- Blume Lempel, Brooklyn, Chava Rosenfarb, Galicia, Holocaust, Long Island, New York, Paris, Reyzl Fenster, Women's History Month, Yiddish Book Center, Yiddish Women Writers, בלומע לעמפּעל
Exploring Yiddish Secrets (Women’s History Day Eleven)
Today, there are lots of conversations (at least among the Yiddish-indulging) about the secret (or oft-ignored) lives of Yiddish women, particularly their thoughts and desires. Translators, learners, teachers, readers, descendants of Yiddish speakers,…
- Belarus, Canada, Chaya Zhukovsky, Den Mother, Ida Maze, Montreal, Women's History Month, Yiddish, Yiddish Book Center, Yiddish Culture, Yiddish Salon, Yiddish Women Writers, אײַדע מאַזע
Yiddish Montreal’s “Den Mother” (Women’s History Day Ten)
Leaving as refugees of the pogroms from Belarus, Ida Maze (then Chaya Zhukovsky) fled first to New York, then to Montreal with her family (parents and one of her six siblings) as a…
- British Mandate, Columbia University, Holocaust, Israel, Kibbutz, Poetry, Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim, Soviet Yiddish Writers, Vilna Ghetto, Yiddish, Yiddish Women Writers, Yung Yisroel
L’Dor V’Dor – Carrying on Poetry from a Woman’s Perspective (Women’s History Day Nine)
Growing up on Kadya Molodowsky, did Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim know she’d also become a famous writer? Would Rivka’s career have started as early, or been as a poet, without the Holocaust? Who knows…
- Anthologies, California, Di Yunge, Fradl Shtok, Frances Zinn, Galicia, Genealogy, New York, Poetry, Sonnets, Stories, Women's History Month, Yiddish, Yiddish Women Writers
Yiddish Sonnet-ing (Women’s History Day Eight)
Coming over in the wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the first decade of the 1900s, Fradl Shtok left Galicia and found herself in New York City as a young woman. Having…
- Canada, Chava Rosenfarb, Goldie Morgentaler, I.L. Peretz, Jewish Literature, Translator, Wexler Oral History Project, Women's History Month, Yiddish Book Center, Yiddish Women Writers
Like Mother, Like Daughter (Women’s History Day Seven)
In perhaps the easiest connection I’ll find this month, I want to give credit to Chava Rosenfarb’s daughter, Goldie Morgentaler. She translated her mother’s work, the work of other Yiddish writers including I.L.…
- Alberta, Canada, Chava Rosenfarb, Holocaust, Łódź Ghetto, Novels, Poetry, Poland, Women's History Month, Yiddish, Yiddish Book Center, Yiddish Women Writers, חוה ראָזענפֿאַרב
Yiddishizing in Translation for a New World (Women’s History Day Six)
Her writing career began at eight years old with poems – but that was not when Chava Rosenfarb became known as an important post-WWII Yiddish writer, of course. First, she had to survive…
- Emanuel Ringelblum, Holocaust, Israel, Lviv, Oyneg Shabes, Poland, Soup Kitchen, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Warsaw Ghetto, Women's History Month, Yad Vashem, Yiddish Women Writers, YIVO, Yizkor, Zionist, רחל אוירבך
Witnessing & Witnesses (Women’s History Day Five)
Carrying the weight of cultural remnants from the time before and during the Shoah, Rokhl Oyerbakh was one of three members of the oyneg shabes who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. Before the…
- Balabusta, Businesswomen, Diaries, Forverts, German Jews, Glückel of Hameln, JTS, Women's History Month, Yiddish Women Writers, גליקל בת ר' יהודה לייב האַמיל
The Original Balabusta (Women’s History Day Four)
Perhaps not the first woman Yiddish writer I learned about, Glückel of Hameln is certainly the earliest we’ve been able to get to know. Her diary entries, published by a descendant, portray the life of…
- Holocaust, Immigration, New York, Paris, Poetry, Poland, Rajzel Żychlińsky, Refugee, Warsaw, Women's History Month, Yiddish Women Writers, רײזל זשיכקינסקי
Topsy-Turvey Refugee (Women’s History Day Three)
During my January intensive Yiddish course, my teacher offered us the opportunity to introduce a poet to the class (auf Yiddish, nu!). Never having heard of Rajzel Żychlińsky before, I found myself meeting a…
- Belarus, Fiction, Forverts, Immigration, Israel, Kadya Molodowsky, Mameloshn, Poetry, Tel Aviv, Women's History Month, Yiddish Book Center, Yiddish Women Writers, YIVO, קאַדיע מאָלאָדאָװסקי
Immigrant, Multiplied (Women’s History Day Two)
My friends know that I’m not someone who regularly listens to podcasts – until my harbour walks during the pandemic led me to find a new friend, and a way to learn much…