Professor Miriam Hoffman, World-Renowned Yiddish Scholar And "The World’s Yiddishe Mameh," Has Died

Born Mirl Schmulewicz in Siberia in 1936, Hoffman spent her earliest years in the shadow of the Tobolsk Slave Labor Camp and the Russian border town of Saratov, before walking, at age nine, in a post-war refugee caravan from Poland to the Hindenburg-Kaserne Displaced Persons Camp in Ulm, Germany. That journey — from a stateless child behind barbed wire to one of the most influential voices in Yiddish language, academia and culture — became the foundation of a six-decade career devoted to proving that Yiddish was not a relic, but a living, breathing act of resistance to forgetting and a commitment to reviving the legacy of Ashkenazic Jewry.

Hoffman’s academic career began at the storied Sholem Aleichem Folkshul #21 on Bainbridge Avenue in The Bronx and culminated in 25 years as professor of Yiddish language and Jewish culture at Columbia University, where she turned an elective language course into a life-altering experience for thousands of students. Her 700-page textbook, “Key to Yiddish,” remains the preeminent reference for Yiddish educators around the world.

An award-winning playwright, Hoffman collaborated internationally on her Yiddish translations of Mel Brook’s The Producers (Montreal) and Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (Israel). Together with her longtime writing partner, Rena Berkowicz Borow, she was embraced by the late Broadway impresario Joseph Papp, co-writing the libretto for the groundbreaking 1989 Yiddish/English musical Songs of Paradise, staged by The Public Theater — a landmark moment in the modern rebirth of Yiddish theater that paved the way for later Yiddish-language productions of Waiting for Godot, Death of a Salesman, and Fiddler on the Roof.

For more than 35 years, Hoffman was a weekly columnist for the Forverts (The Yiddish Forward), where her thousands of essays fused sharp social critique with the warmth of Jewish folklore. “Yiddish will never die,” she insisted, “because it contains too much life — too much argument, irony, and love — to vanish quietly.”

In her later years, Hoffman extended her life’s work beyond the classroom, co-founding the Not-For-Profit Yiddishkayt Initiative, Inc. and its global platform, YILoveJewish.org, with her son, actor, director, and producer Avi Hoffman.

“My mother didn’t just teach Yiddish — she made the whole world fall in love with it,” says Avi Hoffman, Co-Founder of the Yiddishkayt Initiative. “She survived the worst of the 20th century and spent the rest of her life making sure the language and the people who spoke it would never be erased and forgotten. Every joke, every lecture, every column was her way of saying: “We are still here.” I have spent most of my life making sure her voice would be heard and remembered.”

Shiva took place at Country Club Towers, 10777 West Sample Road, Apartment 1105, Coral Springs, Florida 33065 on Friday, July 31st, 2026; 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.; Saturday, August 1st, 2026; 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. and Sunday, August 2nd, 2026; 6:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, tax deductible donations to support Professor Hoffman’s Yiddish legacy can be made to Yiddishkayt Initiative at: www.YILoveJewish.org/donate

Professor Hoffman is survived by her two sons, Avi and Benjamin; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild — and by a worldwide community of students, readers, theatergoers, and activists who carry forward her conviction that languages do not die of old age; they die of neglect.

About the Yiddishkayt Initiative, Inc.

Founded by Professor Miriam Hoffman and Avi Hoffman, the Yiddishkayt Initiative, Inc. (YILoveJewish.org) is a global resource dedicated to preserving and celebrating Jewish and Yiddish culture, education, and entertainment for new generations. Advocating for Jewish Pride, Building Cultural Bridges and Challenging antisemitism through the Arts. https://yilovejewish.org/