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
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Yiddish World A side of my father – the Yiddish poet, Wolf Younin – that few people saw
Read this article in Yiddish Wolf Younin, whose yortsayt was this week, was a Yiddish poet, folklorist, book collector and columnist for several Yiddish newspapers, including the Forverts. A number of his poems were set to music and because they sound so much like folk songs, few people know he wrote them. One of these…
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Yiddish World The “golden age” of Yiddish-speaking criminals
Read this article in Yiddish. Jewish crime ain’t what it used to be. In 1908, New York Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham caused a scandal when he asserted in an article in the North American Review that half the city’s criminals were Jews. The Jewish community was outraged and Bingham was forced to retract his statement….
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Culture Today’s Google Doodle has a Yiddish soundtrack
Today’s Google Doodle offers an interactive ode to swing dance — and a bisl Yiddish. Please let me explain. If you visit the search engine today, you’ll find an image of dancers in Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, and, if you click, you’ll hear a jazzy instrumental version of the classic “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn.” The tune,…
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Yiddish World Sholem Asch’s groundbreaking play, “God of Vengeance”, now streaming in English
An artful online video adaptation of Sholem Asch’s groundbreaking 1906 Yiddish play, “God of Vengeance”, is now streaming through May 31, 2021. The 100-minute video is in English. The play, known in Yiddish as “Got fun nekome”, tells the story of a seemingly observant Jewish couple and their daughter Rivkeleh who live upstairs in their…
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Opinion What the new Pew study missed by not asking about Yiddish
Read this article in Yiddish. When I heard that the Pew Research Center was releasing its new report on American Jewish identity, and that it had added more measures of expressing Jewishness than it did in its landmark 2013 study, I was sure that “learning Yiddish” or “engaging in Yiddish culture” would be included. After…
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Culture The youngest Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ cast member on making a new tradition
Samantha Hahn was the youngest member of the critically-acclaimed National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene production of “Fiddler on the Roof” (she played Tevye’s youngest, Beylke). She’s also an author. In advance of a NYTF book party and discussion May 2, we are excerpting from her book “On the Roof: A Look Inside Fiddler on the Roof…
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Culture James Carville tells Democrats to ‘start speaking Yiddish’
James Carville thinks Yiddish should be the language of voter outreach. Well, kind of. In an interview with Vox, the longtime political consultant and “Muppets” cast member expressed his concern about “jargon-y language” surrounding subjects like race, suggesting a more accessible form of messaging for Democrats. “I always tell people that we’ve got to stop…
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Yiddish World Yiddish song mystifies, then wows judges on Ukrainian version of ‘The Voice’
A Forverts reader has informed us that two former Ukrainian pop stars, known as The Alibi Sisters, recently performed the Yiddish song “Chiribim-Chiribom” at the blind auditions on the Ukrainian version of “The Voice.” In the video, the judges, presumably none of them Jewish, initially appear mystified by the act – some sporting a slightly…
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