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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Culture The Dybbuks Made Me Do It
If there had been stand-up comedy in the shtetl, “The dybbuk made me do it!” could very well have been a popular catchphrase. The myth of an innocent person turning to evil because a demon has taken possession of his or her body is common to all cultures, but it has deep roots in Jewish…
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Israel News Celebrating 25 Years of Koran in Yiddish
Members of a Muslim sect that translated parts of the Koran into Yiddish are marking 25 years since that translation was published. The president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Israel, Muhammad Sharif Odeh, said the group translated select parts of the Koran into Yiddish in order to present a different face of Islam. In…
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The Schmooze Radio Days Are Here Again
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Nearly 30 years ago, when musician and musicologist Henry Sapoznik first stumbled across a cache of aluminum transcription disks of Yiddish radio shows from interwar America, little did he suspect that they would find a home at the Library of Congress. Abandoned in an attic, deposited in a dumpster,…
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Culture Neither a Niftar Nor a Nishperer Be
Time to catch up on some mail! Gary J. Frenkel takes issue with my statement in my August 17 column that the name Jesus in Hebrew is Yeshu (a shortened form of Yeshu’a, itself a shortened form of Yehoshua or Joshua). Mr. Frenkel writes: “My understanding is that Yeshu is, not a shortened version of…
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The Schmooze Cursing the GOP in Yiddish
May your son the doctor introduce you to his fiancée, Bristol Palin. May your child give his bar mitzvah speech on the genius of Ayn Rand. May your insurance company decide constipation is a pre-existing condition. It’s not clear who’s behind these Yiddish Curses for Republican Jews. But in just three days, the online phenomenon…
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The Schmooze Yiddish Theater for Smart Alecks
Allan Lewis Rickman likes to say that the best audiences for “The Essence: A Yiddish Theatre Dim Sum” are gentile college students — a demographic that seemed (shockingly!) underrepresented at the show’s opening NYC Fringe Festival performance at the Robert Moss Theater on August 14. More than a few people in this crowd murmured recognition…
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News Why Bubbe’s Accent is Dying, Jewish Denmark
In this week’s podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis is joined by Forward editor Jane Eisner to discuss Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential pick, Paul Ryan and what his plans for Medicare mean for Jewish seniors. Then, Forward contributor Eddy Portnoy phones in to explain the death of the eastern european Yiddish accent. Finally, staff writer Paul Berger…
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Culture The Disappearing Yiddish Accent
They say that Yiddish has been dying for the past 200 years. Up until about 50 or 60 years ago, saying as much was kind of a crude bluff, but now it would be a lie to say that Yiddish hasn’t been severely diminished. According to UNESCO’s most recent list of endangered languages, Yiddish falls…
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