Yiddish Language

As the main spoken language of the Jews for more than a thousand years, Yiddish has had plenty to lament, plenty to conceal. Its phrases and expressions paint a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews of Europe to survive persecution: they never stopped kvetching about God...

Here is the remarkable story of how this humble language took vigorous root in Eastern European shtetls and in the Jewish quarters of cities across Europe; how it achieved a rich literary flowering between the wars in Europe and America; how it was rejected by emancipated Jews; and how it fell victim to the Holocaust. And also how, in yet another twist of destiny, Yiddish today is becoming the darling of academia. Yiddish is a history as story; a tale of flesh-and-blood people with manic humor.

Recipient of the MacArthur “genius” fellowship and founder of the National Yiddish Book Center, Lansky recounts his efforts to rescue the world’s abandoned Yiddish-language books before they pass out of existence. Outwitting History follows Lansky’s far-flung travels and features the engaging men and women he meets along the way.

This program is read by the author. "An elegant hybrid of memoir and social science that traces the motif of the double throughout history, literature and Klein's personal life."—The New York Times “If ever a book was necessary, it’s this one.” —Bill McKibben “Thoughtful and honest...

2026 PEN AMERICA AWARD FOR TRANSLATION FINALIST From “one of the great—if not the greatest—contemporary Yiddish novelists” (Elie Wiesel), the long-awaited English translation of a work, Tolstoyan in scope, that chronicles the last, tumultuous decade of a world succumbing to the march...

Discover the rich tapestry of folklore woven into Jewish traditions. From magical creatures like Golems and Succubi to talismans, charms and even the esoteric origins of the celebratory cry of "mazel tov", this comprehensive review by Joshua Trachtenberg, a Reform rabbi and PhD holder from Columbia University, offers a detailed and captivating history of Jewish magical belief and practice from the 10th to 15th century.

Focusing on the lived experience of campers and camp counselors, The Jews of Summer demonstrates how a cultural crisis birthed a rite of passage that remains a significant influence in American Jewish life.

More than a quarter of a century ago, Leo Rosten presented the first comprehensive and hilariously entertaining lexicon of the colorful and deeply expressive language of Yiddish. Said to "give body and soul to the Yiddish language," The Joys of Yiddish went on to become an indispensable tool for writers, journalists, politicians and students, as well as a perennial best seller for three decades.

Most Holocaust survivors who came to the US after WWII settled in big cities, but some chose an alternative way of life on American farms. More of these accidental farmers wound up raising chickens in southern New Jersey than anywhere else. Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is the first book to chronicle this chapter in American Jewish history when these refugees—including the author's grandparents—found an unlikely gateway to new lives in the US on poultry farms.

Tracing Yiddish civilization from its roots in the Diaspora to the present, Paul Kriwaczek combines intimate family anecdote, travelogue, historical research, and interviews with scholars to give us a rich portrait of a nearly extinguished culture as it survived across the centuries. He begins his chronicle in Jerusalem, with the destruction of the Jewish temple at the hands of the Romans in the year 70. We see the burgeoning exile population disperse, moving outward and northward throughout the following centuries, making their mark in more far flung cities under Roman rule.

Is it possible to conceive of the American diet without bagels? Or Star Trek without Mr. Spock? Are the creatures in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are based on Holocaust survivors? And how has Yiddish influenced Hollywood? These and other questions are explored in this stunning and rich anthology of the interplay of Yiddish and American culture, edited by award-winning authors and scholars Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert. It starts with the arrival of Ashkenazi immigrants to NYC's Lower East Side and follows Yiddish as it moves into Hollywood.

Set in the years around 1492, Yiddish for Pirates recounts the compelling story of Moishe, a Bar Mitzvah boy who leaves home to join a ship's crew, where he meets Aaron, the polyglot parrot who becomes his near-constant companion. From a present-day Florida nursing home, this wisecracking yet poetic bird guides us through a world of pirate ships, Yiddish jokes, and treasure maps. But Inquisition Spain is a dangerous time to be Jewish and Moishe joins a band of hidden Jews trying to preserve some forbidden books.

I.L. Peretz, the acknowledged "Father of Yiddish Literature", captured the essence of Eastern European Jewish life. He wrote of the magical quality of kindness, and the bitter fruits of blind faith.

he New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback—“an excellent, hyperliterate, genre-pantsing detective novel that deserves every inch of its…blockbuster superfame” (New York). For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka...

Use your mind's natural rhythm to learn a language with Rhythms Easy Yiddish from EuroTalk. It's naturally easier to learn something when it's set to rhythmic music, so that is exactly what we've done. Rhythms puts your mind painlessly to work: you don't even need to focus! Simple words and phrases are set to a varied pattern of rhythms and music designed to help you learn and to keep you engaged so that you won't just switch off after five minutes.

"Captain Dreyfus" a drama by Jacob Gordin. A group with a strong male lead actor could produce this powerfully. The Dreyfus affair: a French officer of Jewish descent was falsely convicted of treason in 1894. This placard announces the presentation of two plays at the Windsor, both starring Jacob P. Adler. The first is "The Yiddish King Lear," to be performed on 2 October 1898, and "Der Yudisher Kapitan Drayfus oyf dem Tayvel's Inzel" [The Jewish Captain Dreyfus on Devil's Island], to be performed during the next two evenings. The original poster of this play announced: 'Who has not read ...

Il est naturellement plus facile d'apprendre au son d'une musique rythmée, et c'est ce que nous avons mis en pratique. Vous n'arrivez pas à rester concentré plus de cinq minutes? L'association de phrases et de mots simples à une variété de rythmes et de musiques spécialement conçues pour vous aider dans votre apprentissage contribuera à retenir votre attention. C'est le moyen le plus simple pour commencer à apprendre une toute nouvelle langue.

In the early 1930s in Berlin, Germany, a group of leading Eastern European Jewish intellectuals embarked upon a project to transform the lives of millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews around the world. Their goal was to publish a popular and comprehensive Yiddish-language encyclopedia of general knowledge that would serve as a bridge to the modern world and as a guide to help its readers navigate their way within it.

The Prince of Whitechapel, a new William Collins book, full description to follow when available...

Moscow, February 1953. A week before Stalin's death, his final pogrom, "one that would forever rid the Motherland of the vermin", is in full swing. Three government goons arrive in the middle of the night to arrest Solomon Shimonovich Levinson, an actor from the defunct State Jewish Theater. But Levinson, though an old man, is a veteran of past wars, and his shocking response to the intruders sets in motion a series of events both zany and deadly as he proceeds to assemble a ragtag group to help him enact a mad-brilliant plot: the assassination of a tyrant.