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The ten students in my Yiddish class are of differing political persuasions but we're united in our love of the language.
Read this article in Yiddish Join scholars, archivists, and curators in exploring the rich world of Jewish children’s literature in pre-WWII Europe. The symposium, which will compare Yiddish and Russian Jewish children’s literature, will take place on June 22 and be streamed over Zoom. It is being sponsored by YIVO and Oxford University’s Bodleian Library….
Read this article in Yiddish Wolf Younin, whose yortsayt was this week, was a Yiddish poet, folklorist, book collector and columnist for several Yiddish newspapers, including the Forverts. A number of his poems were set to music and because they sound so much like folk songs, few people know he wrote them. One of these…
Read this article in Yiddish. Jewish crime ain’t what it used to be. In 1908, New York Police Commissioner Theodore Bingham caused a scandal when he asserted in an article in the North American Review that half the city’s criminals were Jews. The Jewish community was outraged and Bingham was forced to retract his statement….
Read this article in Yiddish On Sunday, May 30, a number of renowned singers and actors will perform songs by the great Yiddish poet, Itzik Manger, during an online literary event celebrating 120 years since his birth. The program, “Itzik Manger and the Golden Peacock”, will be in Yiddish with English subtitles and will be…
An artful online video adaptation of Sholem Asch’s groundbreaking 1906 Yiddish play, “God of Vengeance”, is now streaming through May 31, 2021. The 100-minute video is in English. The play, known in Yiddish as “Got fun nekome”, tells the story of a seemingly observant Jewish couple and their daughter Rivkeleh who live upstairs in their…
Read this article in Yiddish On May 23rd at 1:00 pm EDT, the Workers Circle will host a book party for a new bilingual edition of stories by the short story writer, Salomea Perl, “The Canvas and Other Stories.” The discussion will be in English, with the readings in Yiddish and English. The volume includes…
Read this article in Yiddish On May 15th at 7 pm EDT, the Boston Workers Circle chorus, “A Besere Velt”, will perform a special online concert entitled “Singing for a Better World” with guest performers Polina Shepherd, Lorin Sklamberg, Anthony Russell, Daniel Kahn and Judy Bressler. “A Besere Velt” was founded in 1997 and is…
Read this article in Yiddish Listening to Maria Ka’s Yiddish electropop album, “Di Arumike Velt” [The Surrounding World], was for me like hearing music from a parallel universe. Not only are the Yiddish songs about the coronavirus era and issues facing women in 2020s Poland, but the music itself is unlike anything I’ve heard performed…
Read this article in Yiddish In the heat of the COVID pandemic, the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora has recently re-opened under a new name – ANU: Museum of the Jewish People. The word “anu” means us in Hebrew. But it’s not only the name that’s been changed. The inner architecture and permanent exhibit have…
Read this article in Yiddish Recently I came across an unexpected clip from the Tonight Show from 1955 featuring a swing version of the Yiddish song, “In mayne oygn bistu sheyn” (you’re beautiful in my eyes), sung by a duo called the Burton Sisters. The recording was surprising to me for several reasons. First, it’s…
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