What I learned from teaching English grammar and punctuation to Hasidic adults

The Jewish linguist hoped to make prewar Vilna into a secular Ashkenazi Jerusalem. Instead he became the greatest historian of Yiddish from his exile in New York.

Why I finally decided to learn Yiddish

Since before the 18th century, Jewish folk melodies have had a rich, unexpected influence on musical composition

In his new album, Daniel Kahn is a lyric beggar at the Jewish cemetery

A Yiddish tale puts a different spin on Tu B’Shevat

How a language that once made me feel left out now makes me feel like a part of something bigger

Its birth owes everything to an unlikely hero, Avrom Goldfaden, and a well-timed war with the Turks

Virtual classes attract a new generation of students, from a wide variety of places

How Jews adapted to the technological quandaries posed by a new medium—a century before the dawn of Zoom bar mitzvahs

How the language gained an enduring foothold in Melbourne

The language contemporary Hasidim use in everyday life borrows from English and simplifies a richer linguistic ancestor—and yet is more alive

A Rosh Hashanah Story

Seth Rogen commits Jew-on-Jew violence in a subversive new film