Yiddish culture fans should take a look at the Yiddish Book Center’s recently launched website. Called Yiddish: A Global Culture, Virtual Exhibit, it’s an online version of their marvelous permanent exhibition that can be accessed on your cellphone.

If you know Yiddish, you may have read the Forverts article about the Book Center’s newly-published catalogue of its permanent exhibition. And I’ve described the transformative experience of visiting the exhibition at the Center’s campus in Amherst, Massachusetts. There’s nothing like spending time with the hundreds of Yiddish books on display — not to mention photographs, posters, musical scores, works of art, Yiddish typewriters used by famous authors and a giant linotype press once used to print the Forverts.

But thanks to the website, Yiddish enthusiasts who live far away from Massachusetts can now “visit” the exhibition on their phones. It’s a model of everything a website should be — clearly organized, visually attractive and free. And it makes excellent use of multimedia — not just photographs, but also videos and sound recordings.

Like the exhibition itself, the website is divided into 16 thematic sections,  including “Women’s Voices,” “Theater” and “Press and Politics.” Each photograph or multimedia item is accompanied by a description that’s easy to understand, even for people who aren’t Yiddish mavens. The introductions and the descriptions were written by David Mazower, the curator of the exhibition and author of the new exhibition catalogue.

These are some of my favorite items on the website, but they represent only a small part of what’s available.

• Bold, brilliantly-colored illustrations by avant-garde Jewish artists Esther Karp and Ida Broyner for collections of Yiddish poems by Chaim Krul and Dovid Zitman. These limited edition books were published in Lodz, Poland, in 1921. Both the artists and the poets were active in the important Lodz-based Yiddish cultural movement, Yung-yidish. (To see this object, click here.)

• A postcard (ca. 1910) from Warsaw with a photo of the Yiddish and Hebrew writer Devorah Baron. She was hugely popular in Russia, and was practically the only Jewish female writer of her generation whose photo appeared on commercial postcards. (To see this object, click here.)

• Delightful illustrations by the avant-garde artist Issachar Ber Ryback for a Yiddish children’s book written by the Soviet-Yiddish poet Leib Kvitko, published in Berlin in 1921. Ryback was an innovative Jewish artist active in Kiev (Kyiv today), Berlin and Paris. Kvitko was among the 13 Soviet Jewish writers and public figures executed by Stalin in Moscow on Aug. 12, 1952. (To see this object, click here.)

• Amusing self-portrait doodles by the classic Yiddish writer I. L. Peretz, from his scrapbook. Peretz is revered as one of the “founding fathers” of modern Yiddish literature. The Book Center’s exhibition includes a reconstruction of his salon in Warsaw, where he helped shape an entire generation of young Yiddish writers. The self-portraits in his notebook show a lighter side of his character. (To see this object, click here.)

• A copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel about slavery in the American South, translated into Yiddish and published in 1911. A stage adaptation of Stowe’s novel was popular with American Yiddish-speaking audiences in the early 20th century. (To see this object, click here.)

• A Yiddish bookplate from Warsaw (ca. 1910) with a picture of a young girl reading by the light of a kerosene lamp. (To see this object, click here.)

• A photograph of Yiddish poet Esther Shumiatcher-Hirshbein standing with a geisha in Japan. Shumiatcher and her husband, Yiddish playwright and writer Peretz Hirshbein, were insatiable travelers. The steamer trunk that they carried with them all over the world is in the exhibition as well. (To see this object, click here.)

And some multimedia:

• Contemporary Yiddish actor, translator and scholar Mikhl Yashinsky reading a story (ca. 1908) about Max Spitzkopf, the fictional Jewish Viennese sleuth dubbed “the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes.” Yashinsky recently published his English translation of all 15 Spitzkopf stories. He reads here in English from his own translation. (To listen to this recording, click here.)

• A performance of the 1936 Yiddish song, “Our shtetl is burning” (Undzer shtetl brent), by poet and songwriter Mordkhe Gebirtig. During the Holocaust, Jews sang this song in the ghettos and concentration camps, and quickly came to think of it as a folksong. The performance on the website is by contemporary Jewish singer Bente Kahan. (To watch/listen to this performance, click here.)

• Historic recordings by the famous Yiddish singer-actresses Jennie Goldstein, Nellie Casman, Molly Picon, Pepi Litman and Bessie Thomashefsky. (To listen to these recordings, click here.)

• An animation and reading of “Di Zogerin,” a 1922 short story by Rokhel Brokhes. Both the animation and the reading (in Yiddish) are by contemporary Yiddish actress, artist and scholar Alona Bach. The story describes the bitter life of a woman who served as a “zogerin” (also called a “zogerke”). These were women who recited prayers for other women who couldn’t read Hebrew — at home, in the synagogue or at the cemetery. (To watch/listen to the animation and reading, click here.)

Mazower told me that the website will expand and develop over time. “We plan to delve deeper into certain subjects, and hope to add some themes that space didn’t allow us to include in the permanent exhibition, such as the shtetl, Hasidism, organized labor and Yiddish in Israel,” he said.

To access the exhibit, click here.

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(JTA) — British Jews are weighing in after authorities said they are considering deeming some circumcisions “a form of child abuse” following deaths from the procedure.

The Crown Prosecution Service, the region’s chief agency for criminal prosecutions, said that while male circumcision is not a crime, it may constitute child abuse “if carried out incorrectly or in inappropriate circumstances,” according to a draft document seen by the Guardian.

This document, which looked at circumcision as a potential “harmful practice” alongside virginity testing, breast flattening and exorcisms, has driven heated debate among Jewish and Muslim leaders since it was revealed this week.

