Welcome to 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
-
The Schmooze Monday Music: Russian Klezmer Orchestra Tours Stateside
It’s no coincidence that The Klezmasters are highly reminiscent of The Klezmatics. The former band, which bills itself as Russia’s only klezmer orchestra, was inspired by the latter. Having been created in 2003 by a group of classical music students who met through Hillel in Moscow, The Klezmasters have been gaining notoriety in recent years…
-
Culture Looking Back: October 14, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward Our latest hero is a 17-year-old sweatshop worker from Cleveland, Becky Fisher. During the 11-week-old cloak makers strike, Fisher has been arrested 39 times. She has been beaten by hired goons, cursed by the police and threatened by judges. Despite all that, she has consistently refused to back down….
-
The Schmooze No Pasaran! London Parties Like it’s 1936
October 4 was the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, which erupted when Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists planned to march through the East End of London. Five thousand black-shirted men amassed on the border of Stepney, which at the time 60,000 Jews called home. But they didn’t get in: 300,000 people…
-
Books More Moses Than Job
A version of this article appeared in Yiddish, here. ‘I am to be read not from left to right, but in Jewish: from right to left’: The Poetics of Boris Slutsky. By Marat Grinberg Academic Studies Press, 400 pages, $65 In the poem “Dream,” Boris Slutsky laconically summed up two defining facts of his generation:…
-
Culture Looking Back: October 7
100 Years Ago in the Forward As 25-year-old Bronx resident Flora Kirsch was walking her 3-year-old son, Aaron, to the store, 35-year-old Jacob Spielman accosted her and began yelling at her. As she walked away, Spielman drew a revolver and began running toward her. Bystanders screamed for her to take cover, but her frightened boy…
-
News Lithuania Tries to Heal Rift Over Holocaust
Stung by accusations about Lithuania’s complicity in the Holocaust, the Baltic nation’s foreign minister announced a series of measures aimed at bolstering its Jewish heritage during a concert at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The measures did little to allay the concerns of critics who had opposed YIVO’s decision to invite the minister to…
-
The Schmooze Monday Music: The Klezmatics at 25
Courtesy of GAT publicity The Klezmatics are 25 this year (where does the time go?), and to mark the anniversary, they’ve released “Live at Town Hall,” a two-disc recording of a performance given in New York five years ago. That concert, itself an exuberant 20th anniversary celebration, was recorded in conjunction with “The Klezmatics: On…
-
Life American Soap Operas Taught Me Yiddish
The language of soap operas is universal: vexing vixens, meddling matriachs and busy men with even busier zippers. When All My Children joined numerous cancelled soaps with its final episode on September 23, it prompted me to reflect on how the voices gone silent did more than entertain; they helped teach me Yiddish. Like monarchies…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Fast Forward Columbia staff receive texts asking if they’re Jewish, as government hunts antisemitic harassment on campus
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion RFK Jr. and Trump are talking about an ‘autism registry’ — this sounds disturbingly familiar
-
Fast Forward Heavy police presence blocks anti-Israel protest in Brooklyn from reaching Jewish neighborhood
-
Yiddish קאָקני־ייִדיש“: אַ פּאָדקאַסט, אַ לשון און אַ שטײגער לעבן‘Cockney Yiddish’: A podcast, a language and a way of life
צװײ לאָנדאָנער היסטאָריקערינס לעבן אױף דאָס ייִדישע „איסט ענד“ אין אונדזער פֿאַנטאַזיע
-
Special Report Trump and Jews: The first 100 days
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
