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
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Culture WATCH: Yosl Birstein Gave A Yiddish Voice To Israel’s Charms And Foibles
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Yosl Birstein was such a terrific storyteller, both in Yiddish and in Hebrew, that he eventually became a legendary figure on the Israeli radio. In this video filmed in 1994, Birstein portrays with authentic Yiddish charm and humor the various characters he met after settling in Israel:…
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Yiddish World Klezmer Singer Daniel Kahn’s Unique Celebration Of Engagement To Dancer Eva Lapsker
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. In the traditional Jewish betrothal ceremony (called tnoyim in Yiddish), the bride and groom barely play a role. The parents of both sides draw up a document detailing all the prenuptial conditions; the parents then sign that document, alongside two “kosher” witnesses. But at the recent engagement…
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Yiddish World WATCH: The Barry Sisters, America’s Most Famous Yiddish Singers, Perform Live
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The Barry Sisters, Minnie “Merna” Bagelman (1923-1976) and Clara Bagelman (1920-2014), were the most popular Yiddish singers in American history. The sisters initially gained fame thanks to the popular radio show “Yiddish Melodies in Swing,” which began in 1937. The show bridged American and Yiddish culture by…
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Opinion What The Forward’s Receptionist Knows
The Forward’s receptionist, Marina Vinokur, always has a story for me. A 19-year veteran of the Forward, Marina’s stories — which span the Forward’s transition from Yiddish and Russian to English, from print to digital — tend to reveal the underbelly of this hallowed institution. “When we switched from newspaper to magazine, a cranky old…
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Yiddish World Recalling The Unsavory Characters Of Jewish History, From ‘Prophets’ To Murderers
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press By Eddy Portnoy Stanford University Press, 280 pages $15.25 When the study of Jewish history began in the 19th century, it had two goals: To create an objective picture of the Jewish past and to…
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Culture Swedish Music Videos Teach Children Yiddish
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Thanks to Yiddish’s status as an official minority language in Sweden, the Scandinavian nation finances many initiatives to encourage its use. Besides the yearly international Yiddish seminar, a program sponsored by the Yiddish authority in which lecturers and performers from around the world speak to Sweden’s Jewish…
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Culture Uriel Weinreich’s 50th Yahrzeit Honored With Special Issue Of Linguistics Journal
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Although he is better known in the Yiddish cultural world for his landmark textbook “College Yiddish” and his “Modern English-Yiddish/Yiddish-English Dictionary”, Uriel Weinreich was also a pioneer in the field of sociolinguistics. Even today, 50 years after his tragic death from cancer at the age of 40,…
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Yiddish World VIDEO: Avrom Karpinovitch, Writer, Remembers Jewish Criminals In Vilna
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Vilna writer Avrom Karpinovitch dedicated his life to describing the colorful personalities of the lower class and criminal element of his city on the eve of the Holocaust. In this video he tells us about Tall Tamara, the Jewish streetwalker; Avrom Mosevski, the glutton; and Gedalke the…
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