Forverts Staff
By Forverts Staff
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Yiddish World WATCH: Poet And Refusenik Yosef Kerler Remembers Terrifying Run-In With KGB
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. In this moving video, we learn about the dramatic life of the great Yiddish poet from the former Soviet Union, Yosef Kerler, in both his own words and through the eyes of his son, the poet Boris Karloff. In one scene, Kerler describes the terrifying moment when…
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Culture Is An Arizona Family Haunted By A Yiddish-Speaking Ghost?
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Usually, reports of alleged paranormal events feature people who suspect that their house is haunted, or believe that they’ve seen a UFO or received a signal from a long deceased relative. Rarely, however, is the main focus of such a report a Yiddish word. But that’s just…
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Culture WATCH: Yosl Birstein Gave A Yiddish Voice To Israel’s Charms And Foibles
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Yosl Birstein was such a terrific storyteller, both in Yiddish and in Hebrew, that he eventually became a legendary figure on the Israeli radio. In this video filmed in 1994, Birstein portrays with authentic Yiddish charm and humor the various characters he met after settling in Israel:…
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Culture Tell The Forverts About Your Favorite Heirloom
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Those of us who love Yiddish are often naturally drawn to objects of a previous era. No surprise, then, that many of us have boxes of old stuff stashed away in the attic or closet, related either to our own past or to that of a relative…
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Yiddish World WATCH: The Barry Sisters, America’s Most Famous Yiddish Singers, Perform Live
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The Barry Sisters, Minnie “Merna” Bagelman (1923-1976) and Clara Bagelman (1920-2014), were the most popular Yiddish singers in American history. The sisters initially gained fame thanks to the popular radio show “Yiddish Melodies in Swing,” which began in 1937. The show bridged American and Yiddish culture by…
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Culture Uriel Weinreich’s 50th Yahrzeit Honored With Special Issue Of Linguistics Journal
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Although he is better known in the Yiddish cultural world for his landmark textbook “College Yiddish” and his “Modern English-Yiddish/Yiddish-English Dictionary”, Uriel Weinreich was also a pioneer in the field of sociolinguistics. Even today, 50 years after his tragic death from cancer at the age of 40,…
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Yiddish World VIDEO: Avrom Karpinovitch, Writer, Remembers Jewish Criminals In Vilna
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Vilna writer Avrom Karpinovitch dedicated his life to describing the colorful personalities of the lower class and criminal element of his city on the eve of the Holocaust. In this video he tells us about Tall Tamara, the Jewish streetwalker; Avrom Mosevski, the glutton; and Gedalke the…
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Film & TV WATCH: New Documentary Recounts The Search For Isaac Babel
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The film “Finding Babel” portrays theater professor Andrei Malaev-Babel’s journey across the former USSR seeking traces of his grandfather, Russian-Jewish author Isaac Babel. The film was recently released on Vimeo in English-, Russian- and Ukrainian-language versions. In the English version of the film, Isaac Babel’s quotes are…
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