Germanic Languages

It is with deep sadness that the department shares the news of the passing of Miriam Hoffman, a long-time faculty member in the department, who passed away in July of this year at the age of ninety. A survivor, scholar, playwright, columnist, and beloved teacher, she devoted more than six decades to proving that Yiddish was not a relic of the past, but a living language of memory, resilience, intellect, and joy, becoming, in the process, the fiery, funny, and fiercely principled matriarch of modern Yiddish culture. 

Born Mirl Schmulewicz in Siberia in 1936, Hoffman spent her earliest years in the shadow of war, displacement, and political terror, including the Tobolsk slave labor camp and the Russian border city of Saratov, before making the arduous postwar journey through Poland to the Hindenburg-Kaserne Displaced Persons Camp in Ulm, Germany. Hoffman's intellectual journey began in the Yiddish schools of the Bronx and ultimately led her to Columbia University, where she earned her Master's degree in 1983. She joined the Columbia faculty to teach Yiddish language and Jewish culture in 1992, which she did with great success and distinction until her retirement in 2017. At Columbia, she transformed the study of Yiddish into a life-changing encounter for generations of students, and her landmark 700-page textbook, Key to Yiddish, remains a foundational resource for Yiddish educators around the world.

An award-winning playwright, Hoffman brought Yiddish theater into conversation with the wider stage world through translations and adaptations that traveled internationally, including Mel Brooks' The Producers in Montreal and Neil Simon's The Odd Couple in Israel. With her longtime collaborator Rena Berkowicz Borow, she also co-wrote the libretto for the groundbreaking 1989 Yiddish/English musical Songs of Paradise, produced by The Public Theater under the encouragement of Joseph Papp, helping lay the groundwork for the modern rebirth of Yiddish theater. For more than 35 years, Hoffman was a weekly columnist for the Forverts (The Yiddish Forward), where her essays combined wit, moral clarity, social criticism, and the intimate cadences of Jewish storytelling; in later years, Hoffman expanded her mission beyond the academy by co-founding the Yiddishkayt Initiative, Inc. and its global cultural platform, YILoveJewish.org, with her son, actor, director, and producer Avi Hoffman.

She will be deeply missed by all those who cared for her, and who care for Yiddish language and culture.