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Culture Yiddish porn, Einstein’s letters and Rabbi Schneerson’s sermons united in ‘largest single remnant of Jewish life’ in Europe
In 2014, Jonathan Brent discovered something he didn’t know he was missing. Walking into the Wroblewski Library in Vilnius, he saw a long table covered with boxes. Inside were documents belonging to the organization he heads, YIVO, the Institute for Jewish research, which was founded in Vilna and moved its operations to New York in…
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Yiddish World Lecture: How Yiddish became one of the languages used at the POLIN Museum
On Monday, December 27, folklore expert Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett will discuss the history of how Yiddish was included as one of the languages utilized at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. The talk, to be presented in English, is part of the week-long annual festival, “Yiddish New York” to take place…
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Yiddish World My father, the shoemaker
Read this article in Yiddish My father, Ben Perkal (Berche, in Yiddish) was a kind person and a devoted family man, but he may have been the worst shoemaker in Poland. OK, that may be a slight exaggeration. But he was surely the worst shoemaker in Ostralenka, the shtetl in northeastern Poland that he grew…
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Yiddish World Why the exhibit on the Warsaw Jewish quarter, Muranow, is so good
When I first heard that Warsaw’s Polin Museum had an exhibit about Muranow, the former Jewish quarter of the Polish capital, my first instinct was to buy a ticket to Warsaw – until I remembered that we’re in the midst of an epidemic. Although I live in Israel, Muranow has become very familiar to me…
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Fast Forward Dozens of Jewish headstones found under Polish town’s square
(JTA) — Dozens of Jewish headstones were discovered under the asphalt of a local market in Poland. The headstones had been placed in the heart of Leżajsk, a town located about 120 miles south of Warsaw, at least 80 years ago, according to a report Friday in the Gazeta Wyborca daily. The headstones, which were…
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Fast Forward Jewish cemetery in Poland vandalized with spray-paint
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — A wall of the Jewish cemetery in Tarnow, a city in southern Poland, was spray-painted with the letters “AJ,” likely meaning “Anti-Jude,” or anti-Jewish. The wall’s Star of David was painted over as well. Police are investigating; there are no suspects. According to the cemetery keeper, Adam Bartosz, because the wall…
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Fast Forward Poland’s oldest rescuer of Jews reveals an epic WWII story
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — At 100 years old, Jozef Walaszczyk is Poland’s oldest living rescuer of Jews. He was fortunate enough just to survive World War II. As a partisan fighter who specialized in smuggling arms in Nazi-occupied Poland, Walaszczyk assumed that the Gestapo would catch up with him at some point. He just expected it…
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Life I went to Poland to research my family’s history. I found a new generation to tell it to.
The house at No. 3 ul Azsa in the Polish city of Siedlce is mustard-and-peach stucco with a flower-lined balcony and the date 1811 marked under the roof. A nail salon fills the first floor; when my cousins lived there, before the Nazis occupied this city about a two-hour drive from Warsaw, it was their…
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Yiddish פֿינעף פֿאַקטן וועגן פּסח וואָס איר ווייסט אפֿשר נישט Five facts about Passover you may not know
דאָס רייכערן פּאַפּיראָסן יום־טובֿ האָט צונויפֿגעבראַכט מענטשן
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Culture A brilliant Jewish storyteller may be gone, but her characters are ‘still talking’
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Yiddish „גלאָזפּערל‟: כּישוף־לידער פֿון קאַטערינאַ קוזנעצאָוואַ‘Glass Beads’: Yiddish magic by Katerina Kuznetsova
אין איין מיסטיש ליד פֿון קוזנעצאָוואַס נײַ בוך, פּראַוועט אַ שדיכע — די וואַלד־מלכּה — איר חתונה מיטן זומער.
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