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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Culture Mystery Pre-Holocaust Photo Trove Depicts Family of Yiddish Scholar Ruth Wisse
(JTA) — When documentary photographer Richard Schofield stumbled upon a trove of unidentified prewar photographs in September 2013 in the storage room of the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, he knew he had found something special. The photos, dating from about 1910 through 1940, were from a Lithuanian Jewish family’s album that had been…
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The Schmooze Two Yiddish Plays Get Drama Desk Nods
Two Yiddish-language theatrical productions, “Toyt fun a Salesman” and “The Golden Bride,” have been nominated in several categories for the Drama Desk awards. “Toyt fun a Salesman,” a translation of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” produced by the New Yiddish Rep, was nominated for Outstanding Revival of a Play, and its lead actor, Avi…
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Opinion Don’t Buy the Junk Science That Says Yiddish Originated in Turkey
When I first saw the short film from Sheffield University featuring Dr. Eran Elhaik claiming that Yiddish has its roots in Turkey, I thought it must be an elaborate ruse, a Sacha Baron Cohen-esque prank to poke fun at the sometimes inane world of academia. But I soon realized that it was, alas, all too…
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Yiddish World Remembering Archivist and Warsaw Ghetto Survivor Rose Klepfisz
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The archivist Rose Klepfisz died in her apartment in the Bronx on March 23rd at the age of 102. She is survived by her daughter, Irena Klepfisz, a writer and professor at Barnard College, as well as by relatives in Australia and admirers in Bundist circles and…
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Life Remembering a Woman Who Helped Yiddish Flourish in Mexico City
In 1944, a young girl from Brooklyn fell in love with a Mexican Jew and decided to leave it all to go to Mexico City. Little did she know her strong Yiddish upbringing would change the Mexican community for decades to come. The Vele Zabludowsky I got know was a small woman, imposing in character,…
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Culture Family, Faith, Food and Other Keys to Becoming the World’s Oldest Man
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. One day shortly after the outbreak of World War I, when Yisrael Kristal was a child, word spread throughout his hometown of Zarnow, about fifty miles from Lodz, that Emperor Franz Joseph was visiting a nearby town. The boy, along with a group of Jews from his…
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Fast Forward Did This Yiddish Word Predict the Rise of Trump?
While many are grappling to offer explanations for the unlikely rise of Donald Trump, an obscure Yiddish word may actually have predicted his success. Trumbenik means a boastful person, and the word bears a striking resemblance to the Republican front runner’s last name. The Yiddish word comes from the Polish word for trumpet, and aptly…
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Yiddish World Listen to a Forgotten and Revealing Interview With Golda Meir
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. I recently gave a talk about the history of the Forward at Yiddish New York, a festival of Jewish culture that was held in Lower Manhattan. The Forward’s archivist Chana Pollack helped me to locate items of historical interest to show during my presentation. Among the various…
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