Ashkenazi Jews Descend From 350 People, Scientists Say
Exploring Ashkenazi Jews And Their Origins
Eastern Europe
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News Origins of Yiddish Are Anything But Understood
Two recently posted articles in the Jewish Internet magazine Tablet provide an excellent introduction to anyone interested in the fascinating and problem-fraught field of Yiddish historical linguistics. One, by Cherie Woodworth, a scholar of Eastern European history who died last year, at the sadly young age of 46, first appeared in the journal Kritika in…
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Opinion The Disappearing Places of Our Jewish Past in the Old Country
I was born in a city in eastern Slovakia, called Bardejov. When I was growing up, we Jews made up nearly a third of the city. We had synagogues, schools, a number of communal organizations, even a couple of Hebrew publishing houses. Then came the Holocaust. Only several hundred of us survived. Some of us…
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Culture Belgium Museum Will Tell Story of Red Star Line That Carried Jews to America
The story of Jewish immigration to America will soon be retold in Antwerp, Belgium. A museum dedicated to the Red Star Line, the shipping operation that carried more than 2 million people to the United States from 1873 to 1934 — many of them Jews — will open in Antwerp in September. Founded in Philadelphia…
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The Schmooze Bringing Slavic Soul to Rikers Island
As their name implies, Slavic Soul Party! updates traditional Eastern European sounds with a festive, contemporary feel. Their instrumental music conjures carnivals and circuses, pep bands and klezmer bands, James Brown and James Bond. Brooklyn music aficionados may know Slavic Soul Party! from their weekly Tuesday gigs at Barbès; uptowners may have caught them at…
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The Schmooze For Gypsy Travelers, All Roads Lead to Budapest
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here. For musicians traveling through Eastern Europe in search of the authentic Gypsy experience, all roads lead to Bob Cohen in Budapest. A fiddler, scholar and gracious host, Cohen could tell you in which Transylvanian town you can still find an old-time band, or just a lone…
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The Schmooze Balkan Beat Box’s Party Politics
Imagine a klezmer band where the vocalists rap in English, chant in Arabic, and sing in Spanish and Serbian. That band is Balkan Beat Box, a group led by two Israelis — Ori Kaplan (saxophone) and Tamir Muskat (drums) — who merge traditional Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Eastern European sounds with hip-hop and electronica. With…
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