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 Velvel Pasternak, Champion Of Traditional Jewish Music, Dies At 86
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Velvel Pasternak, the publisher, scholar and nonpareil Jewish music historian primarily known for his expertise on the music of Hasidism, has died. He was 86 years old. Pasternak was born in Toronto, Canada into a religious family descended from the Modzitz Hasidim. At the age of 16…
-
Yiddish WATCH: How to make dairy and vegan cheesecakes for Shavuot
The vegan version is made with chocolate and a surprise ingredient, that requires special tools to open!
-
Yiddish World The Forverts Launches A Crossword!
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Thanks to a generous donation to the Forverts by an anonymous donor, the Forverts has launched a biweekly Yiddish crossword puzzle. The puzzles include clues about Yiddish words and literature, Jewish traditions and pop culture. The first puzzle can be seen here. The donor, a Jewish philanthropist,…
-
Culture My Mother Survived Italy’s Bombing Of Tel Aviv. Her Life Was Never The Same
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. About 100 years ago my great-grandfather, Zvi Yaakov (Hirsh) Levin, who had immigrated to America with his family from Shat, Lithuania, decided to sell his share in the family business in Chicago and emigrate to Mandatory Palestine with his wife, children and grandchildren. His longing to live…
-
Fast Forward Yiddishkeit. Lekach. Keriah. Tophet. Holishkes. The Scripps Spelling Bee Just Loves Jewish Words.
You might think that the biggest news to come out of the 2019 Scripps Spelling Bee would be the historic eight-way tie in which the competition ended. Well, you’d probably be right. But what about the Jewish news? Several of the high caliber words posed to contestants were either Yiddish or Hebrew, joining the many…
-
Fast Forward The First Word Of The Day At The Scripps Spelling Bee Was ‘Yiddishkeit’
The first word posed in competition this morning on the first day of the storied Scripps National Spelling Bee was “yiddishkeit,” a beloved phrase from Yiddish that sums up Ashkenazi Jewish culture in a manner akin to the term Americana. More technically, the word means “Jewish character or quality,” “Jewish way of life” or “Jewishness,”…
-
Yiddish World Five Centuries of Yiddish Poetry, Written by Women
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. A remarkable history of women’s poetry in Yiddish was recently published by Joanna Lisek, a scholar of Polish literature. The book is currently available only in its native Polish, but it’s imperative that it be translated into English as well. The monograph, “Kol Ishe: The Voice of…
-
Culture How I Learned To Speak Yiddish And Love The Forverts
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It is part of a series on Forverts memories written by and about present and past Forverts writers and editors. Just a few months after I began studying Yiddish, I bought my first copy of the Forverts at a newsstand in midtown Manhattan. The headline on the…
Explore
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
Books The Lakers were about to shock the NBA. But Shabbat had to end first.
-
Fast Forward As Greenpoint’s Jewish community grows, so does this shul’s Hebrew school
-
Fast Forward Prominent NYC rabbi urges congregants to vote against Zohran Mamdani in Shabbat sermon
-
Fast Forward Ro Khanna, Democratic critic of Israel, says he supports Zionism and the ‘right for Israel to exist’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
