On February 15, 2017 the first session of the basic Yiddish language course, organized amidst close cooperation between the World Jewish Congress Yiddish Centre and Vilnius Public Jewish Library, took place in the library premises.

Before the lesson, WJC YC director Lev Milner congratulated the audience and wished the students to acquire good knowledge of basic Yiddish. The library's director Žilvinas Beliauskas introduced the lecturer, Ph.D. Eglė Bendikaitė, and pointed out that twice more applications were submitted than the course capacity. Nevertheless, the director himself alongside with the librarian Žydrūnė Tichanavičienė joined the group of the students in order to learn elementary Yiddish, which seems to be very helpful in their work

After the director's speech, Dr. Bendikaitė told a few words about her professional experience, her academic record and about her own path towards the language. Her Yiddish started and further improved at the intensive summer courses in Yiddish language and literature at Vilnius Yiddish Institute in Vilnius University. She also attended Yiddish courses at other institutions in Europe. At present she is the lecturer at Vilnius Yiddish Institute.

In the current course, comprising 32 academic hours, the group of 24 Lithuanian students of higher educational institutions will be taught elementary Yiddish. The classes will last until May 31.

This course aims to enable non-Yiddish speaking people to familiarize, read and understand Yiddish in the first place. Classes focus on key language skills and incorporate grammatical structures, colloquial expressions, exercises, simple texts, dialogues, proverbs, songs, audio materials and appropriate vocabulary, which will serve as the background for further studies in that field.

.After completing the course and passing the exam, the students will be granted academic credits to be recognized by any higher education institution.