Yiddish

Italy is having a Yiddish moment. An unprecedented I.J. Singer translation is part of the boom.

The novelist’s dispatches from his 1932 journey through America are newly available in Italian.

|BySIMONE SOMEKH/JTA
I.J. Singer's dispatches for the Yiddish Forward are collected in “Viaggi in America” (“Travels in America”), which was recently published in a new Italian translation.
Yiddish music from Yad Vashem’s archives. Yiddish was the voice of Jewish life across Central and Eastern Europe for nearly a millennium until approximately five million Yiddish speakers were murdered during World War II. PremiumPremium

'The greatest light is concealed in the darkest places': reviving Yiddish songs

The Holocaust silenced millions of Yiddish voices; musicians are now bringing the songs of a lost civilization back to life

|BySHIFRA JACOBS
Despite pushbacks and boycotts, Israeli entertainers, like comedian, Yohay Sponder continue performing.

Despite boycotts and cancellation, Israeli entertainers stay proud of identity - from the editor

Amid boycotts and hostility abroad, Israeli artists unapologetically embrace their identities and continue performing on stage

|ByRUTH MARKS EGLASH
Rabbi Yigal Cohen light candles for the 45 victims who were killed in a stampede, at the scene of the fatal disaster, at Mt Meron, last week. May 06, 2021.

Israel urges rabbis to help stop Iranian spy recruitment after dozens of indictments - report

Iranian agents use a simple recruitment method, relying on "fishing expeditions and luck," gradually escalating their demands in exchange for "easy" money.

|ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF

At YIVO, an unfinished Yiddish dictionary gets the last word - as opera

"The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language," an original chamber opera, premieres at YIVO, dramatizing the post-Holocaust effort to preserve Yiddish through language.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2025ByANDREW SILOW-CARROLL/JTA
Ben Kaplan, left, and Alex Weiser, seen in Weiser's office at YIVO, are the co-creators of "The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language," a new chamber opera about the monumental effort after the Holocaust to preserve the language and culture of Eastern European Jewry.

The secret joke for Israelis in Stephen King's 'Life of Chuck'

Based on Stephen King's 2020 short novella, the film didn’t become a box office hit, but it seems that everyone who watched it couldn't stop thinking about it days later.

JULY 9, 2025ByAMIT SLONIM
'The Life of Chuck'

Aaron Lansky built a home for 1.5 million Yiddish books, now he’s handing over the keys

“The idea that you have miles of Jewish stories that have yet to be told, that’s just irresistible to someone like me," he said.

JUNE 8, 2025ByANDREW SILOW-CARROLL/JTA
Aaron Lansky speaks at a Yiddish Book Center gala, May 4, 2025.

Grapevine, May 23, 2025: They also see

Movers and shakers in Israeli society.

MAY 23, 2025ByGREER FAY CASHMAN
AT THE ceremony celebrating the new Dahan Gate (L-R): Bar-Ilan U. President Prof. Arie Zaban, Dr. Zipora Schorr, Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, Shlomo Zohar, Bar-Ilan CEO and Senior Deputy President Zohar Yinon, and Rector Prof. Amnon Albeck.

These New York Jewish arts organizations have been defunded by the Trump administration

Winitsky said he saw the cuts as a direct attack on groups that might undercut the administration.

MAY 6, 2025ByJACKIE HAJDENBERG/JTA
'The Reservoir,' written by Jake Brasch and directed by Shelley Butler, which had its world premiere at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, won the Jewish Plays Project's annual contest.

'Sons and Daughters': The last great Yiddish novel now available in English - review

An English translation by Rose Waldman of Chaim Grade’s final, unfinished work has been published.

APRIL 27, 2025ByGLENN C. ALTSCHULER
JEWISH WEDDING in a Russian shtetl, complete with klezmer band; painting by Isaak Asknaziy, 1893.

Battling cancer, famed Jewish conductor Michael Tilson Thomas prepares for his last concert

Facing a return of his brain cancer, Tilson Thomas says goodbye with one final concert in San Francisco.

APRIL 18, 2025ByPENNY SCHWARTZ/ JTA
Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, in Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the Ode to Joy, on August 28, 2022. It was Tilson Thomas's last concert with the BSO, where he began his career in 1969, as its assistant conductor and pianist.

Brad Lander just cursed Andrew Cuomo in Yiddish

NYC Comptroller Brad Lander clapped back at Andrew Cuomo with a Yiddish curse after being accused of anti-Israel actions during a synagogue speech.

APRIL 3, 2025ByGRACE GILSON/JTA
Andrew Cuomo (L) and Brad Lander (R).

Rescued from the archives and wrestled into print: Behind Chaim Grade's last Yiddish novel

Finished or not, “Sons and Daughters” is a vivid, Tolstoyan examination of what Kirsch calls “a family struggling with the meaning of Jewishness in the twentieth century.”

MARCH 28, 2025ByANDREW SILOW-CARROLL/JTA
Chaim Grade’s "Sons and Daughters" was originally serialized in the 1960s and '70s, in New York–based Yiddish newspapers.

Grapevine March 16, 2025: A yen for Yiddish

Movers and shakers in Israeli society.

MARCH 16, 2025ByGREER FAY CASHMAN
DR. EFRAT BRON-HARLEV holds her award.