Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the Yiddish language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews in Europe and still spoken by many Hasidic Jews today.
For more stories on Yiddishkeit, see Forverts in English, and for stories written in…
Yiddish
The Latest
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Culture How Real ‘Monuments Men’ Saved Priceless YIVO Yiddish Treasure
George Clooney may never have worked in the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a Jewish academic organization dedicated to studying and preserving the culture of east European Jewry, but his new film, Monuments Men, portrays a group of soldiers who was very much responsible for saving and securing a significant portion of…
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The Schmooze How to Sing Like a Real Folk Singer
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here Can you say with certainty that someone sings in an authentic Yiddish style? Fortunately, we have materials to help us figure it out — the records and CDs of folksingers, the recorded compilations from Ruth Rubin, Sofia Magid, Ben Stonehill and others; the recordings in the…
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News Century-Old Jewish Mural’s Hidden History in Vermont
An old apartment building in Burlington, Vt. seems like an odd place to find a rare survivor of Lithuanian synagogue art and a relic of American immigrant Yiddishkeit. But the nature of treasures is that they turn up in unexpected places, and Burlington is home to a century-old synagogue mural that is an extraordinary artistic…
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Culture A Good Season To Live High on the ‘Khoge’
Just in time for the last week of December, Beth Kissileff has a query about the Yiddish word khoge, which denotes a non-Jewish holiday. Does it, she asks, refer only to a religious holiday like Christmas, or does it also include “civic holidays” like Thanksgiving and New Year’s? Since civic holidays did not exist in…
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The Schmooze ‘Think Yiddish, Dress British’
It’s too bad Hanukkah and Christmas don’t coincide this year, because we’ve found the ultimate gift. Swiss Stays, a company that makes adjustable collar stays for men — yes, those things that come in the inside of your shirt collars — has teamed up with Saks Fifth Avenue to launch a special collection — “Think…
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The Schmooze A Newly Beardless Mandy Patinkin Sings Yiddish
An ebullient Mandy Patinkin cool in a black V-necked sweater, cargo pants and sneakers, now the beardless former acting CIA director Saul Berenson on Showtime’s hit series “Homeland,” bounded up the stage at the Center for Jewish History at the YIVO-Institute for Jewish Research December 8 tribute to Yiddish ethnomusicologist Chana (Eleanor) Mlotek who died…
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Life Throwback Thursday: Globetrotting Yiddish Reporter
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives. Born in Lithuania in 1900 and raised on the Lower East Side, Jean Khyene Jaffe was a globetrotting reporter with a 30-year career in journalism. After graduating from Hunter College and Columbia…
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Culture ‘Tent’ Creates At-Home Birthright for Jewish Culture
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here. In 2013, The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., launched an ambitious series of cultural programming aimed at providing an opportunity for young Jews to learn about modern Jewish culture. The weeklong program, “Tent,” brings together 20 young people aged 21 to 30 in order to…
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