Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath

Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath grew up in a staunchly Yiddishist home in the Bronx. She was a student in the Sholem Aleichem Folkshul 21, United Mittleshul and Jewish Teachers’ Seminary, where she graduated with a degree in Jewish literature. She also earned degrees in Russian and nursing, as well as a master’s in public administration, and worked for many years as a clinical consultant in long-term care. Gitl writes Yiddish poetry and published the bilingual Plutsemdiker Regn/Sudden Rain in 2002. She is the co-editor-in-chief of the Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary (League for Yiddish/Indiana University Press, 2016; 2021), which is also available in a searchable online format (englishyiddishdictionary.com) She is the board chair of the League for Yiddish, as well as the language editor of the organization’s cultural-literary magazine Afn Shvel.