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7 standout items from a new exhibit celebrating Yiddish New York
(New York Jewish Week) — New York City has no shortage of collections preserving the Yiddish culture that flourished here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are Yiddish theater collections at the New York Public Library and the Museum of the City of New York. Columbia University has extensive Yiddish holdings.
And then there is the granddaddy (or should we say zayde) of them all, the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the largest collection of Yiddish-language works in the world.
The Jewish Theological Seminary, meanwhile, is better known for its vast holdings of Hebrew manuscripts and books, Jewish marriage contracts, rare maps, legal documents and other Judiaca.
A new exhibit, however, is drawing attention to some of the Yiddish treasures in the JTS library, especially those reflecting the political and cultural ferment of the 2 million Eastern European Jews who arrived and thrived in New York between 1880 and 1924.
“It’s about the lives of Yiddish speakers and the legacy that lives beyond them,” said David Kraemer, librarian and professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at JTS, referring to the title of the exhibit: “Living Yiddish in New York.” He curated the exhibit along with guest curator Annabel Cohen, a PhD student in Modern Jewish History at the seminary, and Naomi Steinberger, director of Library Services at JTS.
The exhibit, whose scope ends before the Holocaust and the post-war boom in Yiddish among the city’s Hasidic Jews, opens April 20 and runs through August 10.
Kraemer gave us a tour of the exhibit this week; here’s a look at seven standout items and what they say about New Yorkers who lived and dreamed in Yiddish.
The allure of America
Sh. L. Hurvits (trans.) “Binyamin Franklins lebns bashraybung un di bafrayung fun amerike” (Benjamin Franklin’s life and the liberation of America). Warsaw, 1901. (JTSA)
A Yiddish-language biography of Benjamin Franklin, printed in Warsaw in 1901, is the only item in the exhibit that was created overseas. “The Yiddish-speaking communities of Eastern Europe imagined America as ‘di goldene medine’ — the golden land. It held for them a promise and part of the promise emerged from the fact that they knew something about American founding principles,” said Kraemer. Right next to the Franklin biography is an anonymous poem gently mocking that notion as dreams gave way to reality.
Becoming Americans
Alexander Harkavy, “Der Amerikanisher lerer” (The American teacher of the English language and American institutions). New York: J. Katzenelenbogen, 1897. (JTSA)
The linguist and philanthropist Alexander Harkavy, himself a Russian-Jewish immigrant, created a series of educational guides to help Jewish immigrants acclimate in their new homes, including this Yiddish-English phrasebook in 1897. The Workmen’s Circle, meanwhile, created a vegetarian cookbook for immigrants in 1926, part of a wide effort connecting healthy eating with progressive politics.
Old World meets New
Postcard: “In der heym iz er geven a shuster, in nyu york paskent er shale” (At home he was a cobbler, in New York he’s an expert in Jewish law). New York: Der groyse kundes. (JTSA)
The exhibit includes blown-up images taken from postcards in the JTS collection suggesting the changes ahead for new immigrants. In one cartoon, created in 1908, an immigrant who was a respected rabbi back in Europe is reduced to peddling in the United States. In the image above, however, the joke is reversed: “At home he was a cobbler, in New York he’s an expert in Jewish law.” In a religious desert like America, the cartoon suggests, even an average Jewish education makes you a sage.
That’s entertainment!
Left: Sheet music for “Der kleyner milioner” (The little millionaire), undated. New York: Trio Press Inc. Right: Sheet music for “Mamenyu,” or “Mother Dear,” mourning the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire victims. New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1911. (JTSA)
“The Yiddish theater culture in New York was extraordinary,” said Kraemer. At its height, the “Yiddish Rialto” – the theater district located primarily on Manhattan’s Second Avenue, but extending to Avenue B, between Houston Street and East 14th Street in the East Village — could boast as many as 30 performances a night. The exhibit includes sheet music for popular songs, from a ditty about “The Little Millionaire” to a song composed in mourning for the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which caused the deaths of 146 garment workers in 1911.
