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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The Schmooze Remembering Felix Fibich, Yiddish Choreographer-Dancer
Whenever Warsaw-born dancer, choreographer Felix Fibich — who died on March 20, at 96 — and I would meet, we’d discuss Jewish choreography and sometimes end up dancing together. At the June 24, 2002 “Celebration of Stars” 67th anniversary of the Yiddish Artists & Friends Actors Club at Sutton Place Synagogue, club president Cory ‘G’daliah’…
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The Schmooze PBS Station Loses Much-Maligned Yiddish Quiz
I may have gone too hard on my bubbe in a blog post last week. As it turns out, she may not have been at fault for my abysmal score on Thirteen-WNET’s Yiddish quiz, created in honor of Simon Schama’s five-part series, “Story of the Jews.” In fact, my poor score may not even have…
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Life Second Avenue Songbird Selma Kaye
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. In the early 1950s, Second Avenue Yiddish Theatre Manager Joseph Rumshinsky and Composer Edmund Zayenda were hell bent on finding their songbird, best able to represent their latest play “My Lucky Day.”…
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The Schmooze How Well Do You Know Your Yiddish?
How well did your bubbe train you? Apparently, mine fell down on the job. I answered only 8 out of 15 questions correctly on a new survey meant to test your knowledge of classic Yiddish terms and phrases. “You need a bissel more of work to be a maven in the mame-loshin!” the results read….
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News Shiva Shifts Toward Shorter and Livelier Jewish Mourning for Dead
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As many an American rabbi will tell you, even Jews who rarely go to Sabbath or holiday services will often contact a local synagogue after losing a loved one, requesting help to arrange the shiva, the week-long mourning period, so that he or she can say kaddish,…
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Culture Remembering Art Raymond, Who Provided Yiddishkeit in a Black Sombrero
Art Raymond, who died on February 21 at age 91 in Boynton Beach, Florida, exemplifies the fluidly shifting indentities of past generations of American Jewish performers. An esteemed radio host and nightclub emcee, Raymond (born Rosen in 1922 in Brownsville, Brooklyn) made his name as a specialist in both Jewish and Latin music. When he…
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Life Helen Broza Helped Israeli Women Fly
Forward Association Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. Fresh off the boat in this photo — specifically the liner LaGuardia arriving in New York in November 1949 — is 27-year-old Helen Broza. She was the first Israeli Defense…
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Culture A Glimpse of Jewish Warsaw
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here Menachem Kipnis is known to Jewish history as a cultural figure who worked across several fields. Born in Uzhmir, Ukraine in 1878, Kipnis distinguished himself as a singer, ethnomusicologist and journalist. As a singer he was the first Jewish tenor in the Warsaw Opera (1902-1918) and…
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