Our Team

Staff

Cartoon icon of a teal peacock with mango, lavender, peach, fuchsia, and dark orange tail feathers.

freygl gertsovski (fae/faer)

Director

Bio

freygl gertsovski is a cultural organizer, multi-disciplinary writer, and founder of several Yiddish communities, including Rad Yiddish and Queer Yiddish Camp, focusing on heritage reclamation and cultural production at the intersections of queerness, disability, post-Soviet identity, and Yiddishkayt. fae is passionate about fostering opportunities for cultural belonging and participation through accessible and inclusive events, drawing on decades of experience organizing around feminist, environmental justice, disability/mad pride, and trans/queer issues. freygl has been learning Yiddish for 8 years as a means to take seriously the call to decolonize ourselves and to collectively build the radical diasporic Yiddish world we wish. fae is a graduate student in Arts Administration and Cultural Management at Humber College in Tkarón:to/toronto.

Avi Fried (he/him)

Outreach Coordinator

Bio

Avi Fried has been teaching Yiddish since 2019, with a focus on welcoming beginners to the language. His classes are known for their go light go easy approach and a very Simpsons style sense of humor. He teaches using games, collaboration and creative word play. He is studying Yiddish language and literature at Lund Univeristy, Sweden – and will graduate in Spring of 2025 m”h.

Asa Brunet-Jailly (she/her)

Communications Manager

Bio

Originally from Quebec City, Asa Brunet-Jailly is a researcher, Yiddishist, and writer based in Montreal. She will soon begin a doctoral degree at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2024, where she will continue her research on Victorian literary portraits of the Jewish East End. Alongside her organizing with Rad Yiddish, Asa also works for KlezKanada and is an editor for The Imagist Literary Magazine. She enjoys knitting, all kinds of folk dance, and trying out vegan recipes.

Sorke Schneider (she/her)

Finance Manager

Bio

Sorke (Sarah) Schneider comes to the world of Yiddish from klezmer, which she started playing in 2014. She has since broadened her field of interest to include dance, language, and history. Sorke is also heavily involved in contra dancing and other folk arts. She has served as webmaster, board member, and treasurer for Hands Four Dancers of Ithaca for a number of years, and is eager to put her experience with bookkeeping, event planning, and chasing down tax forms to the service of Queer Yiddish Camp. Sorke has also done volunteer outreach for Yiddish New York, and is part of the Queer Yiddishist Shmueskrayz and Rad Yiddish organizing committees.