Beginning in the 1920s and ‘30s, Yiddish radio connected Jews worldwide. In New York City, the Jewish Daily Forverts’ station WEVD — known as “the station that speaks your language” — hosted a wide variety of immensely popular Yiddish programs with news and cultural highlights.
Today, we have fewer opportunities to hear spoken Yiddish, but it’s an essential need for people who want to learn or polish their Yiddish language skills.
That was the impetus for Rukhl Schaechter’s new podcast, Yiddish with Rukhl, a podcast for people who love spoken Yiddish, brought to you by the Forverts. In a 15-20 minute podcast, Rukhl shares engaging Forverts articles written in conversational Yiddish. Each episode focuses on a single topic. Before and after the Yiddish reading, she explains how listeners can benefit from the experience of hearing Yiddish, even if their knowledge of the language is at the intermediate level.
The limited series Yiddish with Rukhl, which was launched in early January, consists of 12 episodes that drop each Sunday morning.
Yiddish with Rukhl features original music from Hannah Hoffman and is made possible with production support from Micah Berger-Sollod.
We’d love your feedback! Email us at [email protected]. A dank!
Articles about each episode
The day my mother and aunt ventured out to the forbidden carnival
How Jews celebrated Purim in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust
What activists for at-risk languages can learn from each other
What’s missing in our Jewish high schools
The most popular Yiddish folktale is one about a bubbe and her grandchildren
Old Hasidic stories with a new twist
What Jewish immigrants in America discovered about love
A successful matchmaker introduces me to a psychiatrist
ABOUT THE HOST
Rukhl Schaechter is the editor of the Forverts, the Yiddish section of the Forward, the award-winning American Jewish media outlet. She oversees the Forverts' Yiddish language content and events, including cooking shows, events, the Yiddish Wordle and the “Yiddish Word of the Day.” She is a highly-regarded leader in the Yiddish world and one of the foremost stewards of Yiddish language and culture for the next generation.