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#Yiddish press9
  • A page from Haynt, a Yiddish-language paper published in Warsaw from 1906 until 1939.
    A page from Haynt, a Yiddish-language paper published in Warsaw from 1906 until 1939.
    News section icon
    Sensationalism! Sex! Jews Behaving Badly!

    Yiddish Newspapers of the 1920s and 1930s would have had a field day with our current political reality.

    byEddy Portnoy
  • Pesach Rubenstein displays his peyes as a guard against sin in an illustration in 'The Murdered Jewess'.
    Pesach Rubenstein displays his peyes as a guard against sin in an illustration in 'The Murdered Jewess'.
    Arts & Letters section icon
    Jews, the Smartest Stupid People on Earth

    An amputated leg, a bitten-off penis, a 600-pound wrestler, and the great tonsil riot, among other examples of humanity’s glorious ineptitude, in ‘Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange But True Stories from the Yiddish Press’

    byDavid Mikics
  • Cuban refugees including children sail on a raft in an attempt to reach the United States off the coast of Cuba 31 August 1994. The numbers of Cuban boat-people refugees increased in the summer of 1994 in spite of Bill Clinton's warning that Cubans are no longer welcome in the US.
    Cuban refugees including children sail on a raft in an attempt to reach the United States off the coast of Cuba 31 August 1994. The numbers of Cuban boat-people refugees increased in the summer of 1994 in spite of Bill Clinton's warning that Cubans are no longer welcome in the US.
    News section icon
    Cuban Solidarity and the Death of the Tyrant

    How Fidel Castro’s libertarian exiles found unlikely allies through the Yiddish press

    byPaul Berman
  • Belief section icon
    Print War

    How the relationship between a reporter and his editor shook the Yiddish press

    byEddy Portnoy
  • A nurse examines school hildren in New York in an undated photo.(National Library of Medicine)
    A nurse examines school hildren in New York in an undated photo.(National Library of Medicine)
    Community section icon
    Sore

    When immigrant Lower East Side moms rioted over tonsillectomies

    byEddy Portnoy
  • 1923 Basketball Champs of the Hebrew Academy of the Deaf. From The Jewish Deaf, 1923.(Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary.)
    1923 Basketball Champs of the Hebrew Academy of the Deaf. From The Jewish Deaf, 1923.(Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary.)
    Community section icon
    Silent Minority

    How Jewish tradition marginalized the deaf

    byEddy Portnoy
  • Cartoon from Yiddish satire magazine, Der blofer (April 1, 1927)(Courtesy Eddy Portnoy)
    Cartoon from Yiddish satire magazine, Der blofer (April 1, 1927)(Courtesy Eddy Portnoy)
    Community section icon
    Death Toll

    Back when the Yiddish press relished covering suicides

    byEddy Portnoy
  • Nadler as a frum young man, at left, and later in Paris.(Courtesy Eddy Portnoy)
    Nadler as a frum young man, at left, and later in Paris.(Courtesy Eddy Portnoy)
    Belief section icon
    Politics and Poesy

    In early 20th-century Poland, poet Shmuel Nadler took off his yarmulke and took up with the Communists

    byEddy Portnoy
  • “A makeh,” from Der blofer, Oct. 1929(All images courtesy of Eddy Portnoy.)
    “A makeh,” from Der blofer, Oct. 1929(All images courtesy of Eddy Portnoy.)
    Community section icon
    Divorce Court

    Long before Jerry Springer, divorcing couples fought it out before Warsaw’s rabbinical court

    byEddy Portnoy
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