Getting organized
“Konstitushon fun Hoshter Sosayti” (Constitution of the Hoshter Society). New York. Sloane Print Co., 1929. (JTSA)
Immigrants organized a huge network of mutual aid societies, affinity clubs for Jews from the same towns in Europe (landsmanschaften) and political clubs. Jews from Hoshcha in Ukraine organized a “Hoshter Society” and wrote up this “constitution” for members. “They learned from the American model: you create an organization, you write a constitution,” said Kraemer.
Getting radical
Der hamer (The Hammer). New York: Freiheit, May 1926. (JTSA)
A number of items in the exhibit demonstrate the leftist politics of many of the Yiddish-speaking immigrants. “This reflects the worlds that they came from, where these same ideas were obviously fermenting very powerfully at the time,” said Kraemer. “It also reflects the composition of the community. Many of them were very, very impoverished and living under difficult conditions. And as workers living in impoverished conditions, they were attracted to socialism, even to communism.” “The Hammer,” above, published in May 1926, was the monthly magazine of the communist daily Di Morgn Freiheit.
Teach your children
Nokhem Vaysman, “Di balade fun undzer kemp” (The Ballad of our Camp). New York: Union Square Press Inc., c. 1926. (JTSA)
Even as parents were succeeding in assimilating, many didn’t want their Americanized children to forget Yiddish language and culture. Yiddish publishers and educators responded with publications, Yiddish schools, camps and resources, like this children’s songbook created in 1926 for Jewish campers by a teacher at the Workmen’s Circle and the International Workers’ Order Yiddish schools.
“Living Yiddish in New York” runs April 20–Aug. 10 at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, 3080 Broadway. Register here for guided exhibit tours being held in May, June and July.
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The post 7 standout items from a new exhibit celebrating Yiddish New York appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Students Form ‘Human Swastika’ at California High School, Post Image With Hitler Quote
Students forming “human swastika.” Photo: Screenshot.
Eight students at Branham High School in the city of San Jose came together last week to form what police described as a “human swastika” on the campus’ football field in another disturbing antisemitic incident at a California K-12 school.
The students captured the moment in a photograph and later posted it to social media, captioning it with a quote by Adolf Hitler.
Authorities in San Jose have launched a hate crime investigation into the incident, according to local media outlets.
School officials denounced the students’ actions.
“Our message to the community is clear: this was a disturbing and unacceptable act of antisemitism,” Branham High School principal Beth Silbergeld said in a statement. “Many in our community were rightly appalled by the image. Personally, I am horrified by this act. Professionally, I am confident that our school community can learn from this moment and emerge stronger and more united.”
According to the Bay Area Jewish Coalition (BAJC), which supports the local Jewish community,
“This incident did not occur in isolation,” BAJC spokesperson Tali Klima told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “Over the past two years, we have seen a troubling pattern in which Jews are increasingly demonized and targeted. While the circumstances differ from those of Nazi Germany, the common thread is the deliberate spread of harmful narratives.”
Klima continued, “The fact that eight students felt emboldened to engage in this hateful behavior on campus (and then post publicly) reflects an educational environment that has allowed extremist political agendas which are blatantly antisemitic into our schools. The district and state must take decisive action to restore a climate of tolerance, respect, and inclusion for Jewish students and the broader community.”
California’s state government recently approved legislation for combating K-12 antisemitism which called for establishing a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools, appointing an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, setting parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and barring antisemitic materials from the classroom.
State lawmakers introduced the measure, also known as Assembly Bill (AB) 715, in the California legislature following a rise in antisemitic incidents, including vandalism and assault. The list of outrages includes a student group chanting “Kill the Jews” during an anti-Israel protest and partisan activists smuggling far-left, anti-Zionist content into classrooms without clearing the content with parents and other stakeholders.
Elsewhere in California, K-12 antisemitism has caused severe psychological trauma to Jewish students as young as eight years old and fostered a hostile learning environment, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
In Berkeley United School District (BUSD), teachers have allegedly used their classrooms to promote antisemitic stereotypes about Israel, weaponizing disciplines such as art and history to convince unsuspecting minors that Israel is a “settler-colonial” apartheid state committing a genocide of Palestinians. While this took place, high level BUSD officials allegedly ignored complaints about discrimination and tacitly approved hateful conduct even as it spread throughout the student body.
