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 Yiddish World, and for stories written in Yiddish,…
Yiddish
The Latest
-
Culture Looking Back: January 6, 2012
100 Years Ago in the Forward Not long ago, a number of rooms in a hotel in Norfolk, Va., were broken into and thousands of dollars worth of jewelry was stolen. Police fingered one Mendel Rosenthal, who was in possession of some of the stolen goods. After Rosenthal was arrested, his brother, Charles, tried to…
-
Books What Is a ‘Jewish Bakery’?
Stanley Ginsberg, a native of Brooklyn, grew up in a close-knit neighborhood where generations lived side by side. He learned to cook and bake from his grandmother, who lived just upstairs in the same apartment building, and has continued cooking and baking ever since. His book, “Inside the Jewish Bakery: Recipes and Memories from the…
-
Culture Third Time’s L’Chaim
We can’t seem to get away from l’chaim. At least it’s a happy word. In two previous columns, as you may remember, I spoke of l’chaim as a Jewish toast deriving from the Kiddush, the blessing said before drinking wine on Sabbath eves and holidays; dismissed several explanations offered by readers as to why Jews…
-
The Schmooze Friday Film: Golden Age of Jewish Television
Television’s golden age ran roughly from the late 1940s to the early 1960s — a quaint period in which not a single Jersey housewife or Kardashian made it on the air. Instead, viewers were treated to classical theater and original productions from the likes of Paddy Chayefsky, Gore Vidal and Rod Serling. Great actors and…
-
Culture Looking Back: December 30, 2011
100 Years Ago in the Forward The 147 burned bodies, the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, apparently had no effect on the jury, who found Triangle bosses Max Blanck and Isaac Harris innocent of negligence in their deaths. The courtroom was half empty as the verdict was read. The judge had allowed only close…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion New York’s Israel Day parade was a shanda — but not because of Mamdani
- 2
News Floyd Mayweather showered cash on Jewish causes — and now he’s suing their ‘Robin Hood’ alleging $175 million got diverted
- 3
Opinion How can I live freely as a Jew in a world where strangers rip my mezuzah off my doorframe?
- 4
Opinion Mamdani has made ample efforts for Jews. How come no one is telling that story?
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Trump’s humiliation of Netanyahu marks a sea change in the US-Israel relationship
-
Fast Forward NYU student draws hate crime charges for flying flag with swastikas, Star of David over campus building
-
Yiddish פֿאָרשונגען פֿון וויכטיקע היסטאָריקער אויף ייִדיש — איצט אַרויס אויף ענגלישResearch studies in Yiddish by noted historians, now in English
דער באַגריף, ייִדישע אױטאָנאָמיע אין גלות — הײַנט פּאָפּולער בײַ קריטיקער פֿון ציוניזם — איז היסטאָריש ניט געװען קײן דערפֿאָלג.
-
Culture In the course of his 104 years, he resisted the Nazis, fought against blood libel and became a towering Jewish intellectual