Jessica Kirzane is the Lecturer in Yiddish at the University of Chicago. She earned her PhD in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University in 2017, where her dissertation focused on interethnic romance in Jewish American fiction in Yiddish and English in the early twentieth century. Jessica was a 2017 Translation Fellow and an 2018 Pedagogy Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center and is a former editor and contributor for the Teach Great Jewish Books website of the Yiddish Book Center. Jessica's work has previously appeared in the Journal of Jewish Identities, Zutot, and The Sacred Encounter: Jewish Perspectives in Sexuality (CCAR Press, 2014) and her translations have been published in jewishfiction.net, Columbia Journal, Pakn Treger, Your Impossible Voice, and Queen Mob's Teahouse. She is the translator of Miriam Karpilove's Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle Against Free Love (Syracuse UP, 2019). Jessica is the Editor-in-Chief for In Geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies.
CONTRIBUTOR
Jessica Kirzane
University of Chicago

RELATED ARTICLES
Blog
“The rhythm and rhyme had to leap off the page”: An Interview with Ellen Cassedy about Translating Yiddish Children’s Poetry
Jessica Kirzane
An interview with translator Ellen Cassedy about her two translations of Yiddish children’s poetry into English: a collection of prewar children’s poems for a book called “Yiddish Zoo” and a collection of Boris Sandler’s “Good Morning” poems for children.
Nov 16, 2020
Pedagogy
Improvisational Performance in the Language Classroom: An Example from a Beginner’s Yiddish Class
Jessica Kirzane
Blog
Weaving in Yiddish: An Interview with Michael Bass and Berit Engen on Yiddish Community and Creativity in Oak Park, IL
Jessica Kirzane
Texts & Translation
ברוך דיין אמת
Blessed is the True Judge
Leon Kobrin
Translation by Jessica Kirzane
Blog
The Latest in Yiddish Studies in English: 2017
Rachelle Grossman, Erin Faigin, Saul Noam Zaritt and Jessica Kirzane
Pedagogy
Teaching Guide for “Invitation to Participate: Teaching with Sholem Aleichem,” by The Editors
Jessica Kirzane
Interview
Yiddish Linguistics and Digital Humanities: A Conversation with Michelle Chesner about the Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazi Jewry
Jessica Kirzane
Pedagogy
From Kansas to Kentucky in a Jewish Literature Classroom: A “Creative Option” for Reflection Papers
Jessica Kirzane
Pedagogy
Teaching Guide for Yoysef Kerler’s “Old Fashioned” and “The Sea” (trans. Evrona)
Jessica Kirzane
Article
“This is How a Generation Grows”: Lynching as a Site of Ethical Loss in Opatoshu’s “Lintsheray”
Jessica Kirzane
Texts & Translation
טאַגעבוך פֿון אַן עלנטער מיידל אָדער: דער קאַמף קעגן פֿרײַער ליבע
Diary of a Lonely Girl or the Battle Against Free Love, Part 2
Miriam Karpilove
Translation by Jessica Kirzane
Texts & Translation
טאַגעבוך פֿון אַן עלנטער מיידל אָדער: דער קאַמף קעגן פֿרײַער ליבע
Diary of a Lonely Girl or the Battle Against Free Love, Part 1