Samuel J. Spinner Jewish Primitivism Stanford University Press, 272 pp. According to the Russian־Jewish art critic, Abram Efros (1888-1954), modern Jewish art needs to embody two principles: European modernism and Jewish folk art. In his article, “Aladdin’s Magic Lantern,” Efros wrote that “the face of modernism is turned outwards, while folk art turns inward.” Efros’…
Read this article in Yiddish A classic Yiddish book about a child of divorce has now been republished in a bilingual edition. The story, Between Parents, by the Yiddish essayist and journalist, Hersh Dovid Nomberg, describes the experiences of a young boy in Warsaw after his parents get divorced. The book was first published in…
Read this article in Yiddish A jack of many trades is sometimes a master of them all Speaking with Miriam Udel, the Yiddish professor at Emory University in Atlanta who is reacquainting the world with Yiddish children’s literature, you quickly notice something remarkable. In one moment she sounds like a literary scholar and in the…
The ten students in my Yiddish class are of differing political persuasions but we're united in our love of the language.
An artful online video adaptation of Sholem Asch’s groundbreaking 1906 Yiddish play, “God of Vengeance”, is now streaming through May 31, 2021. The 100-minute video is in English. The play, known in Yiddish as “Got fun nekome”, tells the story of a seemingly observant Jewish couple and their daughter Rivkeleh who live upstairs in their…
Read this story in Yiddish Who doesn’t sometimes feel like telling about the seders of his childhood, the seders of his home. And I too have a story to share and I will try to do it here. Both my mother and father were poets – at least in small measure. And whose mother and…
Click to hear this article read aloud. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought us many challenges. But ironically, it’s also helped make 2020 a great year for learning Yiddish. The annual YIVO Yiddish summer program had so many registrants this summer — 60% more than last year — that administrators had to scramble to schedule more…
Read this article in Yiddish. This week marks the 250th anniversary of what is believed to be the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, one of the most influential composers of all time, and a favorite among the Jews in Eastern Europe. Beethoven’s popular “Moonlight Sonata,” for example, is the topic of a wonderful children’s tale…
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