
Jordan Kutzik is the deputy editor of the Yiddish Forward. Contact him at [email protected].
Jordan Kutzik is the deputy editor of the Yiddish Forward. Contact him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The legendary actor Fyvush Finkel, who got his start in Yiddish theater and later made the transition to the English stage and television, died a little over a year ago. The last surviving star of the heyday of America’s Yiddish theater, he was still performing only weeks…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The decision by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, as part of its transformation into a new agency—the Israel Broadcasting Corporation— to drastically reduce its daily Yiddish radio programming to a weekly half-hour broadcast greatly disappointed Yiddish listeners around the world. None of us, however, were surprised. The writing…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The great Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever was born on July 15th, 1913 in Smorgon, a city in what is now Belarus. Known today primarily for being one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and for his wartime service as a Jewish Partisan in the forests…
This post originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Jews like many immigrant groups sought both to assimilate into broader American society and to hold onto their roots. One way to express pride in their Americanism and at the same time celebrate their own culture was to sing patriotic American songs in Yiddish. During the period…
During our first days and weeks in Israel we readily absorbed a dozen or so Hebrew words, which spiced up our ordinary lives with exotic new sounds and smells. Among them was the term madrich, which means “guide” and was to play a substantial role in our lives. I would go so far as to…
This article originally [appeared](http://yiddish.forward.com/articles/203879/-years-of-the-forverts-the-hindenburg-disaster/ “appeared”) in the Forverts. Saturday, May 6, marked 80 years since the Hindenburg exploded while attempting to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 passengers, crew members and one man on the ground. Widely seen newsreels, along with the now legendary radio broadcast featuring Herbert Morrison crying while reporting the tragedy…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Besides Mexico City, which hosts the annual Yiddish Idol competition, there really is nowhere on earth where you would expect to hear a Yiddish song performed as part of a singing competition, let alone on national television. Recently, however, the American-Jewish singer Amalia Rubin performed an excellent…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Unlike many American newspapers during World War II, which largely ignored the ongoing Nazi extermination of European Jewry – most notoriously, the New York Times – the Forverts continually printed reports on the Nazi genocide. Despite its prominent coverage in the Forverts, the articles were not always…
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
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