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 Yankel and Leah (Chapter 5): Glancing at the Eyes of the Gentile Cashier
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. He took up this thread when he called Miriam the shadchan’te the next morning. “I am still not sure about the way she looks,” Yankel told her. “I have no way of knowing. I can’t even remember from date to date what she looks like. I don’t think I…
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Community Watch Your Bleeping Language
Anthony Scaramucci may be history as far as the current White House is concerned, but the Pandora’s Box he opened in his obscenity-laced rant is not about to slam shut. Scaramucci obviously thought that The New Yorker was far too distinguished a publication to quote him directly. How wrong he was. Following the expose in…
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Culture New Folksbiene Play: Singing Against Trump’s America
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Thirty-five years ago, Zalmen Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld co-wrote the script for a musical called “The Golden Land” in honor of the 85th anniversary of the Forverts, the world’s oldest Yiddish newspaper. The goal then was to depict, through Yiddish song, the first decades of Eastern European Jewish immigration…
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Yiddish World Yankel and Leah 4: Observing the NYC Skyline – And Her
This originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. To read the previous chapter. “I’m available,” Leah said brightly. “Good,” he said, feeling an instant resistance to her enthusiasm. “I’ll see you at eight o’clock?” This time Yankel was able to borrow a different car. It was an almost-new Oldsmobile 98 Regency. “Beautiful car,” Leah said when he…
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Yiddish World What Did Poor Jews in the Shtetl Eat?
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The extreme poverty that Jews once experienced in the cities and towns of Eastern Europe has been well documented, but what exactly was their diet like? According to the memoirs of Hirsh Abramovich, a Yiddish writer in pre-war Vilna, the Jews in Lithuania were probably the poorest…
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Yiddish World Video: Abraham Sutzkever on Poetry and Battling the Nazis
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The great Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever was born on July 15th, 1913 in Smorgon, a city in what is now Belarus. Known today primarily for being one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and for his wartime service as a Jewish Partisan in the forests…
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Culture Three Cities of Yiddish: St. Petersburg—Warsaw—Moscow
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Three Cities of Yiddish: St. Petersburg—Warsaw—Moscow. Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov. Oxford: Legenda, 2017, 201 pages The British book series “Studies in Yiddish,” published by Legenda (and known among academics as “the Legenda series”), is in my estimation the most important venue for contemporary research…
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The Schmooze Check Out This Extremely Foreboding Yiddish Sex-Ed Cartoon
Congratulations — you made it to the end of the week! As a reward and a reminder to always use protection, The Schmooze would like to gift you this adorable cartoon music video of an old Yiddish cabaret song that seeks to teach the children an important life lesson. The song and the video were…
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