Blog

Essays, interviews, listicles, podcasts, and much more, covering all aspects of Yiddish culture.

Blog

What was the kultur-tuer?

A por­trait of the kul­tur-tuer, Moyshe Shtark­man (19061975), the activist engaged in the day-to-day moments that mate­ri­al­ly and intel­lec­tu­al­ly make Yid­dish culture.

Blog

The Virtuoso of Loneliness: A Brief Invitation to Leyeles

Hear the voice of Yid­dish poet Aaron Glantz-Leye­les as he med­i­tates on the lone­li­ness of the Yid­dish writer while still embrac­ing the mag­ic of the Amer­i­can landscape.

Blog

Yiddish Counterlives, or How to Think Beyond Broadway Yiddish

When Amer­i­can pop­u­lar cul­ture imag­ines Yid­dish as a lan­guage of vul­gar com­e­dy, how can Yid­dish cul­tur­al activists respond? 

Blog

Second Avenue Meets Broadway: New York’s Yiddish Theater at MCNY

An inter­view with Ste­fanie Halpern, assis­tant cura­tor of the cur­rent exhi­bi­tion on New York’s Yid­dish The­ater at the Muse­um of the City of New York.

Blog

“What a ‘Medina’ is Amerikay”: Postvernacular Yiddish in Nineteenth-Century America

In mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca, ear­ly use of postver­nac­u­lar Yid­dish helped Jews locate them­selves in the culture. 

Blog

Rediscovering Radical Rabbi Abraham Bick at the Site of the Former Institut far Yidisher Bildung

Rab­bi Abra­ham Bick unit­ed a seri­ous com­mit­ment to tra­di­tion­al Judaism with polit­i­cal rad­i­cal­ism in his short-lived New York City yeshi­va, the Insti­tut far Yidish­er Bildung.

Blog

Dora Schulner's Last Notebook

Hes­kes explores the con­tents of a slim, blue-leathered note­book he found in his par­ents’ garage. The note­book belonged to his grandmother’s moth­er, the Yid­dish writer Dora Schulner.

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