Deatra Cohen was studying to become an herbalist when her teacher assigned what seemed like a straightforward task: researching and reporting on the herbal cures and practices of her own culture. But the project was anything but simple. A retired librarian, Cohen was adept at navigating databases and combing through archives. But she could find…
Some years ago, I was discussing the history of Jews in Poland with a Polish academic. He pointed out to me that while anti-Semitism has certain unique characteristics, in pre-war Poland it was part of a web of inter-ethnic conflicts that also included Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Germans, to name a few. Timothy Snyder makes a…
In the wake of the United States’ failure to qualify for the World Cup, which will be held in Russia, 23andMe has announced a new partnership with FOX Sports that will try to get fans pumped up by encouraging them to root for the country of their ancestors. It sure is nice to feel genetic…
(JTA) — A Hanukkah menorah at a synagogue in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev was doused with red liquid resembling blood and vandalized by unidentified perpetrators who drew a swastika on it. The incident happened Sunday at Podol synagogue in Kiev, according to Eduard Dolinsky, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. The several foot tall menorah…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The extreme poverty that Jews once experienced in the cities and towns of Eastern Europe has been well documented, but what exactly was their diet like? According to the memoirs of Hirsh Abramovich, a Yiddish writer in pre-war Vilna, the Jews in Lithuania were probably the poorest…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Three Cities of Yiddish: St. Petersburg—Warsaw—Moscow. Edited by Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov. Oxford: Legenda, 2017, 201 pages The British book series “Studies in Yiddish,” published by Legenda (and known among academics as “the Legenda series”), is in my estimation the most important venue for contemporary research…
A recent violent summer storm toppled countless of graves and split thousands of trees in Warsaw’s Jewish Cemetery. The cemetery, founded in 1806, is largely abandoned and has only a few volunteers to maintain its 83 acres and 250,000 marked headstones. “This scene is terrible,” a visitor told the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamevasser. “Thousands of Jewish…
Bucharest, Romania I find myself in Eastern Europe for the “International Festival of Yiddish Theatre,” having been invited by the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Romania holds the chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016 and has invited the New York based National Yiddish Theatre – Folksbiene to present a play of which…
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