Yiddish


The Most Famous English Jew

By Mikhail Krutikov

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


Looking Back: February 3, 2011

A gang of suspected horse poisoners is believed to be behind the recent murder of blacksmith Louis Blumenthal.Read More


Looking Back: January 27, 2012

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.Read More


Looking Back: January 20, 2011

New York City seltzer factory worker Philip Cohen, 23, heard that his boss, Morris Rubin, was anti-union and rumored to have poisoned the horses of some union delivery men. When Cohen was on his way home from work, he happened to see Rubin on East Broadway. Curious as to where Rubin might be going, Cohen followed him. As he got closer, the seltzer boss turned around and lunged at Cohen with a huge knife, stabbing him in the stomach.Read More


Sholom Aleichem Is Alive and Well

By Nathaniel Herz

Even though the Bronx neighborhood has changed, a Yiddish crowd still turns up to see works based on Sholom Aleichem at a cultural center named for the writer.Read More


Looking Back: January 13, 2011

A fire occurred at New York City’s Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, a Jewish orphanage on 151st Street and Broadway. More than 700 children live in the orphanage, and they were all on different floors when the fire, which started at a construction site next to the orphanage, broke out.Read More


Looking Back: December 16, 2011

Haym Soloveitchik, otherwise known as the Brisker Rov, is one of the best-known scholars among contemporary rabbis. Considered one of Jewish law’s top authorities, people turn to him from all over the world with their legal queries. For the young generation, Soloveitchik is regarded as a fanatic who is unwilling to recognize that we have entered a new, modern era.Read More


Looking Back: December 9, 2011

One of the most important witnesses in the trial of Triangle Waist Company bosses Max Blanck and Isaac Harris is rag dealer Louis Levin, who would buy cloth scraps from the factory regularly. Levin informed the court that the last time he visited the factory was about two months before the fire, when he collected more than 2,0000 pounds of rags from the cutters’ floor.Read More


Reporters' Roundtable: Israel's Anti-Boycott Law; Weiner's District; Yiddish Heavy Metal

Forward staffers discuss Israel’s new anti-boycott law, the contenders to fill Anthony Weiner’s congressional seat and the surprising world of Yiddish heavy metal.Read More


July 15, 2011

An Italian and a Jew stood before the magistrate. The Italian said: “This murderous Jew tried to kill me.” Apparently this was true, and so the Jew was arrested. But it wasn’t the whole story. The two are neighbors. The Italian has children who make a great deal of noise and cause pieces of the ceiling to fall into the Jew’s apartment below.Read More