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…
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…
Over at the Yiddish Song of the Week blog, Forverts managing editor Itzik Gottesman introduces the children’s folksong “Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder” with a look back at the 1980’s Yiddish cultural scene in the Bronx: I recorded “Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?” (“What Did You Learn My Child in Cheder?”)…
The year is 1943. The place is Warsaw. The ghetto uprising has been crushed, but one man, a Hasid by the name of Yosl Rakover, is still alive, and he is busy recording his sordid tale for posterity. After recounting the events of the last few years — the deaths of his children and grandchildren,…
Thirty years ago, Montreal-based documentary maker Garry Beitel produced his first film, the exquisitely titled “You Might Think You’re Superior, But I Think We’re Equal,” a profile of racism in Montreal high schools. Since then, the Gemini Award-winner has directed a number of acclaimed films, from a real-life love story set in World War II-era…
The far-flung commemorations of the centenary of the 1908 Yiddish language conference in Czernowitz, including a conference in December, 2009 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, continue to have repercussions today. The recent essay collection from Lexington Books, “Czernowitz at 100: The First Yiddish Language Conference in Historical Perspective” edited by Joshua Fogel and Kalman…
It may be stretching a humorous point to call the band behind original Klezmatics member Margot Leverett “boys,” whether or not they are from the Klezmer Mountains. Nevertheless, the Klezmer Mountain Boys of the band were at least a decade younger than most of the audience members who’d snapped up the tickets so early that…
Over at the An-sky Jewish Folkore Research Project, Forverts managing editor Itzik Gottesman, along with a few other contributors, has been poking through the nooks and crannies of Yiddish music and poetry on the Yiddish Song of the Week blog. As quickly becomes clear from reading the blog, these aren’t your regular Yiddish standards. Rather,…
Abraham Elenkrig was a trumpeter, a barber, and the bandleader of Abe Elenkrig’s Yidishe Orchestra, one of the very first outfits to record klezmer music in America. Though considered something of a secret treasure by klezmer connoisseurs, Elenkrig has never really gotten his due. Last week, however, the Library of Congress made Elenkrig’s 1913 rendition…
With the recent rise in antisemitic violence in Montreal, Canada, such incidents are at an “all-time high” nationwide, according to B’nai Brith Canada. Even a century ago, however, Canada offered protection to Jews’ “households and rights,” to quote the French version of the Canadian national anthem. A reminder of such days recently appeared from Les…
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