Presentation

Based in Barcelona’s historic Jewish quarter, Yiddish Barcelona is a new program that aims to expand opportunities for learning Yiddish language and culture within Spanish and Catalan speaking contexts, as well as to promote awareness of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage in Spain and Catalonia, and to introduce lesser-known Yiddish works from Latin America. 

The program combines intensive language classes with a rich cultural program, and is open to anyone interested in learning or deepening their knowledge of Yiddish.

Three language levels will be offered (beginner with no prior knowledge, beginner with prior knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet, and intermediate), along with personalized tutoring and a daily Yiddish theater and song workshop led by the teaching staff. Students will participate in a guided tour of the old Jewish quarter, a Jewish cooking workshop, and will join a Shabbat meal as a closing of the program.

In the afternoons and evenings, the program will feature cultural activities open to the general public:  roundtable discussions on topics such as the influence of Don Quixote on Yiddish literature, audiovisual testimonies of the Shoah in Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish in Latin America and conversations on the task of translating Yiddish into Catalan, among others. 

While Yiddish Barcelona addresses the need for preservation and dissemination of Yiddish as an endangered language, it also seeks to create multi-cultural dialogues with Judeo-Spanish and Catalan, to renew the language and its community of speakers, and to create new audiences for Yiddish, based in its new home at Casa Adret. 

Yiddish Barcelona 

19 - 24 july 2026