In Februar–May 2021, ILARA organized a series of conferences devoted to Jewish languages, i.e. intra-community languages associated with a specific Jewish population and originally limited to the region of its distribution. The series, comprising 16 lectures by internationally renowned specialists, was coordinated by Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (EPHE-PSL / Oxford).
A partner institution of ILARA, the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages (OSRJL) of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (OCHJS) at the University of Oxford is offering from October 2021 a range of free online courses in 18 vernacular Jewish languages, written and/or spoken in medieval and modern times. Some courses are offered at multiple levels.
Constituting extremely important examples of intangible Jewish heritage, some of these Jewish languages are on the verge of extinction while others are already extinct. The OSRJL therefore responds to a real need: European universities offer very few learning opportunities for most of these rare Jewish languages, while new research programs highlight their fragility and their immense role in the life and Jewish cultures.
Auditors must register with OSRJL (and not ILARA!). Course schedules, registration forms and deadlines are available on the OSRJL website.
The language of instruction is English. Languages taught include:
- Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic (Assaf Bar Moshe, Free University of Berlin)
- Classical Judeo-Arabic, levels 1 and 2 (Friederike Schmidt, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich)
- Haketia (Carlos Yebra López, University College London)
- Judeo-French (Sandra Hajek, Georg-August University of Göttingen)
- Judeo-Greek (Julia Krivoruchko, University of Cambridge)
- Judeo-Hamadani (Saloumeh Gholami, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)
- Judeo-Italian (Marilena Colasuonno, University of Naples)
- Judeo-Moroccan (Haviva Fenton)
- Judeo-Neo-Aramaic (Dorota Molin, University of Oxford)
- Judeo-Provençal (Peter Nahon, Centre national de la recherche scientifique)
- Judeo-Persian, levels 1 and 2 (Ofir Haim, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
- Judeo-Tat (Gilles Authier and Murad Suleymanov, École Pratique des Hautes Études – Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)
- Judeo-Turkish (Laurent Mignon, University of Oxford)
- Karaim (Henryk Jankowski, Adam-Mickiewicz University of Poznań)
- Kivruli (Hélène Gérardin, Institute for Linguistic Heritage and Diversity, France)
- Ladino, levels 1 and 2 (Carlos Yebra López, University College London)
- Old Yiddish (Diana Matut)
- Yiddish, levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 (Beruriah Wiegand, University of Oxford)
