Read this article in Yiddish As COVID-19 continues to affect individuals and societies around the world, the YIVO Institute for Jewish research has decided to offer all its online courses free of charge. “YIVO wants to help keep our spirits lifted and provide content to sustain our minds and souls,” said Jonathan Brent, YIVO’s Executive…
Read this article in Yiddish Editor’s Note: The more things change, the more they stay the same. This piece appeared in the Forverts, in Yiddish of course, during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Today, as the coronavirus spreads, health authorities are telling us not to touch our face, which is very difficult. Back then, they…
Read this article in Yiddish. Adah Hetko has earned a reputation in the world of Yiddish and klezmer music for her fresh approach to Yiddish songs, combining influences from popular American folk singers of the 1960s with her own English translations to create a musical experience that bridges Eastern Europe and American folk music. In…
Forverts editor Rukhl Schaechter teaches a monthly cooking class in Yiddish for children whose parents or grandparents are raising them in the language. Last week, the group made homentashen together and learned the different Yiddish terms for traditional fillings. Among them you’ll hear traditional words like aprikosn (apricot), and povidle (prune jam). The music is…
Read this article in Yiddish In discussions of economics, tourism, industry, politics and even contemporary Jewish culture, the Baltic lands and recent changes in the Balkans are mentioned often, as is the profound influence of the countries in central Europe on issues affecting the European Union. Almost no one mentions Belarus, though. True, in the…
Romanian eggplant spread, also called “poor man’s caviar” is a great side dish to go with challah on Shabbos. In this episode of our Yiddish cooking show, featuring a brand new intro, Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz demonstrate how it’s made.
Read in Yiddish When news spread that legendary American actor Kirk Douglas, né Issur Danielovitch, had passed away at the age of 103, the Folksbiene dug into its archives and posted this touching moment from their 2002 gala, when the star was presented with a lifetime achievement award. Douglas was raised in poverty alongside his…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As a Yiddish instructor living in Seattle, I often hear clueless assumptions and questions about mame-loshn, so I think it‘s about time we dispelled some of these stereotypes. Here are 7 things people say to me upon hearing that I teach Yiddish, as well as my responses…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. When Etgar Keret won a prestigious Israeli literature prize that includes a translation into Arabic and any other language, he made the surprising choice of Yiddish, the first in the prize’s 20-year history to do so. But you don’t have to read far into Keret’s winning short-story…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Yiddish erotic poetry: Who knew? Well, if you attended a recent book party for poet Troim Katz Handler’s new bi-lingual collection, Simkhe/Celebration, you would have learned that intim is Yiddish for intimate, that bager means desire, that kitsl-tsingl is the word for clitoris and that fantasye shutef…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The publication of Chava Rosenfarb’s essay collection Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays will be celebrated at a book talk in Manhattan at the YIVO Institute on Tuesday, February 18th. Confessions of a Yiddish Writer recently received a Canadian Jewish Literary Award. Dr. Goldie Morgantaler,…
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