Yiddish historian and musicologist. born in Moscow, Russia. In 1996, completed M.A. in Russian and Jewish History and Archives at the Russian State University of Humanities and Project Judaica. In 1997, received a Yiddish teaching diploma from the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies. D.Phil., Oxford, 2000. Currently, Assistant Professor of Yiddish and Yiddish Literature at the University of Toronto. Teaches various undergraduate levels of Yiddish language, literature, and culture . Specializes in Yiddish culture. Presented several papers on Jewish song, including: “Yiddish songs in the Soviet Union.” Presentation at the conference “Modern Jewry and Arts”, Philadelphia, 2001 (organized by the Centre for Advanced Judaic Studies);”Singing about Stalin: Yiddish folk songs in the Soviet Union; Trying to transform the tradition: Jewish identity in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.” Series of lectures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the University of Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 1999; “Yiddish Songs in the Soviet Union: the Reflection of Official Ideology in the Popular Culture of 1917 – 1941.” Presentation at a meeting of the American Association of Jewish Studies Conference in Boston, Dec. 1998;”‘Soviet’ and ‘Jewish’ in Soviet Jewish Popular Culture 1917 – 1941: the case of Yiddish songs.” Presentation at the graduate seminar of Russian sub-faculty, faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University, November 1998; and “The genres of the Jewish folk-songs in the Soviet Union.” Presentation at the International Conference on Jewish music, Moscow, 1996.
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/german/~shternshis/