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
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Culture Scholars Are Finally Tackling Yiddish Children’s Literature
In the 1921 Yiddish children’s book “The Wind That Got Angry,” by Moyshe Kulbak, an “old, wandering wind” finds himself booted out of his village when a thaw sets in. He tries to find somewhere in the woods to rest. He’s tired and wants to sleep, but no one wants him around. The oak tree…
-
Culture Say Hello to ‘Mr. Yiddish’
King of Yiddish By Curt Leviant Livingston Press, 305 pages, $30 When Shmulik Weingarten arrived in Israel in 1950, authorities in higher education discreetly advised him to change his name. As the narrator of Curt Leviant’s novel “King of Yiddish” tells us, “Even though all the founding fathers of Israel were born into that supple,…
-
Yiddish World How Aaron Frank Became the Unlikely Orthodox Head of Secular Day School
In 1996, Asher Abramovitz, the longtime principal of Kinneret Day School, a non-denominational community school in Riverdale, New York, received an unusual proposition: Aaron Frank, the 27 year-old assistant rabbi of a local Orthodox synagogue, offered to meet weekly with the school’s mostly non-observant eighth graders to chat about Jewish ethics and philosophy, a sort…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News No Jews allowed: White supremacists are building a segregated community in Arkansas, but is it legal?
- 2
Opinion Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go
- 3
News What a Mayor Mamdani would mean for New York Jews
- 4
Opinion Mamdani’s victory is an opportunity for Jews to relearn the art of disagreement
In Case You Missed It
-
Books This graphic history of Jerusalem is a big hit. But its Jews have hooked noses
-
Culture Is now really the best time for a cutesy Jewish summer camp movie?
-
Fast Forward Australia cancels Kanye West’s visa over controversial ‘Heil Hitler’ song: ‘We don’t need that in Australia’
-
Yiddish טשיקאַוועסן: האָספּיץ־וואָלונטירס פֿונדאַציע שענקט שפּײַזקאַרטלעך צו אָרעמע פּאַציענטןTidbits: Hospice volunteer’s foundation donates grocery gift cards to poor patients
במשך פֿון זיבן יאָר האָט דזשעף לויִס אַוועקגעגעבן צען טויזנט שפּײַזקאַרטלעך.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
