Yoel Matveyev, the Forverts’ correspondent in Russia, was sitting alone in a Moscow train station in the middle of the night, when he suddenly got the inspiration to translate the Russian song, “Nadezhda”, about two lovers separated by a long and difficult journey, into Yiddish. Although the song was written in 1971, it remains hugely…
As I was browsing books written about Soviet-Yiddish writers recently in the National Library of Russia, in St. Petersburg, I serendipitously found a 36-page Yiddish pamphlet called “Seyfer hagoyroles” [book of fortune-telling], which described a complex magical method for predicting the future. The book concludes with several alchemical recipes. It was clear that no one…
A new bilingual edition of the classic Yiddish children’s book, “The Clever Little Tailor”, will be celebrated at an online book party this Sunday, November 17 at 4 pm EST. The event is free of charge. The book, by the children’s writer and Yiddish cultural activist, Solomon Simon (1895-1970), was released by Kinder-Loshn Publications, a…
According to a verdict by the Tel Aviv Local Affairs Court, the popular Yiddish cultural center and library,”Yung Yidish”, located inside the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, will be forced to close its doors by December 5, 2021. The eviction is part of a grand plan by the city to shut down the huge station…
Abraham Sutzkever From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony Edited and translated by Justin D. Cammy Afterword by Justin D. Cammy and Avraham Novershtern McGill-Queen’s University Press (2021), 488 pp. Although Abraham (Avrom, in Yiddish) Sutzkever is usually referred to as one of the greatest Yiddish poets in the twentieth-century, he also played…
Sweden’s national theater, the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, has commissioned the Congress for Jewish Culture to stage Samuel Beckett’s play, “Waiting for Godot” in Yiddish on November 13 and 14. This will be the first Yiddish production in the history of Sweden’s national stage for “spoken drama”, a venerable institution founded in 1788. All…
I’ve recently pondered: “When is a person old enough to flavor one’s language with Yiddish expressions?” There have been many times where a Yiddish expression was so on-target that I would use it, but I would always attribute it to my mother or grandmother, implying that Yiddish was only a language for older folks, as…
“Bist farshtumt.” (“You’re muted.”) “Tsind on dayn mikrofon.” (“Turn on your microphone.”) And of course: “Ot iz mayn kats. Zog: ‘sholem-aleykhem,’ ketsele!” (“Here’s my cat. Say hi, kitty!”) If you’ve ever taken part in one of the various Yiddish shmueskrayzn (conversation groups) that have sprouted up on the Internet since the beginning of the pandemic,…
Yiddish enthusiasts in the San Diego, California region will soon have a meeting place of their own for events related to the Yiddish language and culture. The Yiddish Arts and Academics Association of North America, or YAAANA, has rented a space at 1128 Wall Street in La Jolla, a seaside neighborhood of San Diego. The…
Read this article in Yiddish. As seen in a new exhibit at the Museum at Eldridge Street, artist Debra Olin has created large format monoprint collages that explore Jewish folkloric superstitions and religious practices, particularly those of women in the Russian Pale of Settlement. Olin based her art on the information she gleaned from an…
If you’d like to learn or brush up on your knowledge of Yiddish Hanukkah songs, you might consider joining an online workshop and sing-along, led by the conductor of the Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus, Binyumen Schaechter. Schaechter is a brother of Forverts editor, Rukhl Schaechter. Sessions will take place on November 7 and 14, culminating in…
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