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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Culture With a New Director, Klezkanada Looks to the Future
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Since its founding in 1996, more than 10,000 people have attended Klezkanada, the annual festival of Jewish culture and Klezmer music held in Quebec’s Laurentian mountains. Despite Klezkanada’s ambitious scale (besides music it features theatrical workshops, Yiddish classes, creative writing seminars and concerts), the organization never had…
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Culture A Yiddish Cruise on the Danube
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The longtime editor of the Bundist journal Lebns-Fragn and an Israel-correspondent for the Forverts, Yitzhak Luden z”l, used to say that Yiddish today outside of the Hasidic world is a language mainly spoken at festivals. Soon we’ll be able to say that it’s also spoken on river…
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Yiddish World How Paul Robeson Learned Yiddish And Battled Fascism
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The American singer Paul Robeson is mostly remembered today for his hauntingly beautiful bass voice, his groundbreaking career as an actor and as his political activism and involvement in the Communist party. Often forgotten is his mixed and tragic role in Yiddish literary history. Besides his musical…
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Yiddish World A Stunning Reminder Of The Holocaust Finds Its Way To Survivor’s Daughter
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. January 1945 – Czestochowa Ghetto, Nazi-Occupied Poland With the Soviet Army fast approaching, German soldiers have begun liquidating the ghetto’s last surviving residents in advance of a hasty retreat. Knowing that capture means nearly certain death, a man desperately searches for a place to hide. Around his…
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Culture Swedish Music Videos Teach Children Yiddish
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Thanks to Yiddish’s status as an official minority language in Sweden, the Scandinavian nation finances many initiatives to encourage its use. Besides the yearly international Yiddish seminar, a program sponsored by the Yiddish authority in which lecturers and performers from around the world speak to Sweden’s Jewish…
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Music LISTEN: Arik Einstein’s Yiddish Song “Meydele”
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Arik Einstein was the single most important figure in the rise of Israeli rock-music, as important to Israelis as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and the Beatles were to Americans. Although known exclusively for his songs in Hebrew, Einstein did record one song in Yiddish in 1971, a…
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Yiddish World LISTEN: Catalan Nationalist Song’s Popular Yiddish Translation
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Catalonia might not be the place that comes to mind when you think of Yiddish, but a Yiddish version of an unofficial Catalonian independence anthem is now gaining popularity. On October 1, residents of Catalonia will vote on a historic referendum to decide if their region should…
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Yiddish World Chart-Topper ‘Despacito’ Goes Yiddish
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. No matter where you travelled this summer, you were bound to hear Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi’s reggaeton hit “Despacito.” The Spanish-language chart-topper has become one of the most popular songs in history; its music video has been watched 3 billion times on YouTube, and the song…
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