The draft guidance follows a coroner’s report from Dec. 28 about Mohamed Abdisamad, a 6-month-old boy who died in London from a streptococcus infection caused by his circumcision in 2023.

The coroner warned of “a risk that future deaths could occur unless action is taken,” noting that “any individual may conduct a Non-Therapeutic Male Circumcision (NTMC) without any prior training.” He said there was no system to ensure that people who conduct religious circumcisions have accreditation or meet requirements for infection control.

In the past, another coroner raised similar concerns over the 2014 death of Oliver Asante-Yeboah, who developed sepsis after his circumcision by a rabbi. Male circumcision was a factor in 14 deaths in England and Wales since 2001, half of them men over 18 and half boys under 18, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Unlicensed circumcisions are a subject of mounting scrutiny in Europe, raising alarm in some Jewish communities. In May, Belgian police raided three homes in Antwerp as part of an investigation into illegal ritual circumcisions. And in 2024, a rabbi from London was arrested and imprisoned in Ireland for allegedly performing a circumcision without required credentials.

Some Jewish leaders swiftly condemned the Crown Prosecution Service document.

“Calling circumcision child abuse is fundamentally antisemitic,” said Gary Mond, founder of the Jewish National Assembly, to the Jewish News Syndicate.

Jonathan Arkush, co-chair of the Milah UK group that advocates for Jewish circumcision, told the Guardian that the document’s language about circumcision was “misleading” and he would be in touch with the prosecutors.

“The incidence of complications in circumcision performed in the Jewish community is vanishingly rare,” he said. “Circumcision is a core part of our identity.”

Other Jewish voices have urged action to enforce medically safe circumcisions. Rabbi Jonathan Romain, who oversees Reform Judaism’s religious court in Britain, said it was “time to clamp down on rogue practitioners” and called for mandatory training, monitoring and annual reports on the practice.

“Given that it is a longstanding and important tradition among Jews, Muslims and various other cultures, the best way forward is to only permit circumcision if it is practised by someone specifically qualified for it and who belongs to a nationally accredited scheme,” Romain said in a letter to the Guardian.

The Muslim Council of Britain also told the Guardian that it supports strengthening safeguards.

“Male circumcision is a lawful practice in the UK with recognised medical, religious and cultural foundations, and it should not be characterised in itself as child abuse,” said the group. “However, where procedures are carried out irresponsibly, without proper safeguards, and cause harm, they may rightly fall within the scope of criminal law.”

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(JTA) — Leaders of Tulsa’s Jewish community are publicly pushing back against a proposal to open a publicly funded Jewish charter school in Oklahoma, saying the plan was developed without meaningful local input and could destabilize existing Jewish institutions.

In a joint statement released this week, senior figures from Tulsa’s synagogues, Jewish day school and community organizations said they opposed efforts by an outside group to create what would become the only religious school in the country entirely funded by taxpayers — an arrangement whose constitutionality is contested.

“We are deeply concerned that an external Jewish organization would pursue such an initiative in Oklahoma without first engaging in meaningful consultation with the established Oklahoma Jewish community,” the statement said. “To bypass community consultation in favor of an externally driven initiative is a serious error.”

The statement was signed by leaders from across Tulsa’s Jewish community, including the executive director of the Mizel Jewish Community Day School, rabbis from two Tulsa synagogues, and the head of Jewish Tulsa, the local federation.

The response follows an application by the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to open a statewide online charter school that would combine Oklahoma academic standards with daily Jewish religious instruction.

Ben Gamla was founded by former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, who told the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board on Monday that many families in the state are looking for a religious education option.

“There are a lot of parents that are looking for a sort of a faith-based, rigorous academic program,” Deutsch said.

Tulsa Jewish leaders rejected that claim. In their statement, they said Oklahoma already has Jewish schools and synagogue programs and that they were never consulted about any unmet need.

“Our local boards, organizations and donors have invested heavily in our local Jewish educational system through a dedication to learning,” the statement said, citing the day school and other community programs.

The application also raises a larger legal issue that board members openly acknowledged.

At Monday’s meeting, board chairman Brian Shellem said there was an “elephant in the room” given the board’s recent approval of another religious charter school — the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School — which was later ruled unconstitutional by the Oklahoma Supreme Court and left unresolved after a 4-4 split at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ben Gamla’s lawyers say that split leaves the door open.

“The exclusion of religious charters based on faith violates [U.S.] Supreme Court precedents that ensure equal access to public education for everyone, regardless of religion,” Eric Baxter, a senior lawyer at Becket, the religious-liberty firm representing Ben Gamla, said in a statement.

Baxter said Peter Deutsch consulted with local rabbis and parents during visits to Oklahoma in 2023.

“Contrary to claims of no engagement, Peter Deutsch consulted with local rabbis and parents during exploratory visits in 2023,” Baxter said. “Far from bypassing the community, Peter’s proposal builds on those consultations to expand faith-based choices for families, and we urge the Board to assess it on its merits.”

When asked who specifically Deutsch consulted with and whether  here has been any consultation since then, Becket did not provide details. Instead, a firm spokesperson accused local Jewish institutions of trying to block competition.

“Sometimes, institutions that see potential new competitors will attempt to keep those competitors out of the market for educational providers,” said Ryan Colby, a spokesperson for Becket. He added, “While the Jewish Federation is entitled to its own opinions, it does not speak for all Jews.”

Colby added that Deutsch has spoken with Jews who support the proposal and said he expects non-Jewish families would also enroll.

The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board is expected to vote on the application as early as soon as its next monthly meeting on Feb. 19.

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