We are an arts-based Yiddish youth program, growing an inclusive and empowering learning community for Jewish and non-Jewish youth and young adults from all over the world. Together, we build a community of co-creation, sharing, learning, and celebration, embedded in the rich cultural tapestry of Yiddish culture: Jewish time and rituals, Yiddish language, history, and arts.
Immerse yourself deeply in Yiddish culture.
Generation J is built on principles of co-creation and co-learning, a project-based approach, as well as interdisciplinarity. These principles come together most eminently in what we call “projects”, participant-led, collaborative, academic, and artistic productions. You’re stuck with a translation? You have always had an idea for a photography project? Whether you’re an expert or have never done a project before, we’ll guide and mentor you in this process!
Create your own project, mentored by Yiddish artists and scholars.
Yiddish culture offers a vast diversity of fields. Generation J provides you with the opportunity to choose your own track from Yiddish Culture Courses. In these courses, we introduce you to important discussions in the Yiddish world, study texts, offer workshops on Yiddish dance, cuisine, music, and historical issues.
Learn in an inclusive
and diverse community.
Generation J holds space for a diversity of participants: some of you are at the forefront of Yiddish cultural production, some of you will learn your first letter of Yiddish with us. What’s bringing you together is a shared passion and curiosity for Yiddish learning and a commitment to community.
Meet young emerging artists, scholars, and activists from around the world.
On the first day of the program, we will mostly set the grounds for working, learning, and celebrating together. We will learn about power and hierarchies within our community, and how we may address them. Generation J - like any other community - is not free from discrimination that we experience in the outside world. Of course, we would love this to be different, but it can only be different if we acknowledge the reality of power relations and consider their impact on us and our communities.
Engage in a community that will grow
close to your heart.
Assimilation is not a fair deal: culture is to be given up for rights. We demand both: cultural depth and justice. We create a community that is both deeply Jewish and radically inclusive of Jewish and non-Jewish people. Generation J proves that these two values are not incompatible and that we don’t have to give up culture for relationships and respect. Assimilation is not a compromise, but a stalemate.
Celebrate Jewish tradition and resilience.
Even just saying Yiddish youth provokes several binaries, things that are supposed to be kept apart: man and woman, queer and straight, day and night, life and death, Jewish and non-Jewish, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Israel and diaspora, young and Yiddish. At Generation J, we question and discover our identities by building beyond the binaries they are usually set in.
Build beyond binaries.
In Jewish history and the present, cultural abundance is often paid for with the price of exclusion. An exclusion from non-Jewish communities, but also alternative interpretations, deviations, and the unfamiliar. Instead, we follow the historical lines that expose this dilemma as a false one. However complex your relationship to Ashkenazi Judaism is—you can find in Yiddish a lever to take your questions to a new level.
Ask new questions.
No participant needs to arrive thinking of themselves as an artist—because we already do. We believe that everyone holds creative potential. Generation J exists to unleash this potential within every participant and guide them into historically informed, self-conscious new Yiddish cultural productivity.
Explore your inner artist.
At Generation J, we’re hoping to build life-long relationships and communities. Our participants go on to be active members of their communities, and artists and researchers in the field of Yiddish culture. We continue to provide graduates with a platform to present their work, connect, and continue to grow. We are currently developing a digital arts magazine to feature current and former participants’ art, research, and opinion pieces. We’re also putting together a Generation J cookbook, as well as a collection of alumni reviews.
Make friends for life.
In our fellowship program, we support young artists and scholars in finding their own style of teaching. Through hands-on workshops and theoretical discussion, we will practice how to prepare for, teach, and evaluate a class. If you’re interested in the fellowship program, please register as a participant, and email Alma at alma.roggenbuck@othermusicacademy.eu.
Share your skills and passions
with others.
Register today to apply for the program, and receive updates about our events!
If you want to read more, here you can have a look at our sample schedule.
Become part of a movement.