About Me / Contact

About Me

Nick_Block_2013

A professor of German and Jewish studies. Professional Yiddish translator and German translator. See my academic profile.

I speak three languages–English, German, and Yiddish, and can read two more–Hebrew and Aramaic. I translate all documents for business, websites, and legal purposes, but I specialize in translating handwritten Jewish genealogy documents, which often contain multilingual German, Yiddish, Hebrew and Aramaic elements. I enjoy genealogy and work as a freelance translator to provide services for families who want to know more about their roots.

I am happy to provide a free consultation and estimate. Contact me using the form at right or e-mailing me directly: [email protected] . Preferably scan your documents on a flatbed scanner, in color, at a high resolution (600 dpi).

FACEBOOK: yiddish.translator
TWITTER: @jewyid

WEBSITE: translations.nickblockphd.com
WEBSITE: www.yiddish-translator.com

 Experienced Yiddish Translator

I first learned Yiddish in yeshiva and garnered an appreciation for the language after eating meals with Chassidic and Yerushalmi families in Jerusalem, who solely spoke Yiddish with me. The research for my dissertation and current manuscript relied heavily on pre-war Yiddish journals and archives. I learned standard / “klal” Yiddish while at New York University and the Max Weinreich YIVO program. There, I learned how to read and decipher handwritten materials for translation. I now teach Yiddish, German, and even a course called “Yiddish for German speakers” as a professor. Yiddish is a living language, and I like to speak it, to read Der Blatt, and to buy recent cultural products from the Chassidic community, including children’s books, games, and CDs. 

Experienced German Translator

I started learning German in school at age 11 and became infatuated with the language after studying Jewish history in my college German classes. I later studied in Berlin and Münster, Germany. In Jerusalem, I worked for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum Archive translating Nazi government files on the confiscation of Jewish property in Austria after 1938. For my PhD in German studies and Jewish studies, I wrote a dissertation on the cultural exchange between Yiddish and German-Jewish literatures, 1870 to 1930. This research relied heavily on pre-war German-Jewish journals and archives.