Yiddish Stuff
There are a ton of cool Yiddish-related sites and resources on the web. These are four of my favorites, but I recommend using any of these as jumping off points for exploring the vast world of Yiddishkayt online.
What I love about it: In Geveb takes an edgy new approach to Yiddish studies, using social media, blogging, and free access to English academic articles to popularize interest in the academic study of Yiddish culture, literature, language and pedagogy.
What I love about it: Unlike many other ethnographic or testimonial projects engaging Jews in Eastern Europe, Aheym focuses on the periods before and after trauma, not just the Holocaust. In addition, Dov-Ber and the other primary interviewers use a more conversational, open-ended interview style that leads to fascinating new insights and expressions of Jewish identity, life and lore in the Former Soviet Republics. Moreover, by going to visit the same people over the course of ten years, the interviewers have developed deep, personal relationship with the interviewees--this leads to richer and more complex narratives than if they had been one-offs.
What I love about it: The National Book Center is the brain/heart/soul-child of Aaron Lansky (author of Outwitting History), who began collecting discarded Yiddish books in the '70s. From museum-quality exhibits in the actual building on the Hampshire campus to their list of 100 must-read Yiddish books, The NYBC offers something for everyone. For me, the searchable digitized collection of more than 11,000 Yiddish books is essential to my work.
What I love about it: I suspect this website was the result of not wanting to answer another graduate student question about whether X Yiddish text is available online. This is a curated list of Yiddish texts available for free online from the earliest to most recent. The altyidish (Early Yiddish) section is particularly valuable to me and this kind of information is not available anywhere else on the web.
Medieval Stuff
There are also tons of great medieval resources online, but each of these offers some exciting and targetted approach to studying the medieval in ambitious and exciting ways.
What I love about it: Well, first and foremost, I am on the editorial board of one of their book series: Jewish Engagements, which invites manuscripts that explore Jews in the context of the Global Middle Ages. In addition, they offer a wide range of scholarly texts, events (KZOO!), etc. that bring together medievalists from across disciplines. They're based right next-door at Western, too!
What I love about it: Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (author of numerous important books on medieval literary topics) has brought together many of the most influential and important scholars in the field to blog about the difficult issues at stake in medieval studies (see, for example, Dorothy Kim's post about Teaching Medieval Studies in a Time of White Supremacy, here: http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2017/08/teaching-medieval-studies-in-time-of.html).
What I love about it: Asa Mittman (author of Inconceivable Beasts) is president of this organization dedicated to the scholarly study of the medieval (and not-medieval) monstrous. The focus on theory and application shifts the tone from conspiracy theories to the functions of the monster and the monsterized.
What I love about it: Food! And all the connected issues (consuming, consummation, etc.).
Other Academic-y Stuff
What I love about it: hastac is a collaborative approach to improving teaching and learning across the disciplines in a way that uses technology responsible. It's provides lots of resources for enhancing your classroom with technology or for teaching online and the forums engage contemporary issues facing higher ed in sophisticated ways.