The Rena Costa Center is distinguished in Israel and throughout the world for its singular devotion to the academic study of Yiddish language and culture and for its outreach to Israeli schools and the Jewish community at large.

The Center’s home is in the Faculty of Jewish Studies on the Bar-Ilan University campus in Ramat-Gan. The Rena Costa Center’s courses expose hundreds of students to Yiddish poetry and literature, including the works of Mendele Mokher-Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, Y. L. Peretz, Isaac Bashevis-Singer, Abraham Sutzkever, Peretz Markish, the plays of Abraham Goldfaden, Jacob Gordin, Peretz Hirshbein, as well as Yiddish journalism from its roots in Europe to contemporary New York weekly Forverts, and the Yiddish cinema.

The Center’s affiliation with Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Jewish Studies (the largest of its kind in the world) offers the unique opportunity for synergy among Yiddish academics and leading Israeli scholars in Jewish history and literature, Bible and Talmud.

Bar-Ilan University’s Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies, founded in 1984, has developed a dynamic and growing program of education, outreach and research, including:

• Academic Research in the Yiddish Language and Culture

The Center’s distinguished Yiddish scholars are mentors to a new generation of Yiddish students. They expand the spheres of Yiddish studies through research chairs and original publications which generate renewed interest in all areas of Yiddish studies. Bar-Ilan University's Rena Costa Center is unique in its requirement that master’s and doctoral students submit their dissertations in Yiddish.




• Global Outreach

The Rena Costa Center participates in educating a new generation of Yiddish scholars and pedagogues to teach in communities across the globe. The Rena Costa Center has conducted college level seminars and summer schools in the Yiddish language and culture in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and Birobidzhan. In Israel, the Center brings together people from all over the world to participate in special study programs. Many of the Center’s seminars and symposia are open to the public, fostering interest and active participation by the community at large.




• The largest university center for Yiddish language instruction in the world

Every year, hundreds of Bar-Ilan University students enroll in courses in Yiddish language and culture. Students majoring in disciplines ranging from computer science and biology to the social sciences and the humanities gain insight and appreciation of the vibrant world of Yiddish heritage.




• Teaching Yiddish in Israel's Schools

Israel’s Ministry of Education has appointed Bar-Ilan University to supervise Yiddish instruction in all of Israel’s public elementary and high schools. The Rena Costa Center certifies Yiddish teachers and provides in-service programs to help them enhance and enliven their school curricula. Through the Center, hundreds of Israel schoolchildren—native Israelis, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and children of immigrants of Ashkenazic and Sephardic heritage—learn to speak and appreciate Yiddish and Yiddishkeit. Many students qualify for their high school matriculation exams in Yiddish.