Aviya Kushner is the Forward’s language columnist and the author of Wolf Lamb Bomb and The Grammar of God.
Aviya Kushner
By Aviya Kushner
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Culture Do Israeli Writers Still Care About Israeli Literature?
The prominent literary critic and editor Yigal Schwartz has published a new book that considers why Israeli readers are reading less Israeli literature in favor of work in translation — and it is sparking passionate conversation in literary circles in Israel. Schwartz is the senior literary editor for Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir, the largest publisher in…
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Culture Barbara Harshav Is First Hebrew And Yiddish Translator To Win Lifetime Achievement Award
Barbara Harshav, a translator of Hebrew and Yiddish literature, will receive this year’s prestigious PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, given every three years to recognize an outstanding translator for lifetime achievement. Harshav is the first Hebrew or Yiddish translator to receive the award — and in the world of Jewish literature, Harshav’s win is being…
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Culture Breathtaking, Rare Yiddish Magazines Get New Life Online
A treasure trove of Yiddish avant-garde journals from the period between the two world wars is now online through a remarkable digitization project called Milgroym. The project presents originals, translations, and commentaries, and the visuals are breathtaking; treats for the online reader include a drawing for a Chassidic costume for a modernist ballet, circa 1923….
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Culture World War II-Era Envelopes Suggest Polish Knowledge of Holocaust
As Poland’s Senate passed what The New York Times editorial page called “a needless, foolish and insulting draft bill that would penalize any suggestion of complicity by the Polish state or the Polish nation in the Nazi death machine,” the National Library of Israel announced that it had received an astonishing donation that proved just…
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Israel News How Israelis Are Planning For A Tsunami
Wild rain in Tel Aviv is causing some bizarre sights, like a fallen cactus piece stretched across a main street. Today, passersby stopped during their Friday pre-Shabbat shopping to look at signs delineating a path of escape in case of tsunami. “A tsunami means an earthquake,” opined a woman taxi driver, making her way through…
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Culture The Complicated Story Of How Israelis Greet Each Other In The Morning
Tel Aviv is a city of night owls, but the Mediterranean morning sun makes it hard to sleep in, which may be why morning means hearing waitresses all over the city respond to patrons’ “Boker tov” — “Good morning” — with boker or, meaning “morning of light.” But where does that response of light come…
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Culture Why ‘Shithole Countries’ Sounds A Bit More Poetic In Hebrew
If you’re wondering what “shithole countries” are in Hebrew, here’s the answer from Israeli newspaper Haaretz: medinot mechurbanot. Countries = medinot. And, well, shitty = mechurban. Of course, churban is “destruction” in Hebrew, as in the destruction of the Temple. Or Temples. For the uninitiated, churban is a college-appropriate word, but mechurban is not. Maybe…
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Culture Yiddish Cabaret in Israel Brings Odessa To Tel Aviv
Recently, a sold-out crowd packed the Sholom Aleichem House in Tel Aviv for Yiddish cabaret. The crowd swayed and sang to Yiddish songs, including one about a young woman who reaches Buenos Aires and sleeps in the train station, and thinks of her dear mother, who she left back home. The entranced, standing-room-only crowd seemed…
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