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
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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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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…
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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,…
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