This is the Forward’s coverage of the Yiddish language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews in Europe and still spoken by many Hasidic Jews today.
For more stories on Yiddishkeit, see Forverts in English, and for stories written in…
Yiddish
The Latest
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The Schmooze ‘Shlemiel the First’ Just as Good the Second Time
Is there room for a klezmer musical on Broadway? I think so. The band for “Shlemiel the First,” led by the Folksbiene National Yiddish Theatre’s Zalmen Mlotek, is so good that during the exit music a sizeable portion of the audience drifted down toward the pit instead of up to the exits. Costumed as an…
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The Schmooze Friday Film: One Last Pin Prick
Naomi Jaye does not speak a word of Yiddish, but that is not stopping her from making the first contemporary Yiddish-language feature film in Canada, and only the second in North America. The 38-year old writer, director and producer is busy with pre-production on “The Pin,” which will begin filming in March 2012 in Toronto…
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News Tsirl Waletzky, Papercutting Pioneer, Dies at 90
One of the major artists of the American Yiddish cultural world and an innovator in the art of Jewish papercutting, Tsirl Waletzky, died on December 8 at the age of 90. Over three decades, her many drawings, paintings and papercuts illustrated book covers, Yiddish children’s magazines, primers and textbooks, becoming nearly synonymous with the art…
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Culture Looking Back: December 16, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward Haym Soloveitchik, otherwise known as the Brisker Rov, is one of the best-known scholars among contemporary rabbis. Considered one of Jewish law’s top authorities, people turn to him from all over the world with their legal queries. For the young generation, Soloveitchik is regarded as a fanatic who is…
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The Schmooze In the Recording Studio with Itzhak Perlman
Photo by Mark Berney Itzhak spoke to Yitzchok in Hebrew. Hankus spoke to Yitzchok in Yiddish. The conductor made puns in English with a heavy Australian-South African accent. And this all happened in the recording studio where Bruce Springsteen recorded “Born to Run” and Madonna laid down her vocal tracks for “Like A Virgin.” We’re…
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Books Jewish Jesus, Now and Then
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Not since the 1939 debut of Sholem Asch’s “The Nazarene: A Novel Based on the Life of Christ,” has so much media attention been showered on the Jewish perspective on Jesus and the New Testament. The recent release of “The Jewish Annotated New Testament,” an Oxford University Press publication…
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The Schmooze Monday Music: Songs for the Jewish Jet Set
A non-for-profit organization comprised of music-loving Jews, The Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation illuminates the forgotten corners of Jewish music in America. The Society is perhaps best known for “Jewface,” a collection of vaudeville-era minstrelrsy like “Cohen Owes Me 97 Dollars” — songs that strike present-day listeners as the Jewish version of Uncle Tomming. Other…
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Books Bringing the Lower East Side to Life
Earlier this week, Chris Moriarty wrote about writing her new book and songs of hope and failure. Her blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: One of my main goals…
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