The sweet sound of first-grade girls singing in Yiddish fades out as more than 50 small faces turn toward the door. They rise to greet Rabbi Hertz Frankel, their dean, who is accompanied by a rare visitor from outside the community. Frankel motions them to sit down and continue singing. But their teacher whispers that… More ▸
A collection of songs by the Yiddish songwriter Mordechai Gebirtig has appeared for the first time in Italy. The collection includes Italian translations of all previously published works by Gebirtig as well as a number of recently discovered poems and songs by the author, who was killed by the Nazis in Krakow, Poland, in 1942…. More ▸
This was the year some of the Jewish community’s sacred cows were slaughtered. Many of the principles and causes closest to the hearts of American Jews were attacked — and, in some cases, mortally wounded — during 5757. Scandal and consolidation hit some of the most venerated institutions, while Jewish unity was fractured. But even… More ▸
The National Yiddish Book Center has finally found a home, but in a setting about as far from the shtetls and cities where its books were penned as could be. Sunday’s dedication of a new, $8 million facility in the bucolic New England college town of Amherst, Mass., marked a new era for the center…. More ▸
When a little-known organization of Orthodox rabbis disseminated a statement declaring Reform and Conservative Judaism “not Judaism at all,” angry reaction emanated from both Orthodox and liberal Jewish quarters. Nearly everyone — from the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, which many mistakenly thought was the source of the statement, to the organization of… More ▸
Leo Rosten, who translated his mamaloshen into English and helped make words like `shlep’ and `nosh’ part of the American vernacular, has died. He was 88. Perhaps best known for “The Joys of Yiddish,” which was published in 1968, Rosten also authored dozens of books of fiction, including mysteries, and non- fiction, as an amateur… More ▸
A Canadian university has become the home of a rare collection of eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. The University of Western Ontario’s recently established Holocaust Literature Research Institute is unlike most other Holocaust libraries around the world because it specializes in eyewitness accounts rather than documentary or historical sources, says Alain Goldschlager, who assembled the… More ▸
In 1892, 11 immigrants from Lithuania met at their synagogue, the Vilna Shul on Henry Street on New York’s Lower East Side, to find a way to thwart the seeping poverty in their community. Amassing $95, they opened the Hebrew Gemilath Chassodim Association of New York, where, based on the Jewish tenet of revered behavior,… More ▸
There was not a dry eye in the house Saturday night, when judges at the 13th Annual Jerusalem Film Festival awarded a special “In the Spirit of Freedom” prize to the post-Holocaust film “Long is the Road.” The festival jury singled out the feature, even though it was filmed in 1947-48 and therefore was ineligible… More ▸
Joseph Green, the theatrical and film producer who revitalized Yiddish-language motion pictures, has died. Green, who was 96, died June 20 in Great Neck, N.Y. While working shortly before the Holocaust, Green produced four films in three years capturing Jewish life in Poland. “His impact was enormous on the generation that he was creating the… More ▸
Opinion
We need dialogue, not demagoguery, when it comes to IsraelHigh Holidays 2016
Easiest. Rosh Hashanah dinner. Ever.Opinion
We need dialogue, not demagoguery, when it comes to Israel
Election 2016
