Jordan Kutzik is the deputy editor of the Yiddish Forward. Contact him at kutzik@forward.com.
Jordan Kutzik
By Jordan Kutzik
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Yiddish World WATCH: How Newsboys Once Sold the Forverts
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As a 21st-century staff writer at the Yiddish Forward, it’s always interesting for me to see how the newspaper was portrayed in other media during its heyday. If the Yiddish film “The Living Orphan” is to be believed, being a newsboy selling the Forverts was no easy…
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Culture How A Yiddish Song Yearning For Moldova Became An Anthem For Jewish Immigrants Everywhere
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. With immigration from Europe largely cut off in 1924 and visits to the old country prohibitively expensive for most, a wave of nostalgia for Eastern Europe spread among Yiddish-speaking Jews in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. One result of this longing was the creation…
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Yiddish World From The Forward Archives: A Very Yiddish Valentine’s Day
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It’s not a secret that the Forward historically promoted Jewish assimilation into broader American culture, encouraging its readers, among other things, to speak English, learn to make apple pie and play baseball. Still, I was a bit taken aback when my colleague, Forward archivist Chana Pollack, showed…
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Culture WATCH: Vermont State Representative Avram Patt Greets Us In Yiddish
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Avram Patt was sworn in on Wednesday, January 9, for a two-year term in the Vermont House of Representatives. He had previously served there from 2015-2016. In the video above, made especially for the Forverts, Patt greets his constituents and Forverts readers in Yiddish. “Politics is in…
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Opinion Ashkenormativity? What about Israel-Centrism?
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. I first heard complaints about Ashkenormativity in March 2009, five or six years before the term was apparently coined. I was attending a conference in Chicago for young Yiddish speakers and college students interested in studying the language. While explaining how learning Yiddish as a teenager and…
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Music WATCH: Zero Mostel Sings A Yiddish Classic
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. After four years of scouring Youtube for Yiddish-language videos to feature in the Forverts’ weekly cultural supplement Oneg Shabes, I thought that I had pretty much found them all. Luckily, there are still some treasures out there to be uncovered. Case in point: Rokhl Kafrissen recently posted…
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Yiddish World This Australian Yiddish Big Band Will Blow Your Mind
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It all started with a joke. Simon Starr, an Australian music producer, band director and bass guitarist, had been living in Israel for six years when he and his family had to return to Melbourne to be closer to aging relatives. Professionally speaking, the timing was not…
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Culture WATCH: A Yiddish Version of ‘The Sound of Silence’
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Paul Simon has been prominent in the zeitgeist recently. Ever since the legendary folk-rock singer announced his pending retirement, numerous musicians have paid tribute to the songwriter who has provided a soundtrack to three generations of American life. The small world of contemporary Yiddish-language pop music is…
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