It’s widely known that Eastern European Jews have a traditional, ironic brand of humor. You can hear it clearly in this anecdote told by Ruth Kohn, a professional Yiddish translator and interpreter, at a talent show held at the annual “Yiddish Vokh” in Copake, NY:
Beets were a staple among the Jews of Eastern Europe, although most of them probably didn’t know its nutritional benefits. Beetroot is rich in folate, magnesium, vitamin C, and fiber. Recent studies show that beets and beetroot juice reduce blood pressure, increase blood flow and might even improve athletic performance. In this clip of the…
Read this article in Yiddish June 2020 through August 2021 was supposed to be a gap year for me as I moved from my undergraduate to graduate studies. I didn’t plan for the pandemic, let alone its impact on my Jewish, scholarly and music communities. We were all forced to adapt to online formats, reshaping…
Deatra Cohen was studying to become an herbalist when her teacher assigned what seemed like a straightforward task: researching and reporting on the herbal cures and practices of her own culture. But the project was anything but simple. A retired librarian, Cohen was adept at navigating databases and combing through archives. But she could find…
Some years ago, I was discussing the history of Jews in Poland with a Polish academic. He pointed out to me that while anti-Semitism has certain unique characteristics, in pre-war Poland it was part of a web of inter-ethnic conflicts that also included Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Germans, to name a few. Timothy Snyder makes a…
In the wake of the United States’ failure to qualify for the World Cup, which will be held in Russia, 23andMe has announced a new partnership with FOX Sports that will try to get fans pumped up by encouraging them to root for the country of their ancestors. It sure is nice to feel genetic…
(JTA) — A Hanukkah menorah at a synagogue in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev was doused with red liquid resembling blood and vandalized by unidentified perpetrators who drew a swastika on it. The incident happened Sunday at Podol synagogue in Kiev, according to Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. The several foot tall menorah…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The extreme poverty that Jews once experienced in the cities and towns of Eastern Europe has been well documented, but what exactly was their diet like? According to the memoirs of Hirsh Abramovich, a Yiddish writer in pre-war Vilna, the Jews in Lithuania were probably the poorest…
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