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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News Century-Old Jewish Mural’s Hidden History in Vermont
An old apartment building in Burlington, Vt. seems like an odd place to find a rare survivor of Lithuanian synagogue art and a relic of American immigrant Yiddishkeit. But the nature of treasures is that they turn up in unexpected places, and Burlington is home to a century-old synagogue mural that is an extraordinary artistic…
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Culture A Good Season To Live High on the ‘Khoge’
Just in time for the last week of December, Beth Kissileff has a query about the Yiddish word khoge, which denotes a non-Jewish holiday. Does it, she asks, refer only to a religious holiday like Christmas, or does it also include “civic holidays” like Thanksgiving and New Year’s? Since civic holidays did not exist in…
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The Schmooze ‘Think Yiddish, Dress British’
It’s too bad Hanukkah and Christmas don’t coincide this year, because we’ve found the ultimate gift. Swiss Stays, a company that makes adjustable collar stays for men — yes, those things that come in the inside of your shirt collars — has teamed up with Saks Fifth Avenue to launch a special collection — “Think…
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The Schmooze A Newly Beardless Mandy Patinkin Sings Yiddish
An ebullient Mandy Patinkin cool in a black V-necked sweater, cargo pants and sneakers, now the beardless former acting CIA director Saul Berenson on Showtime’s hit series “Homeland,” bounded up the stage at the Center for Jewish History at the YIVO-Institute for Jewish Research December 8 tribute to Yiddish ethnomusicologist Chana (Eleanor) Mlotek who died…
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Life Throwback Thursday: Globetrotting Yiddish Reporter
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. Born in Lithuania in 1900 and raised on the Lower East Side, Jean Khyene Jaffe was a globetrotting reporter with a 30-year career in journalism. After graduating from Hunter College and Columbia…
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Culture ‘Tent’ Creates At-Home Birthright for Jewish Culture
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here. In 2013, The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., launched an ambitious series of cultural programming aimed at providing an opportunity for young Jews to learn about modern Jewish culture. The weeklong program, “Tent,” brings together 20 young people aged 21 to 30 in order to…
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News A Poet’s Life Spanning Shtetl and Subway
Few of us will lead a life as full as my “shviger” (mother-in-law), Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman: a life that spanned an ocean with an unremitting creative urge and a sense of personal purpose that encompassed a universe. While it may appear that her tragedies outweighed her joys, she dazzled the world with her accomplishments and was…
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Culture Will the Real Sholem Aleichem Please Stand Up?
The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye By Jeremy Dauber Schocken, 464 pages, $28.95 Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ By Alisa Solomon Metropolitan Books, 448 pages, $32.00 Like most Jews of my generation, I saw “Fiddler on the Roof” before…
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News Meet the Jews who helped elect Zohran Mamdani
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Looking Forward A handcrafted Torah ark perished in the L.A. wildfires. My dad’s was seeking a new home.
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Opinion This German word explains Trump’s authoritarian impulses — and Hitler’s rise to power
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Opinion I’m a Zionist Democrat. Mamdani has me asking if I must choose between my ideals and identity
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