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Book Center Goes Digital
Long faced with extinction, Yiddish literature has been preserved for the digital age with a newly activated online archive. Since the beginning of February, more than 10,000 titles have been available for browsing, skimming and study via the National Yiddish Book Center, an Amherst, Mass., collection that includes more than one million volumes that have…
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Yiddish Teachers Form New Group
When Lori Cahan-Simon, a singer and music teacher at the I. L. Peretz Workmen’s Circle school of Ohio, in Cleveland, was promoted to Yiddish teacher 10 years ago, her excitement was hampered by anxiety. “I had no connection to other Yiddish teachers,” she told the Forward, “and when I looked online, I saw nothing.” Finally,…
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Books A Book of Insults — Exploring Yiddish Curses
If the classic Yiddish imprecation has an inverse, it is the Irish blessing. While the Gaelic bards gaily start benedictions with “May…” before politely wishing their recipient good fortune (“May the wind be always at your back; May the sun shine warm upon your face”), the Yiddish curse is a spell of invective, typically cast…
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Books Sholom Aleichem: Finding Freedom in America
‘Wandering Stars,” Yiddish master Sholom Aleichem’s comic novel about the Yiddish theater, has just been published in a new translation by Aliza Shevrin. The novel tells the story of Leibl and Reizel, two talented teenagers who flee their backwater shtetl with the help of a traveling Yiddish theater troupe. Sweethearts separated by corrupt theater companies,…
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Staple of Campus Life Now Comes at a Price
Los Angeles — On a rainy Friday night, nearly 100 Jewish students — and a handful of non-Jewish ones — gathered at the University of Southern California’s Chabad house to get their weekly dose of Jewish nourishment. And while the nourishment came in the form of a free meal, including homemade chicken soup, it was,…
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Life Imitates Art: An Excerpt From ‘Wandering Stars’
If you live long enough, you achieve your goal. The day of the big test arrived for the “Yiddish Star from Bucharest,” whom the press had elevated to a place among the greatest actors like Sonnenthal, Schildkraut, Irving, Possart, and Rossi. The magnificent, vast Nickel Theater was packed to the rafters and beautifully decorated. From…
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My Yiddishe Mama
The song describes “her wrinkled brow.” Botox smoothes her complexion now. No mameloshn does she speak, To her, that language is “all Greek.” “How few her pleasures” goes the song. Today that concept is all wrong, For currently the Jewish mom is On vacation in St. Thomas. These mamas glow with lipstick, rouge, The tools…
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Ralph Kaplowitz, 89, Original Member of the Knicks
Ralph Kaplowitz, an original member of the New York Knickerbockers who played in basketball’s first professional game in 1946, died at his home in the Floral Park section of Queens on February 2. He was 89. According to his daughter, Barbara Kaplowitz, the cause of death was kidney failure. At the age of 27, Kaplowitz…
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The Remaking of L.A.’s Jewish Federation
Los Angeles — When Stanley Gold, the powerhouse steward of Disney’s financial investments, took over last year as board chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, he made it known that business would not be done as usual. And it hasn’t. Over the past year, Gold, 66, has steered L.A.’s central Jewish charity —…
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‘Soul Memories’: Powerful Art
ROSALYN ENGELMAN, WHO “SPEAKS” HER CONSCIENCE THROUGH HER ART On January 16 it was freezing outside, but inside Gramercy Park’s National Arts Club there was a glow, as Rosalyn Engelman’s friends and admirers gathered at the opening of the abstract artist’s exhibit, Soul Memories. On display, a collection of new works, brought together for the…
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New Chief for West Coast Activist Group
Los Angeles — The West Coast’s leading Jewish social justice organization has named a former corporate litigator turned legal activist for the poor as its new executive director. Elissa Barrett, a 38-year-old attorney, will take the helm of the Progressive Jewish Alliance, the group announced February 2. Barrett, a University of Michigan Law School graduate,…
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