Dr. Jessica Kirzane is a scholar of Yiddish Studies, specializing in questions of race, gender, and regionalism in American Yiddish fiction. She is the Associate Instructional Professor of Yiddish in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago, where she teaches all levels of Yiddish language, as well as courses in Yiddish culture and literature.
Kirzane is also the editor-in-chief of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, a central forum for academic and public scholarship, literary translation, and pedagogical materials for the field of Yiddish Studies.
Kirzane is a literary translator. She has translated three Yiddish novels by Miriam Karpilove: A Provincial Newspaper and Other Stories (Syracuse University Press, 2023), Judith (Farlag Press, 2022) and Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle Against Free Love (Syracuse University Press, 2020).
Kirzane is available for lectures, presentations, one-time classes, freelance translations, and editing work.
Jessica Kirzane 