Rukhl Schaechter is the Yiddish editor of the Forward and the producer of the YouTube series, “Yiddish Word of the Day.” She loves cooking, Israeli folk-dancing and talking to her grandchildren.
Rukhl SchaechterYiddish/Forverts Editor
By Rukhl Schaechter
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Books Projected Prayers Grow in Popularity as Part of Jewish ‘Visual Tefillah’ Services
Several years ago, Rabbi Lance Sussman, spiritual leader of the Reform synagogue Keneseth Israel, in Elkins Park, Pa., received the grim news that he was going blind. After surgery, eye patches and other treatments, his sight miraculously improved. The experience left him with a profound appreciation for the visual in life. “We live in an…
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News Heartless Thieves Steal Torah Scrolls From Bronx Synagogue
A Bronx synagogue suffered a terrible blow this week: the theft of three sifrey-Torah, or Torah scrolls, each one worth $45,000. The theft at the Orthodox shul, Young Israel of Mosholu Parkway, on East 208th Street in the Norwood Heights section, was discovered by a worker last Sunday. Besides the Torah scrolls, the thief also…
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Fast Forward Hasidic Modesty Patrols Enforce Jewish Law in Orthodox Neighborhoods
One of the most striking ironies of the Nechemya Weberman trial, which ended with his conviction on 59 counts of sexual abuse, was the revelation that the unlicensed therapist was a member of the Va’ad Hatznius, or modesty patrol, the self-appointed arbiters of right and wrong in the Satmar community. Until recently, the Va’ad Hatznius…
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Culture German Travelogue Unveils Stubborn Anti-Semitism
An unusual book was published recently in Germany: a travelogue that reveals, through hundreds of interviews in nearly 40 cities and towns in Germany, a disturbing obsession with the Jews, as well as outright anti-Semitism, among the German population today. The book, “Allein Unter Deutschen” (“Alone Among Germans”), published by the European publisher, Suhrkamp, is…
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News Inside Hasidic Modesty Patrols
One of the most striking ironies of the Nechemya Weberman trial, which ended with his conviction on 59 counts of sexual abuse, was the revelation that the unlicensed therapist was a member of the Va’ad Hatznius, or modesty patrol, the self-appointed arbiters of right and wrong in the Satmar community. Until recently, the Va’ad Hatznius…
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The Schmooze Englander’s Inspiration
The Forverts’s Rukhl Schaechter once heard a Yiddish professor complain that his American students knew nothing about Stalin’s execution of 13 Soviet Jews, which took place in August 1952. Even more discouraging, he added, was their “complete lack of interest” in the Yiddish culture that once thrived in the Former Soviet Union. Two days before…
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News Photo of Jew’s Lynching Goes on Block
A photograph of the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish pencil factory superintendent, in Marietta, Georgia, was sold for $3,125 at an auction. The warm-toned photograph on postcard stock includes a pencilled caption on the back by an unidentified hand with the words: “Hanging of Leo Frank.” It sold at Sotheby’s on October 3….
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News From Awkward to In Love
Sitting in a circle, the group of nine men and women giggled nervously as they discussed things not to say or do on a first date. To an outsider, their suggestions might seem obvious. “Don’t talk about your last boyfriend or girlfriend,” one plump woman ventured with a giggle. “Don’t tell them what you don’t…
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