This is 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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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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Culture Video: In Hamburg, Muslim Girls Sing a Yiddish Song
A version of this article first appeared in Yiddish in the Forverts. In Hamburg, Germany, a group of five 14-year old girls, most of them from Muslim Turkish homes, recently interviewed a Yiddish folksinger and even learned a Yiddish song themselves. The activity was part of Geschichtomat, a project that encourages eighth-graders in this north…
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Culture ‘Yidlife Crisis’ Takes Off — With Assist From Mayim Bialik
Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman, the co-creators and stars of the online Yiddish-language sitcom “YidLife Crisis” have been on a roll in the past few months. The comedic duo was recently nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for best original digital media series and has taken their act on the road, performing a live version…
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Opinion The Key to Bernie Sanders’s Appeal Isn’t Socialism. It’s Yiddish Socialism.
At a rally last October, Remaz Abdelgader — a hijab-wearing Muslim, a senior at George Mason University and the daughter of Sudanese immigrants — stood to ask Bernie Sanders a question. She started by referring to the Islamophobic bigotry of many of the Republican candidates. As she continued, calling herself “an American Muslim student who…
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Culture How Yiddish Blossomed After the Holocaust
Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture After the Holocaust By Jan Schwarz Wayne State University Press, 360 pages, $46.99 In 1954, while passing through the Uruguayan capital city of Montevideo, the Yiddish literary editor Mark Turkov met a Jewish journalist from Paris who had begun writing a book about his experience in Auschwitz. Turkov invited him…
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