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
-
Community Adapting ‘Boy Books’ and ‘Girl Books’ for a Progressive, Yiddish-Speaking Family
In my latest blog post, I complained about the gendered struggles I face, as a liberal Yiddish-speaking father, while reading and singing Yiddish children’s books and songs to my son. On one hand, I’m faced with a mother-oriented literature that erases my own lived experience as a father who changes diapers, cooks meals, brings his…
-
Community Fire, Fire! The Challenges of ‘Kid Brain vs. Adult Brain’
Last week, I was invited to read a Yiddish poem at the first of our library’s “Favorite Poem Community Readings.” The event, which happened last night, is part of a national, decades-long peace initiative called the Favorite Poem Project, in which Americans are asked to transcend divisive cultural boundaries by reading each other their favorite…
-
The Schmooze WATCH: Hasidic Hitmaker Covers Justin Bieber Smash — in Yiddish
Last November, Israeli Hasidic singer Chaim Shlomo Mayesz’s Yiddish music video of his newly released album Bas Kol went viral, garnering more than 400,000 hits. The video, which was shot at his brother’s Hasidic wedding in Borough Park, featured Mayesz rapping to the tune of Fifth Harmony’s hip hop track “Worth It”. The song and…
-
News Fira Bramson, Rescuer of Lithuanian Jewry’s Literary Heritage, Dies at 91
Fira Bramson, a Vilna librarian who was crucial to the post-Communist rescue of Lithuanian Jewry’s literary legacy, passed away at the age of 91 on June 12. Over the past 30 years, anyone researching the past or present of Jewish life and culture in Lithuania, eventually came to Bramson, one of the only archivists and…
-
Culture A Concert of Talented Men
Last year Yiddish Soul was the highlight of the Folksbiene’s Kulturfest, a festival that featured hundreds of performances over eight packed days and attracted tens of thousands of attendees. At the time, I wrote in the Yiddish Forward that this high-profile concert of Hasidic and cantorial music, presented as part of SummerStage in Central Park,…
-
News It’s Hitler in Yiddish as Mel Brooks Gem ‘The Producers’ Returns to Stage
True story. About a decade ago, a Jewish businessman — Siberian born, but Brooklyn raised — ran into Mel Brooks at the Joe Allen restaurant in Manhattan’s Theater District. “Vos macht a yid?” the man asked Brooks in Yiddish. “How’s it going?” Taking on a Yiddish intonation, Brooks replied. “Shhh …” he said. “I’m not…
-
Culture What Yoda’s Yiddish Accent Has To Do With the ‘Are Jews a Race?’ Debate
(JTA) — Science has finally provided evidence of what Jewish “Star Wars” fans long suspected: Yoda is a member of the tribe — or at least he speaks like one. The bad news is the science has been widely dismissed as junk. The Yoda reference appears in a video in which a a 36-year-old Israeli…
-
The Schmooze For President Obama, a Brand New Yarmulke From Lipa Schmeltzer
Hasidic pop star Lipa Schmeltzer recently delivered a pair of newly-designed silver yarmulkes for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle. The gift was the culmination of a promise he had made to the First Couple last Hanukkah, after the annual candlelighting ceremony at the White House, where the singer had been invited to perform….
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
