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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Culture A Different Drum: How a Modern Orthodox 23-Year-Old Danced Her Way Into a Unique Spotlight
One of this year’s arts fellows at Drisha, a Torah study center for women that is located on New York’s City’s Upper West Side, is a 23-year-old Barnard College graduate named Anna Schon. As a product of the Modern Orthodox day schools, she blends into the student body easily. But when she is not studying…
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News The Key Dilemma
In many cities around the globe, hotel guests enjoy hi-tech conveniences. Lobby doors whiz open automatically; the faucets in public restrooms begin spurting water as soon as a hand approaches and toilets flush when the user stands up. Most important, entering one’s room is easier than ever before: Instead of the cumbersome, old-fashioned key, the…
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Culture My Father’s Words
This month, during the first yahrzeit of my father, Mordkhe Schaechter, of blessed memory, I recalled a story my father used to tell us about his paternal grandfather, Reb Itsye Mordkhe — a shokhet (slaughterer) who was not very popular among the butchers of the shtetl because whenever he rendered one of their animals treyf,…
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News Yiddish Comes to the Non-Hasidic Orthodox Classroom
In a brightly lit classroom, decorated with colorful posters and Hebrew lettering, the 24 second grade schoolgirls, dressed in crisp blue uniforms, listened as the young, modestly attired teacher reviewed the Genesis chapter in which God commands Abraham to leave his homeland. “Vayomer — who knows the meaning of the word vayomer?” the teacher asked…
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News Rabbi Navigates Polish-Jewish Minefield
Warsaw, Poland – After one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Poland was vandalized last week, the chief rabbi of Poland found an unexpected source of help for the clean-up: 20 Polish art students and the mayor of the town himself, all of whom helped scrub the 100 gravestones spray-painted with black swastikas. The incident,…
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News Krakow Jewish Fest Features Notable Absence: Jews
Krakow, Poland – About 13,000 people crowded the main square in the cobblestone-paved former Jewish quarter of Krakow last week for the finale of this year’s Jewish Culture Festival. The event — which is funded by the Polish government, the city of Krakow, the Friends of the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival in New York and…
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News Historic Yeshiva Faces Uncertain Future
A jewel of Eastern European life has been returned to Jewish hands, but will the community be up to the task of holding on to it? This is the dilemma facing the Jewish community of Belarus, which has been struggling to maintain the building that once housed the historic Volozhiner Yeshiva. Two months ago, authorities…
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Culture Remembering ‘Hair’ and The Tangle of the 1960s
Although no one celebrates it, a historic date in the American calendar was marked two weeks ago. On April 29, 1968, the musical that encapsulated the mood and spirit of the 1960s opened on Broadway. “Hair” both shocked and titillated its audiences with its in-your-face rejection of the values of the older generation, encouraging young…
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