Yiddish: Past, Present, and Future 
Today, many American Jews believe that Yiddish, the traditional vernacular of Ashkenazi Jews, is a dead or dying language. This belief is not surprising, given that millions of Yiddish speakers died in the Holocaust and others suffered the consequences of post-war assimilation. However, thanks to the work of cultural preservationists over the past eighty years, a flourishing global community of secular Yiddish speakers exists today.
 
In her talk, Maya González will discuss the history of post-Holocaust Yiddish, the establishment of the Yiddish Book Center (the world's first Yiddish museum), and her own experiences as a non-native Yiddish speaker in the twenty-first century. In celebration of the Yiddish Book Center's new permanent exhibition, Yiddish: A Global Culture, Maya will provide an optimistic, fresh perspective on the vibrant future of Yiddish as a diasporic culture.

Bio
Maya "Zuni" González is a Jewish historian, budding Yiddishist, and Holocaust and genocide educator. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, she earned an MA in History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she worked as the Librarian at the Institute of Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies. Her love for books and Jewish history converged during her time as a Yiddish language student at the Yiddish Book Center. She currently works as the Harriett and Seymour Shapiro Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center. Find out more about Maya's current projects (in English and Yiddish) at maya-gonzalez.com.