Itzik Gottesman
By Itzik Gottesman
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Forverts in English Five Passover shtetl traditions you’ve never heard of
Some of the best descriptions of shtetl life come from the stories and essays by the Yiddish writer B. Gorin (1868-1925). Author of the first book about the history of the Yiddish theater, Gorin also had an eye for writing about everyday life, both in Europe and in America. In his book “Fargesene nigunim” (“Forgotten…
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Forverts in English My touching – and funny – moments with Forverts obituaries
When I first began working at the Forverts in the year 2000, I had already missed out on the old traditions of typesetting and printing; the reign of the digital world had begun. But tucked away in the corners of the hall where the typesetters once worked, remained artifacts of yesteryear: the telegraph ticker tape…
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Forverts in English When Christmas Was a Time of Fear for Jews
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. We all know about the American Jewish tradition of dining out in Chinese restaurants on Christmas Eve. It’s a sign that American Jews have always enjoyed themselves that night, alongside their fellow Americans, albeit not quite in the same way. When Jewish immigrants came to America, they…
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Forverts in English The Shul Knocker: The Protagonist Of Rosh Hashanah Eve
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. In the shtetls of Eastern Europe, the shul knocker (Yiddish: shulklaper or shulrufer), often the synagogue’s beadle, would wake up his fellow congregants in time for morning prayers and in the middle of the night for slikhes or slichos, the penitent prayers recited throughout the month leading…
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Culture Scenes From The Forverts: When Hasidic Proofreaders And Secular Editors Went Head-To-Head
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It is part of a series on Forverts memories written by and about present and past Forverts writers and editors. By the time I began working at the Forverts as an associate editor under Boris Sandler, I had missed out on the paper’s venerable traditions of Yiddish…
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Culture What Was Passover Like Before WWII? 5 Facts You May Not Know
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. If you‘re ever looking for descriptions of life in the shtetl, the most informative source is the work of B. Gorin (1868-1925). Though he was best known as the author of the first history of the Yiddish theater, Gorin was also a great writer with a special…
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Forverts in English What a Convert to Christianity Says About The Jews
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. In 1836, a man called Haym Isaacs published a book in England called “Ceremonies, Customs, Rites and Traditions of the Jews.” The book — a warm portrayal of the folkways of the Polish and German Jews — was so popular that two more editions were published. What’s remarkable…
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The Schmooze How to Sing Like a Real Folk Singer
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here Can you say with certainty that someone sings in an authentic Yiddish style? Fortunately, we have materials to help us figure it out — the records and CDs of folksingers, the recorded compilations from Ruth Rubin, Sofia Magid, Ben Stonehill and others; the recordings in the…
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