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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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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Culture Protesting an Anti-Immigration Bill, and More Forward Looking Back
100 Years Ago With only seven senators voting against it, the Burnett anti-immigration bill now has an excellent chance of becoming a law. It is likely that it will pass with a large majority in the House as well. While it’s true that the bill has been amended and is now not as bad is…
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Culture ‘The Best Hope For Yiddish is in Israel:’ An Interview With Scholar Avrom Nowerstern
The following article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It was translated from the Yiddish by Meena Viswanath. Dr. Avrom Nowerstern, the long-standing Yiddish teacher and researcher, is the director of Beth Shalom Aleichem in Tel Aviv. He was born in Argentina in 1951 and moved to Israel in 1969. Nowerstern is no newcomer to…
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The Schmooze 2016, As Told Through Yiddish Curses
In a previous article I explained how people misuse Yiddish and Yiddish curses in American English. Though written to accurately reflect the correct form of Yiddish curses, the following are not meant in any way to poke fun of or make light of the sad events and tragedies of the past twelve months. Rather they…
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The Schmooze Why Don’t People Use Yiddish Curses Properly, in English?
As often happens when a popular Yiddish-related article is making the rounds, I received multiple Facebook messages asking what I thought of Gersh Kuntzman’s article in the New York Daily News declaring “farkakt” the best word to describe 2016. I wasn’t impressed. Kuntzman’s article is a pretty typical example of what I, for lack of…
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