Our mission

The mission of the Yiddish Arts and Academics Association of North America (YAAANA) is to promote Yiddish language and culture through academic and artistic events and through Yiddish food. YAAANA strives to preserve and advance Yiddish arts culture (literature, theater, music, and dance) through community-building, multi-generational, events within the US.

More about YAAANA

In the United States, Yiddish has been trapped within two discrete, hermetic spheres: the ultra-Orthodox sphere, which engages the religious aspects of Yiddishkeit, and the academic sphere, which tends to study secular Yiddishkeit of the past. As a result, Yiddish language and culture have not been popularized, are often viewed as a relic of the past, and fail to find resonance in daily life and modern culture. YAAANA distinguishes itself by bringing Yiddish culture to the public sphere through accessible and engaging programming that exposes the general public to the richness, depth, and multi-faceted nature of living Yiddish culture.

Some of YAAANA’s specific goals are:

1) to provide leadership in the study of theatre and interdisciplinary performance.

2) to promote cross-disciplinary conversations among humanities and arts faculty and graduate students, along with academic and professional theatrical practitioners.

3) to facilitate the workshopping of academic and artistic works in progress.

4) to provide a forum for discussing works of theater and performance in the region.

In order to facilitate these ends, we meet regularly as a group during the academic year to discuss readings and performances, workshop our own ideas, and participate in panels and workshops with theater practitioners from the region and across the world.

YAAANA was founded by Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh and is based in San Diego, California, but was first piloted in Ann Arbor, Michigan between the Fall of 2013 and Spring of 2016. YAAANA had a soft launch in January 2017 and became fully functional in March 2017.

YAAANA is currently in the process of becoming the International House of Yiddish.

Live Interview with Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh (In-Person)