Red Jews: In conjunction with its conference on “Jews and the Left,” the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is showing an exhibition on art from the “Yiddish Left-Wing Press.”

Courtesy of Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Red Jews: In conjunction with its conference on “Jews and the Left,” the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is showing an exhibition on art from the “Yiddish Left-Wing Press.”Read More

Poetry

Yiddish Poems From Daughter to Mother

Yiddish Poems From Daughter to Mother

By Renee Ghert-Zand

Sheva Zucker’s mother Miriam was still attending a women’s Yiddish reading group in Winnipeg, Manitoba, until just a few months before she died at age 97. So Zucker, executive director of the League for Yiddish, knew the best way to memorialize her: Start a blog of Yiddish poetry about mothers.Read More


Personal History

Love and Translation

Love and Translation

By Goldie Morgentaler

Goldie Morgentaler recalls sparring with her mother, the Yiddish writer Chava Rosenfarb, about the English translations of her work. It shows how much she cared about writing.Read More


Theater

Yiddish Theater Takes on Capitalism

Yiddish Theater Takes on Capitalism

By Rokhl Kafrissen

This season the New Worlds Theatre Project is presenting "Welcome to America," a new English translation of H. Leivick’s 1921 play “Shmates.” It's a naturalistic drama about the corrosive effects of American capitalism on a traditional Jewish family.Read More


Opinion

Why Yiddish Matters

Why Yiddish Matters

By Rokhl Kafrissen

On May 15, Speakers’ Lab and the Forward will present a moderated town hall-style event called “Now What? The Future of New Jewish Culture” at the 14th Street Y in downtown New York City. In preparation for the event Rokhl Kafrissen, Yiddish arts critic, writes about why she’s a Yiddishist.Read More


Forward Looking Back

100, 75 and 50 Years Ago in the Forward

100, 75 and 50 Years Ago in the Forward

By Forverts

The Jewish lord mayor of Dublin showed up in the Forverts building to greet the editorial staff and wish the paper a happy 60th birthday. Robert Briscoe talked about the incredible influence the paper has had on the American Jewish community and about how he had the honor of meeting Abraham Cahan.Read More


History

Living With Isaac Bashevis Singer

Living With Isaac Bashevis Singer

By Ilan Stavans

Who could live with Isaac Bashevis Singer? The sexual escapades of the most successful Yiddish writer in America were public knowledge. Still, Singer was a married man.Read More


Theater

Re-Evaluating Jacob Gordin, the ‘Yiddish Shakespeare’

Re-Evaluating Jacob Gordin, the ‘Yiddish Shakespeare’

By Joel Schechter

Jacob Gordin once predicted that 'Jewish theater in America has no future.' But he was wrong, and his own drama still has a role to play in that legacy.Read More


Literature

Going Back to Chaim Grade

Going Back to Chaim Grade

By Ezra Glinter

When Yiddish writer Chaim Grade died in 1982 he was highly regarded in Yiddish literary circles, though not as well known to English readers. But recent gatherings at YIVO and the Yiddish Book Center are bringing Grade's novels and poetry back to the attention of scholars and casual readers alike.Read More


On Language

From Esperanza to Shprintze

From Esperanza to Shprintze

By Philologos

Grammy-winner Esperanza Spalding burst on to the music scene. But her evocative first name goes back centuries and was transported to Eastern Europe, where it became Sphrintze in Yiddish.Read More


Forward Looking Back

100, 75 and 50 Years Ago in the Forward

100, 75 and 50 Years Ago in the Forward

By Forverts

Anyone who happened to be at the Jewish Arbitration Court on Madison Avenue at Clinton Street got a good glimpse a real live “angel” from Harlem-based Father Divine’s Black Heaven — a Jewish angel, one that left the Garden of Eden on the Lower East Side; she left her husband and children to go uptown and join the good father’s International Peace Mission.Read More


History

Touring Yiddish Tel Aviv

Touring Yiddish Tel Aviv

By Ofer Aderet

Tel Aviv may be known as the first Hebrew city, whose residents often struggled with the language of Eastern European Jews, but from its early days, a glorious Yiddish culture thrived there. Yaad Biran, a researcher of Yiddish culture and a tour guide calls the city “a forgotten city, Jewish and cosmopolitan, exciting and entertaining.”Read More


Film

Putting Contemporary Yiddish Writers on Film

Putting Contemporary Yiddish Writers on Film

By Pesya Portnoy

Boris Sandler is best known as Editor-in-Chief of the Forverts. Less known is his effort to preserve 10 contemporary Yiddish writers on film, talking about themselves and their paths through Yiddish literature.Read More


On Language

Why Being Messy Is Better Than Being a Bumpkin

Why Being Messy Is Better Than Being a Bumpkin

By Philologos

What’s the difference between a slob and a ‘zhlob’? To find the answer, Philologos messes around in the feed trough of linguistic history.Read More


Forward Looking Back

100, 75 and 50 Years Ago in the Forward

100, 75 and 50 Years Ago in the Forward

By Forverts

Famed German writer and exile Thomas Mann spoke before an audience of gentiles and Jews at an event that was organized by the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and took place at Carnegie Hall. In his speech, Mann accused Hitler of deadening the German people’s brains.Read More


Music

Shlomo Carlebach in Poland

Shlomo Carlebach in Poland

By Rukhl Schaechter

Filmmaker Menachem Daum has been busy at work on a film about Shlomo Carlebach’s historic concert tour of Poland in 1989. During the nine-day tour, Carlebach visited historic Jewish synagogues and cemeteries, and performed in four cities.Read More


Music

Q&A: Jesse Aaron Cohen on Tanlines and Yiddish

Q&A: Jesse Aaron Cohen on Tanlines and Yiddish

By Michael Kaminer

By day, as photo and film archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Jesse Aaron Cohen tends to thousands of images of bygone Jewish culture. By night, he’s half of the Brooklyn-based “existential pop” duo Tanlines.Read More


Theater

Thomashefskys on PBS

Thomashefskys on PBS

By Raphael Mostel

It is no small feat to recreate the world and emotions of a bygone era. But in his astonishing show celebrating his grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has done it. And it is a joy.Read More