At Berkeley High School (BUSD), for example, a history teacher forced students to explain why Israel is an apartheid state and screened an anti-Zionist documentary, according to a lawsuit filed last year by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The teacher allegedly squelched dissent, telling a Jewish student who raised concerns about the content of her lessons that only anti-Zionist narratives matter in her classroom and that any other which argues that Israel isn’t an apartheid state is “laughable.” Elsewhere in the school, an art teacher, whose name is redacted from the complaint for matters of privacy, displayed anti-Israel artworks in his classroom, one of which showed a fist punching through a Star of David.
In September 2023, some of America’s most prominent Jewish and civil rights groups sued the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California for concealing from the public its adoption of ethnic studies curricula containing antisemitic and anti-Zionist themes. Then in February, the school district paused implementation of the program to settle the lawsuit.
One month later, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, StandWithUs, and the ADL filed a civil rights complaint accusing the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino County, California, of doing nothing after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was assaulted, having been beaten with stick, on school grounds and teased with jokes about Hitler.
Antisemitism in K-12 schools has increased every year of this decade, according to data compiled by the ADL. In 2023, antisemitic incidents in US public schools increased 135 percent, a figure which included a rise in vandalism and assault.
California is not alone in dealing with the issue. Pennsylvania has a significant K-12 antisemitism problem as well, a fact acknowledged recently by a surrogate of the administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro following Congress announcing an investigation into antisemitism in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and a disturbing anti-Israel statement at a high school in the Wissahickon School District.
“Governor Shapiro takes a back seat to no one on these issues, and as he has repeatedly spoken out about antisemitism, and this kind of hateful rhetoric is unacceptable and has no place in Pennsylvania — especially not in our classrooms,” Rosie Lapowsky, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement first shared with Fox News Digital. “This is a matter the governor has made clear the district needs to take very seriously.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Jewish Groups Slam Basque Government for Honoring Anti-Israel UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
Jewish communities in Spain and France have condemned the Basque government’s decision to award UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese a human rights honor, citing her long record of making antisemitic remarks, promoting anti-Jewish hatred, and seemingly legitimizing Hamas’s terrorist attacks on the Jewish state.
Last week, the government of the Basque Region in northern Spain announced that Albanese will receive the 2025 René Cassin Human Rights Award, named after French Jewish human rights and Zionist activist René Cassin – author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“Through her work at the United Nations, Francesca Albanese has played a key role in exposing human rights violations, challenging impunity, and advocating for the effective enforcement of international norms that protect people in conflict and occupied territories,” the announcement read.
Albanese’s work “is marked by legal rigor, independent judgment, and a strong ethical commitment that should guide all those working to uphold human rights on the international stage,” it continued.
In a joint statement on Monday, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain (FCJE) and the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) denounced the decision, arguing it undermines the principles that Cassin stood for.
“René Cassin, author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and fervent defender of justice, held an unwavering commitment to peace, human dignity, and the right of the Jewish people to live in security,” the statement read.
“Awarding this prize to Ms. Albanese constitutes a distortion of Cassin’s legacy and a serious misunderstanding of the values of human rights,” it continued.
Communiqué conjoint – La Fédération des Communautés Juives d’Espagne @fcjecom et le Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (Crif) expriment leur profond désaccord avec l’attribution, par le Gouvernement basque, du Prix René Cassin 2025 des droits de l’Homme à…
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) December 5, 2025
Albanese is set to receive the award at a ceremony on Wednesday in Bilbao, a city in northern Spain.
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) also condemned the Spanish government’s decision, voicing support for the Jewish communities in Spain and France and calling the move “deeply troubling.”
“Albanese has repeatedly advanced narratives that minimize or excuse violence against Jews and has a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric,” WJC posted on X.
The Basque Government’s decision to award the 2025 René Cassin Human Rights Prize to Francesca Albanese is deeply troubling. Albanese has repeatedly advanced narratives that minimize or excuse violence against Jews and has a documented record of antisemitic rhetoric.
We support… https://t.co/ZT5QfOgzpa
— World Jewish Congress (@WorldJewishCong) December 5, 2025
Despite objections from several governments including France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands, as well as numerous NGOs, Albanese was reappointed earlier this year for a three-year term amid concerns about her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.
