Yankl-Peretz Blum (Chair)

Yiddish is not the first language Yankl-Peretz spoke, but he considers that a mere fluke of history that he has dedicated himself to correcting. His grandfather was a typesetter in the Forverts, and his aunt (צו לאַנגע יאָרן) is a Yiddishist who was involved with Yugntruf and raised her kids with Yiddish. Yankl-Peretz missed out on much Yiddish in his childhood years, but now he’s making up for lost time. After college he moved to New York City, and now speaks Yiddish with most of his friends there, many of whom he met through Yugntruf. All of his jobs also involve Yiddish, including freelancing as a Yiddish tutor. He lives in a “Yiddish Hoyz” in Brooklyn, a five-minute walk away from a community comprising tens of thousands of Yiddish speakers. His activities at Yugntruf include being the chair of the executive board, running the website, and helping provide Yiddish-learning opportunities.

Leizer Burko

began learning Yiddish in order to be able to speak with his grandparents in Israel, who didn’t know any English. He received a BA in Medieval an Renaissance Studies from NYU, where he was interested especially in Germanic Philology. Afterwards he received a MA in Germanic Studies (Medieval Germanic Languages) from the University of Minnesota. Yiddish he knows both from the YIVO Summer Program and from the Yiddish newspaper the Forverts, where he worked for three years as a typist and editorial assistant. Currently he is a doctoral student at JTS in New York, where he studies Jewish history and Yiddish literature.

Jordan Kutzik

started learning Yiddish when he was about 16 in order to research the Holocaust from the perspective of Jewish survivor’s accounts and memorial books. After beginning to learn the language, however, he found that he was far more interested in the role of Yiddish in Jewish life and in the wealth of cultural and religious information, both through people and the written word, made available through it. Since discovering that the language, despite what he had grown up believing, is far from dead, he has dedicated much of his spare time to aiding networking among young Yiddish speakers. He is particulary interested in spreading resources to aid Yiddish speakers in raising Yiddish speaking children and is in the beginning stages of creating a multilingual website to that end. He joined Yugntruf in 2007 after being contacted by Arele Viswanath and became a board member in early 2008. He is a sophmore at Rutgers University majoring in Spanish and Linguistics with special interests in childhood bilingualism and Yiddish. He has studied Yiddish at Gratz College and at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at Vilnius University.

Julie Leye Sugar

started learning Yiddish from her husband about six months after they started dating. Her responsibilities as a board member include working on the website, development, and the Yugntruf zhurnal (journal). Leye studied playwriting at Hunter College under playwright Tina Howe, and she works at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life as Senior Associate for Leadership and Engagement.

Meena-Lifshe Viswanath (Treasurer)

been speaking Yiddish her whole life – her first word (besides calling for a parent) was “ti-a,” a childish pronunciation of “tir,” or door, indicating that she wanted someone to open the door! She is now an undergraduate in MIT studying civil engineering. Her responsibilites on the board include publicity, the website, and Yugntruf’s archives.

Judith Waletzky

is a native speaker of klal (Standard) Yiddish. Raised in a Conservative Yiddish-speaking household in New York City, her life-long friendship with other Yiddish-speaking children helped sustain this strong cultural theme within her Jewish identity. From age 2-12, she was part of Yugntruf’s playgroup, Pripetshik, for children from Yiddish-speaking homes. Her family has been attending Yidish-Vokh since 1977 and she has gone every year of her life. As a member of the Executive Board since she was 15, she plans events and designs Yugntruf’s promotional materials. She was most privileged to be the Director of Yidish-Vokh 2008, 2009, and 2010 and personally invites you to attend Yidish-Vokh 2011! Having just graduated from Northeastern University as an Architecture major, she finally has the time to enjoy wandering around Manhattan and imagining the future.

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Judith Bro Pinhasik (Coordinator)

has fourteen years’ experience in management and fundraising for health, education, environmental, and arts non-profit organizations. In the Yiddish world, Judith was Associate Director for Development for Living Traditions (KlezKamp). For ten years, she was the pro bono fundraiser and still sings with the Jewish People’s Philharmonic Chorus, which performs works entirely in Yiddish. Judith has a Certificate in Fundraising Management from New York University; she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Maryland with a BA in Political Science (Minor in Journalism) and an MA in Film History and Criticism. An actor for fifteen years, Judith is also a competent Yiddish speaker; her son, Joey, is learning Yiddish and Jewish culture at the Workmen’s Circle Midtown Shule and at Yidish-Vokh. She has been a Yugntruf member–and has enjoyed shmuesing, singing, and sunning at Yidish-Vokh–for more than a decade.