yiddish Instructor and Researcher, Writer, Director, Actor [email protected] | www.yashinsky.com ——————————————————————————————————————— and letters to donors. As the leading person in the Communications Department, supervised one other employee. Michigan Opera Theatre (Detroit Opera House), 2012-2015—Detroit, MI —Assistant directed a number of operas and directed two children’s operas with the Michigan Opera Theatre Children’s Chorus—in the latter position, I directed fully staged productions with casts of over 80 Detroit youths, aged 8 to 16 years old, and led workshops for them in acting technique, language, movement, improvisation, etc. —Also worked as Coordinator of Community Engagement for the opera house’s Communications Dept., planning free concerts, lectures, and other events to educate the public about opera, classical music, and dance; delivering multimedia presentations on opera at local libraries, museums, schools, and theatres; writing and arranging “classroom guides” for schools on the season’s operas and ballets; collaborating with fellow arts and educational organizations in the area to teach about opera and culturally mobilize the public Eileen McDonagh, Professor of Government, 2011-2012—Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science Researcher and co-writer on project relating the origins of social welfare institutions to the history of European hereditary monarchies. An article written with my assistantship, “Ripples from the First Wave: The Monarchical Origins of the Welfare State,” was published in the American Political Science Association’s journal Perspectives on Politics (December 2015). Maya Jasanoff, Professor of History, 2011—Harvard College Reseatrcher and cataloguer of media and visual culture relating to British history PRIZES Inaugural Applebaum Fellowship, January 2016; renewed September 2016 First recipient of this annual prize from a Detroit-based foundation to fund a Yiddishist spending a year honing his or her scholarship at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA Fishman Foundation for Yiddish Culture Grant, December 2014 For Frankel Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit, won a grant to produce a Yiddish- language one-act play with the students of the school, from this New York foundation that awards prizes for projects that promote young people learning Yiddish Tent: Fashion “Pitch” Prize, August 2014 At the concluding pitch event of the this Yiddish Book Center and Federation CJA- organized workshop on Jewish involvement in the garment industry, my team won this grant to develop “Pack Light,” a line of tote bags featuring portraits of Jewish activists and containing tools relevant to the social causes they advanced. The first bag, honoring labor activist Léa Roback, launched September 2015 in Montreal. Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, Spring 2011 Annual Harvard prize for the most distinguished senior theses at the College, for work entitled, Churning Hearts: The British Milkmaid in the Nineteenth