Since taking on the role of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories in 2022, Albanese has been at the center of controversy due to what critics, including US and European lawmakers, have described as antisemitic and anti-Israel public remarks.
In the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israeli communities, Albanese accused Israel of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli actions.
She has also previously made comments about a “Jewish lobby” controlling America and Europe, compared Israel to Nazi Germany, and stated that Hamas’s violence against Israelis — including rape, murder, and kidnapping — needs to be “put in context.”
Last year, the UN launched a probe into Albanese for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations.
In the past, she has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and give her “hope.”
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Helen Nash, kosher cookbook author and NYC philanthropist, dies at 89
(JTA) — Helen Nash, a New-York based kosher cookbook author and philanthropist who pioneered modern kosher cooking starting in the 1980s, died on Dec. 8 at the age of 89.
Her first cookbook “Kosher Cuisine,” was published in 1984 by Random House, and adapted a variety of international recipes for kosher cooks. Its publication, Nash told the Detroit Jewish News at the time, sought to prove that kosher cooking “could be as varied, elegant and exciting as one wished to make it.”
She went on to demonstrate that in two more cookbooks, demonstrating what one reviewer called “her ability to expand the kosher palate.”
“Keeping kosher is more, to me, than just a sensible way to live and to eat healthfully. The ancient Jewish dietary laws help to organize my life around family, Friday nights, and holidays,” wrote Nash in her 2012 book, “Helen Nash’s New Kosher Cuisine: Healthy, Simple, and Stylish.”
Nash was born Helen Englander in Krakow, Poland, on Dec. 24, 1935 where her family owned a textile business. With her parents and sister, Nash survived World War II with her family after they were deported to Siberia.
“There was no cooking in my childhood,” Nash told the Jewish Book Council in 2012. “When I was four and a half, my family was transported out of Krakow, and we spent the war in labor camps in Siberia. Food was nonexistent — no fruit, no vegetables. It was a ration diet of subsistence level.”
Following the war, Nash’s family reunited with her maternal grandparents in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, before settling in Crown Heights.
In 1957, she met and married her husband, Jack Nash, who was also a refugee from Berlin. Having grown up in an Orthodox family, Nash insisted that she keep a kosher kitchen.
“It was my interest,” Nash told New York Jewish Week in 2015. “Most women didn’t have careers outside the home, and I sort of carved a niche for myself, and the niche was entertaining in a certain style. Jack was very encouraging. And I met so many people I wouldn’t have met if I’d stayed in the religious mode.”
While her husband, who died in 2008, went on to serve as the chairman of the Oppenheimer & Company mutual fund business and founded the revival of The New York Sun, Nash charted her own path in the kitchen.
Following the birth of her children, Joshua and Pamela, Nash took classes with famed chefs including Michael Field and Millie Chan and worked on how to adapt their cuisines to a kosher palate.
Her second cookbook, “Helen Nash’s Kosher Kitchen,” published in 1988, also sought to break boundaries in kosher recipes. “’Kosher food is more than chopped liver and gefilte fish,” said Nash at the time.
“Helen Nash’s New Kosher Cuisine,” published following the death of her husband, also took kosher cooking to new heights, incorporating new global ingredients that had been made kosher since the publication of her earlier books.
Nash also chaired the Nash Family Foundation, which supported numerous Jewish organizations in New York City. She and her husband were also contributors to UJA-Federation of New York, Mount Sinai Medical Center, the Israel Museum, Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Yeshiva University.
Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a scholar in residence and rabbi for the UJA-Federation of New York, dedicated his Torah study on Youtube Wednesday to Nash.
“Helen Nash was many things, including a renowned author of recipe books and chef, she was a matriarch in her family,” said Creditor. “Her family foundation has changed the Jewish world for the better in countless ways, and I was blessed, privileged since the first moment I began at UJA almost eight years ago to learn Torah with Helen every single Wednesday for these last eight years.”
Nash is survived by her children and grandchildren. A funeral service for her was held on Dec. 9 at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, an Orthodox synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The post Helen Nash, kosher cookbook author and NYC philanthropist, dies at 89 appeared first on The Forward.