Miriam Udel is Judith London Evans director of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. She is spending this year as a fellow at the Center for Jewish History and as the Covenant Foundation’s Family Education Fellow.
Miriam Udel
By Miriam Udel
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Forverts in English One thing the pirates couldn’t steal (a Simchat Torah parable)
Originally a Hebrew rabbinic tale, its Yiddish translation appeared in various textbooks of the Yiddish afternoon schools
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Forverts in English A story about a Sukkah on the Argentine grasslands
A farmer describes what Sukkos was like for his family when they immigrated from Russia and didn’t even have a house yet.
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Forverts in English ‘The rabbi who was late to Kol Nidre’ (folktale)
The Yom Kippur prayer service is about to begin and all the townspeople are there. But who’s watching the babies?
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Forverts in English Classic Yiddish holiday tales can provide hope in these dark times
Secular Yiddish children’s literature relayed the political aspirations, values and anxieties of Ashkenazi Jewry during the 20th century
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Culture In this classic Jewish children’s book, a Yiddish-speaking dog learns to reject racism
As America continues its intensified reckoning with questions of racial justice, parents and educators are keenly aware of the need to speak to children about race in ways that feel authentic and relatable. The Jewish community can look to Yiddish literature for models of antiracist storytelling that took shape long before the storied alliances of…
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Forverts in English Yiddish Fables As Part of a Kindergarten Curriculum
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Not long ago, I arrived in a small corner of Eden in rural western Pennsylvania: a bit of forest, a burbling brook, manicured lawns and camp-style wooden cabins and lodges. Displayed in and around the main lodge was all that a young child might desire—charmingly wrought sand…
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Community With Trump as President Elect, Yiddish Literature Is More Important than Ever
Donald Trump has won the presidency, but I am not quitting my day job. Like many eight year-olds, I had mapped out a career plan so baroque that it would involve multiple stages. In my lithe youth, I would be a ballerina. After that, a stateswoman; maybe president. Finally, when I had acquired wisdom and…
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