This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Thanks to Yiddish’s status as an official minority language in Sweden, the Scandinavian nation finances many initiatives to encourage its use. Besides the yearly international Yiddish seminar, a program sponsored by the Yiddish authority in which lecturers and performers from around the world speak to Sweden’s Jewish…
Few of us will lead a life as full as my “shviger” (mother-in-law), Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman: a life that spanned an ocean with an unremitting creative urge and a sense of personal purpose that encompassed a universe. While it may appear that her tragedies outweighed her joys, she dazzled the world with her accomplishments and was…
On the Yiddish Song of the Week blog, Forverts associate editor Itzik Gottesman writes about “Mayn shifl” (“My Cradle”) by poet Leah Kapilowitz Hofman, as sung by Nitsa Ranz: Nitsa Ranz was born in Poland in 1922 and emigrated to America in 1950. Mayn shifl (My Cradle) was recorded at an event that I produced…
On the Yiddish Song of the Week blog, Forverts associate editor Itzik Gottesman writes about “A Sikele, a Kleyne,” as sung by his mother, Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman: “A sikele, a kleyne ” is based on a popular poem by Avrom Reisen called “In suke.‟ I know of at least three recordings: Louis Danto’s “Masters of the…
What happens when a pan-cultural jazz cabaret diva sings the songs of the first Yiddish poet to win a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship? Well Theresa Tova has been getting in some practice with the songs of the Forward’s good friend Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, so whatever happens should be of a high caliber. Find…
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