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Linguistic Dirt: What does it mean to make ‘ashes and mud’ of a person? Philologos gets down into the linguistic muck to explain the origins of this curious expression in Yiddish.Read More
The title of this small but useful book might have been lengthened to include “in the English language,” but the point is taken. We are now in a veritable golden age of translation, looking back to an age when pens around the world worked furiously and productively. The Guide proves the point.Read More
The Other Europeans’ new live album, “Splendor,” should carry the subtitle “Everything You Wanted To Know About Klezmer and Lautar Music But Were Afraid To Ask.” Before this recording, even those of us who had our horas and doinas down pat might have squirmed if asked to describe the characteristics that set these two musical traditions apart.Read More
Was Sir Moses Haim Montefiore the first Jewish celebrity of the modern age? A strong affirmative is the thesis of Abigail Green’s “Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero,” a biography of the most famous Jew of the 19th century.Read More
A resident of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Freda Levinson, 19, decided to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend, William Kaufman, also from the Lower East Side, after, she claimed, he reneged on a promise to marry her. After hearing the bad news, Levinson bought a bottle of carbolic acid and waited behind the stoop of Kaufman’s tenement.Read More
The Hebrew letter daled comes from the word for door. But its name has changed in a linguistically unusual way. Our intrepid Philologos slams shut the debate.Read More
Kazuo Ueda, a professor in the department of German at Fukuoka University (in the south of Japan), is the compiler and editor of an implausible opus: the world’s first Yiddish-Japanese dictionary.Read More
Leon Trotsky, in an interview with the editors of Der Veg, a Yiddish newspaper in Mexico City, said it saddens him that he never learned Yiddish, mostly because he wanted to be able to read the Yiddish press. In his youth, he said, it was thought that the Jews would assimilate and disappear into the cultures of their respective countries.Read More
On the Forverts cooking show, "Est Gezuterheyt!" ("Eat in Good Health!") hosts Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz show how to make gluten-free kasha varnishkes with a mushroom sauce.Read More
Ramzailech sounds like no other group, merging klezmer, industrial, hip-hop, jazz, and Middle Eastern music into a rush of sound and feeling. Ayelet Dekel sat down with the band to find out how three young guys from Kfar Saba came to sing in Yiddish.Read More
Yiddish culture and literature will never return to the Soviet Union unless Soviet Jews demand it from the government, said Mikhail Suslov, a Communist Party secretary, to a British communist delegation that was visiting Moscow.Read More
The legendary Yiddish musician and teacher Adrienne Cooper, who died December 25 at age 65, was remembered at a New Year’s Day memorial service on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.Read More
Yarmulkes are a rare sight along Norwood’s Bainbridge Avenue. One building, however, still displays Yiddish’s serifed, curling script on its marble facade. And inside, members of the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center can be found speaking the language with the same fluency and passion that their ancestors did.Read More
The Yiddish word for witch is a nasty word to use about your mother. It also provides sca-a-a-a-ry case study in the changing face of linguistics for Philologos.Read More
The explosive popularity of Ab Cahan's Yiddish advice column paved the way first for a genre and then an entire industry. In her graphic novel, part of which will be serialized in the Forward, Liana Finck interweaves Cahan’s story with those stories contained in the letters.Read More
One afternoon, Mendl called and asked me to throw on something nice and meet him at the newly refurbished offices, where they were holding a housewarming party. The little gathering was being held to celebrate the launching of their new business partnership.Read More
It is hard to imagine the world without Adrienne Cooper, a friend said to me on learning that she was near death. As she did for so many others, she enriched my life for decades with thrilling song, wise words, and trenchant humor.Read More
Not too long ago, during a radio interview centered on “Inside the Jewish Bakery,” the host asked me, “What is a Jewish bakery?” I have to confess, I was stunned: No one had ever asked me that question, nor, indeed, had I ever asked it of myself.Read More
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