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…
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The Schmooze Hopes Confirmed at the Second Montreal International Yiddish Theatre Festival
Robi Cohen A version of this post appeared in Yiddish. When the first Montreal International Yiddish Theatre Festival wrapped up two years ago, one could hear the usual critics saying: “Nu! Let’s see if there will be a second one.” This year, that question was answered. From June 13 to 22 the second International Yiddish…
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Opinion A Yiddish Take on Zionist Summer Camp
What happens when you toss out a centuries-old culture for one that is newly invented and whose center is half a world away? What happens when that new culture is closely tied to a politics that may not be shared by all members of its supposed community? What happens when the culture then gets rejected…
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Culture Father’s Day
My grandparents’ lake house was the final resting place for household possessions that had been replaced but were too good to throw away. As a result, when we were out there, we ate off unmatched dishes while sitting on unmatched chairs. We slept on ancient sheets beneath heavy quilts that smelled of the must of…
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Culture Philologos: What’s That On Your Head?
Helen Hill of Miami writes: “My mother, who grew up in a Polish shtetl, used the word perukha in Yiddish to describe a lady’s head covering such as a sheytl or turban. Presumably, this came from perruque, which I believe is French for a wig. But how did French get into shtetl Yiddish?” A sheytl,…
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Culture June 24, 2011
100 Years In The Forward Hundreds of furious women from Orchard Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side nearly started a riot when Elias Birnbaum attempted to open the vegetable store he owns with his wife. The angry women, who live on the block where the vegetable store is located, were upset with Birnbaum, who recently…
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The Schmooze Traveling the Length and Breadth of ‘Yiddishland’
Photo by Spencer Ritenour In his 2006 study “Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture,” Rutgers University professor Jeffrey Shandler noted the strange phenomenon in which musicians have become some of the most well-known authorities on Yiddish culture. “Marginal figures in East European Jewish society before World War II, klezmorim are now prominent cultural spokespeople,…
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The Schmooze Jerusalem Gets Its Own American Academy
The American Academy in Jerusalem — newly established by the Foundation for Jewish Culture and modeled after the American academies in Rome and Berlin — will host four American artist fellows to help pioneer a cultural renaissance in the holy city. A fifth fellow, filmmaker Barbara Hammer, dropped out of the program yesterday for personal…
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The Schmooze Jewish Identity at the Crossroads of Race, Religion and Revolution
Trish McCall, Dan Bielinski and Marcus Naylor in ‘Under the Cross.’ Photo by Louis Zweibel. This summer New York remains the center of Yiddish theater. Audiences looking for a lighthearted romp can go see Hershele Ostropolye (in Yiddish) at the Folksbiene. Those looking for a grittier Yiddish theater experience can head to Midtown and see…
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