OSRJL Applications for Michaelmas Term 2025 are now open!
As part of the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages (OSRJL), applications for language classes beginning in Michaelmas Term 2025 are now open! The deadline to apply is 12 September at 12 noon UK time.
Classes beginning in Michaelmas Term 2025 include those on the following languages:
- Haketia
- Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic
- Classical Judeo-Arabic
- Judeo-Italian
- Judeo-Moroccan
- Judeo-Neo-Aramaic
- Judeo-Persian
- Judeo-Tat
- Karaim
- Ladino
- Old Yiddish
- Yiddish
For more information on the programme and how to apply, please consult the OSRJL page and our News/Announcements page on our website. If you have questions, please email us at osrjl@ochjs.ac.uk.
Jewish languages are essential and incorporeal parts of Jewish history, creativity, culture and identity. Most of them are currently in danger of extinction while others are already dead, known only from early writing. Various research programmes stress the immense role of vernacular languages in Jewish life and culture as well as point to their fragility, yet universities offer very few learning opportunities for most of these rare Jewish languages.
Created in August 2021 by the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies (OCHJS) in collaboration with the Institut des Langues Rares (ILARA) at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Paris, the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages (OSRJL) offers free, online teaching of rare Jewish languages and their cultural-historical contexts—along with a public lecture series, academic blog, Visiting Fellows programme, Jewish music classes (this year focusing on the history of Yiddish music!) and language Cafés—accessible at no cost to accepted students and members of the general public around the globe. By doing so, the OSRJL aims to preserve, spark interest in, enable access to and reflect on the nature and role of Jewish languages as rich linguistic facets of Jewish life and history. It is the first school of its kind globally.
You can read about the OSRJL’s second year, 2022–23, in the Impact Report:
In 2023–24, expanded the language offerings to include classes on 3 languages new to the programme—Haketia, Judeo-Hamadani and Kivruli, teaching a record 18 languages. Languages taught through the OSRJL in 2023–24 included:
- Haketia (Dr Carlos Yebra López, University College London)
- Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic (Dr Assaf Bar Moshe, Freie Universität Berlin)
- Classical Judeo-Arabic (Friederike Schmidt, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
- Judeo-French (Dr Sandra Hajek, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
- Judeo-Greek (Dr Julia G. Krivoruchko, University of Cambridge)
- Judeo-Hamadani (Professor Dr Saloumeh Gholami, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt)
- Judeo-Italian (Dr Marilena Colasuonno, University of Naples)
- Judeo-Moroccan (Haviva Fenton)
- Judeo-Neo-Aramaic (Dr Dorota Molin, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge)
- Judeo-Persian (Dr Ofir Haim, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, & Maximilian Kinzler)
- Judeo-Provençal (Dr Peter Nahon, Université de Neuchâtel)
- Judeo-Tat (Professor Gilles Authier & Dr Murad Suleymanov, EPHE, Paris)
- Judeo-Turkish (Professor Laurent Mignon, University of Oxford)
- Karaim (Professor Henryk Jankowski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)
- Kivruli (Dr Hélène Gérardin, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales/EPHE)
- Ladino (Dr Carlos Yebra López, University College London)
- Old Yiddish (Dr Diana Matut)
- Yiddish (Dr Beruriah Wiegand, OCHJS, University of Oxford)
Some of the languages we teach—such as Classical Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-French, Judeo-Provençal, Judeo-Persian and Judeo-Greek—are extinct, and our teaching is therefore based, at least in part, on medieval texts and manuscripts written in these languages.
To receive notifications about application opportunities, as well as other activities of the OSRJL, follow the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies on social media (X: @OCHJSnews, Facebook: Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies, LinkedIn: Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies and Vimeo: OCHJS) and/or sign up to its Activities Email List by emailing academic.administrator@ochjs.ac.uk. To learn more about the OSRJL programme as a whole, please visit our website or email us at osrjl@ochjs.ac.uk.
We hope to see you in one of our classes and/or at one of our events soon!
Madeleine Trivasse (OSRJL Coordinator; Academic Registrar & Publications Officer of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies)
With: Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (OSRJL Founder; President of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies; Professor of Hebrew Manuscript Studies, EPHE, PSL; Fellow, Corpus Christi College)