This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The gefilte fish you’ve been eating is nothing but a glorified fish patty. When making real gefilte fish, minced-fish stuffing is spooned into slices of carp, between the skin and the bone. Forverts editor Rukhl Schaechter and Polish-born gefilte fish maven Sabina Barszap show how it’s done.
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As a Holocaust survivor, I admit that I’m often drawn to Holocaust commemorations and other gatherings of Holocaust survivors, just to get a glimpse of how these affairs are conducted. So when I heard about Cafe Europa, I thought it might be a good idea to go….
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Jewish literature is full of references to cafés, like the Café Fanconi in Odessa described by Sholem Aleichem’s hapless hero, Menachem Mendl, or the Café Royale on the Lower East Side, frequented by Jewish socialists, writers and artists. These literary descriptions of café settings are often read…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Continuing my irregular series on non-Jewish American celebrities who spoke Yiddish I would be loath not to mention one of Hollywood’s most charismatic film stars of all time, James Cagney. Cagney, best known for his portrayals of tough guys in gangster films, crime dramas and war epics,…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. When reading about the lives of secular 19th- and 20th-century Yiddish and Hebrew writers, you will undoubtedly learn that many of them had studied in yeshivas before adopting a secular lifestyle. Chaim Grade, for example, was a student in the Navoraduk Yeshiva, which taught its students a…
Learn how to make authentic blintzes for Shavuot, using old-fashioned farmer cheese and topping it with homemade apple sauce.
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Israel, together with the entire European continent, loses its collective mind every May when Eurovision rolls around. The internationally televised singing contest, which passes by nearly unnoticed in the U.S., is a big deal in the Jewish state. Every performance in the run-up to the garish spectacle…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The Russian city of Smolensk is located in a region that has historically been contested between Russia and Lithuania, which later became part of Poland. Smolensk became part of Russia following the Russian-Polish wars in the 17th century, but its Lithuanian roots left a clear imprint on…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The first Holocaust memorial services took place while the genocide of Europe’s Jews was still occurring. Whenever a city or town was liberated, a few Jews would return, clean up the mass graves where their relatives had been shot, erect a simple marker and chant “El Malei…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Jeffrey Gottlieb is getting fifteen minutes of fame for the second time in his life. The co-founder of the “Polish-Jewish Dialogue Committee,” Gottlieb has spoken with Jewish organizations and news outlets this week to explain why his group bestowed its “Jan Karski Humanitarian Award” on Ewa Kurek,…
My Uncle Yoyne didn't keep kosher or the Sabbath but when he led the seder, he sounded like an Orthodox Jew
100% of profits support our journalism
