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 David Ben-Gurion Makes An Argument For Israel, And More of The Forward Looking Back
100 Years Ago The Brownsville section of Brooklyn is so Jewish that in the local courthouse you’ll find a clerk who speaks a beautiful Yiddish. In the police station there’s a Jewish captain who also speaks good Yiddish. And what neighborhood sends a socialist assemblyman to Albany? Brownsville. There’s even a Hasidic rebbe, over whose…
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Life What’s the Yiddish for ‘Pussy Hat’?
Say you’re going to a Women’s March and have decided to knit, or wear, a protest Pussy Hat for the occasion. You may find yourself in need of brief moments of levity, and a fine diversion is contemplating possible Yiddish translations for “Pussy Hat”: A hat in the style of the Pussy Hat is called…
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Culture A Yiddish Theater Boom, and More of The Forward Looking Back
100 Years Ago There are currently 18 Yiddish theaters in America, and all of them are doing a bang-up business. This is in addition to the numerous Yiddish theater companies that are traveling around the country, performing in many different cities. There are five theaters in New York: Kessler’s, Shevski’s, People’s, Gabel’s and the Grand…
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Culture In Odessa, Everyone Has a Jewish History — And They’re Not Keeping it Secret Anymore
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Once, Odessa was very much a Jewish city. Before World War II, a third of those living in the Ukrainian port city were Jewish. According to the latest census, the Jewish population today is roughly 1%. And yet, during a recent trip to Ukraine, I was surprised…
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Community Dozens Gather In D.C To Celebrate New Yiddish Translation of Blume Lempel’s Work
On Sunday afternoon, January 8, more than 80 people attended a reading and celebration in Washington, D.C., honoring the publication of a new book of translations of 24 stories by the remarkable Yiddish writer Blume Lempel (1907-1999). The event was held at Politics and Prose, a well-known Washington bookstore where President Obama and other Washington…
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Life How Yiddish Family Names Discreetly Honor Jewish Mothers (Hint: ‘Rivkin’ Comes From ‘Rivka’)
A version of this article originally appeared in the Forverts. What attitude towards women do we find in Yiddish, and is it fair? One time, several years ago, a number of us were sitting around a table at Yugntruf’s Yidish-vokh retreat, singing songs. Someone brought up the subject of political correctness, and a discussion ensued…
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Culture The Holocaust Memoir I Didn’t Help Write — And Wish I Had
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Nolan Gurfinkiel belonged to the dwindling tribe of Holocaust survivors who used to eat at my parents’ Shabbos table. He was a Schindler Jew, one of about 1,200 Krakow Jews who survived through the good offices of Oskar Schindler, Europe’s most famous Righteous Gentile. Nolan wore dark…
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Culture To Preserve Sounds of Immigrant America, Ellis Island Museum Seeks Yiddish-Speaking Volunteers
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration has, in its database, more than 8,780 sound recordings from the early 20th century both by and about people considered to be “outsiders” in the United States. Included in that group were immigrants. Now, the Museum is trying to make…
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