This year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival explores the importance of Yiddishkeit in American culture
One of this year's themes is religion in the US. Pickle-making workshops and Yiddish folksongs feature prominently
Yiddishkeit
The Latest
-
Culture -
Fast Forward The First Word Of The Day At The Scripps Spelling Bee Was ‘Yiddishkeit’
The first word posed in competition this morning on the first day of the storied Scripps National Spelling Bee was “yiddishkeit,” a beloved phrase from Yiddish that sums up Ashkenazi Jewish culture in a manner akin to the term Americana. More technically, the word means “Jewish character or quality,” “Jewish way of life” or “Jewishness,”…
-
Culture Pete Seeger’s Yiddishkeit
The American folk singer Pete Seeger, who died on January 27 at age 94, is remembered with reverence and affection for popularizing such melodies as the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” (Seeger changed the title from the original “We Will Overcome” on the grounds that “shall” sounds better). Less celebrated is the important role…
-
The Schmooze Catching Up With Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann, director of the film “Shoah,” has been busy of late. In February, his documentary, “Karski Report,” about how a Polish resistance fighter tried to warn American officials of the Holocaust as it was happening, was released on DVD. Also in February, Lanzmann, who will turn 87 on November 27, encountered some resistance on…
-
The Schmooze Isaac Rosenberg: An Abbreviated Life
An anthology, “Isaac Rosenberg: 21st-Century Oxford Authors,” reminds readers of a major modern writer who died in the trenches during World War I. Born in Bristol to Yiddish-speaking Lithuanian Jewish emigrants, Rosenberg (1890-1918) moved with his family to London’s East End, where he continued to face economic hardship. Gifted at both literature and painting, Rosenberg…
-
The Schmooze Yiddishkeit on the Pampas
Although long considered a target for comedy, the concept of a Jewish cowboy has been taken more seriously after translations of “The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas,”, a 1910 story collection by the Argentine Jewish author Alberto Gerchunoff (1883-1950), became available. Gerchunoff’s Russian family moved to a settlement in Argentina, founded by philanthropist Baron Maurice…
-
Culture Yiddish Icons, Portrayed in Cartoons
Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular & the New Land Edited by Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle Abrams ComicArts, 240 pages, $29.95 People don’t admire paintings they haven’t seen, or dance to music they haven’t heard, but they do all sorts of crazy things with languages they don’t speak. This is what Rutgers University scholar Jeffrey Shandler described…
-
Opinion What’s In A Name?
The city of Boston was one of the pivotal players in early American history. A popular rhyme declared: “Here’s to the city of Boston, the land of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells speak only with Cabots and the Cabots speak only with God.” One of Boston’s boasts is Filene’s, a world famous…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News Your complete guide to Trump’s Jewish advisers and pro-Israel cabinet
- 2
Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
- 3
Fast Forward Trump AG nominee Matt Gaetz has left a trail of antisemitic comments
- 4
Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Netanyahu now faces arrest in several Western countries following ICC warrant
-
Film & TV Bonhoeffer biopic tells of a pastor turned would-be Hitler assassin — but is the story true?
-
News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
-
Opinion I’m a rabbi in Columbus. Here’s my answer to the neo-Nazis
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
