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6 spectacular synagogues from a new book on Manhattan’s houses of worship
(New York Jewish Week) – In the mid 1990s, New York-based photographer Michael Horowitz wandered into the Eldridge Street Synagogue, a historic synagogue that is now dedicated to preserving the history of the Jewish Lower East Side.
At the time, the synagogue was undergoing a massive, $20 million, 20-year restoration. Horowitz, who is Jewish but said he is “not religious,” was moved by the resilience and perseverance of the congregation. Even more so, he was attracted to the building’s architecture and the dedication the community poured into preserving it.
Horowitz returned to Eldridge Street over the years to document each stage of the building’s renovations. It was in 2013, while looking for a new photography project, that Horowitz realized his impulse to document Eldridge Street could be translated to houses of worship throughout the city. He spent the next decade photographing Manhattan’s churches and synagogues — 95 of which are spotlighted in his new book “Divine New York: Inside the Historic Churches and Synagogues of Manhattan.”
Together, these buildings tell a fascinating New York story of immigration, architecture, faith and progress. “I wanted to open the doors to the public,” Horowitz, 71, told the New York Jewish Week. “I wanted to show everyone what was going on inside these buildings and show them how beautiful they are.”
He worked his way from Lower Manhattan through Harlem to some of the most notable houses of worship in the borough — from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown to the First Roumanian American Congregation, a now demolished Orthodox synagogue on the Lower East Side once known as “The Cantor’s Carnegie Hall.” Since beginning the project, a dozen of the buildings Horowitz photographed have been demolished, he said.
“Everyone should take the time and view them — even if you’re not religious,” added Horowitz, who has been interested in ecclesiastical architecture since he was a student at Queens College. “Then people will get an idea of what makes that specific group of people interesting and beautiful regardless of the dogma.”
According to writer Liz Hartman, who wrote the text to accompany Horowitz’s photos, these buildings tell the story of New York itself: When immigrant groups first came to the city with few resources, the structures were small and unassuming. Synagogues were built to serve one particular community — the Lower East Side’s Bialystoker Synagogue, for example, whose congregants were new immigrants from Bialystok, Poland. As the Jewish community began to prosper — and as immigrants began to arrive from all over Europe — synagogues became grander, more confident and diverse in membership.
“New York is the story of immigration, and the churches and synagogues are the story of immigration as well,” Hartman said. “Immigrants — New Yorkers — projected themselves through their houses of worship, and in a way that’s what made the city work. I hope that we can look at this project and see a story of immigrants — and see that we can support this with different groups going forward.”
Eleven of the houses of worship featured in “Divine New York” are synagogues. The New York Jewish Week tasked Horowitz and Hartman with selecting the most historically or architecturally significant synagogues of the bunch —no easy task because every house of worship in the book is a historic and notable one. Keep reading to see their selections and to learn more about these important Jewish sites.
Eldridge Street Synagogue (12 Eldridge St.)
A prominent stained glass window at Eldridge Street was destroyed in a 1938 hurricane — it wasn’t replaced until 2010, with a design from artist Kiki Smith (right). (Michael Horowitz)
This historic Lower East Side synagogue, dedicated in 1887, was the first synagogue building in New York erected specifically as a Jewish house of worship. “Right from the start, it distinguished itself from other synagogues by welcoming Jews from all over Eastern Europe while other congregations were defined by the towns or cities from which they came,” Hartman writes in the book. “It was also economically diverse; migrants right off the boat, peddlers, sweatshop workers, bankers, and entertainers were among its members.” The synagogue was also Orthodox at a time when New York’s grandest synagogues were being built by Reform congregations.
Eldridge Street Synagogue as seen from the balcony. (Michael Horowitz)
For decades, the synagogue thrived as Jewish immigrants filled the Lower East Side. However, by 1940, facing a dwindling membership, the congregation could no longer maintain the main sanctuary and closed it down. By 1970, the building was in danger of collapse and demolition. Students, journalists and historians teamed up to save the synagogue; the restoration began in 1986 and continued to 2007. Today, the building is known as the Eldridge Street Synagogue and Museum, which features exhibits, history and lectures on immigrant life in New York.
The Bialystoker Synagogue (7-11 Bialystoker Pl.)
The Bialystoker Synagogue is found in a Lower East Side building with an unassuming exterior, a holdover from the Methodist Church that was once there. (Michael Horowitz)
Founded on the Lower East Side in 1865, the Bialystoker Synagogue made its home in 1826 church building, purchased from a Methodist congregation, made with schist from Manhattan bedrock. The congregation maintained the austere exterior — though the interior was updated dramatically and boasts a grand ark and floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows. Curiously, an image of a lobster is featured on the elaborately painted ceiling murals — with little explanation for how the non-kosher crustacean might fit into the synagogue’s mission or Jewish identity. One hint is that the panel marks the Hebrew month of Tammuz, which corresponds with the astrological sign of Cancer, the crab. “It was bought from the Methodist Mariner’s Church, and there were a lot of fishermen that belonged to that church,” Horowitz told the New York Jewish Week. Or perhaps a kosher-keeping muralist didn’t know the difference between a lobster and a crab.
An image of a lobster is on the ceiling of the synagogue, in a mural marking the Hebrew month of Tammuz. (Michael Horowitz)
The synagogue, built in a traditional Orthodox style, has a balcony for women worshippers. In one corner of the balcony, a hidden door leads to an attic, which Hartman writes was allegedly a stop on the Underground Railroad.
The synagogue underwent a renovation in 1988 and is still an active traditional Orthodox congregation.
Central Synagogue (652 Lexington Ave.)
Central Synagogue moved into its Lexington Avenue location in 1872. While most congregations face east, towards Jerusalem, Central faces west. Hartman explains that the real estate was “too good to pass up,” and the congregation decided to have an entrance on Lexington. (Michael Horowitz)
Completed in 1872, the building that houses the renowned Reform congregation in Midtown East seats nearly 1,500 people — a fraction of the congregation’s approximately 2,600 members. That’s a long way from the original 18 members from Bohemia, a region of the present-day Czech Republic, who started the congregation in 1846 in a remodeled church in the East Village.
Central Synagogue was built around the same time and in the same neighborhood as the Episcopal St. Thomas Cathedral and the Catholic St. Patrick’s Cathedral — some of New York’s grandest churches, which are also featured in the book. “Each of the groups were saying, ‘We’re here and we’re proud and we have prosperity.’ They were showing off, but in a really beautiful way,” Hartman said. “For Central, it was very much a message of assimilation. They were as interested in liberty, inclusion and reform as they were in Jewish ritual.”
Congregation Shearith Israel (8 West 70th St.)
Congregation Shearith Israel, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, was the only synagogue in New York for nearly a century and a half. The congregation moved several times before finding a permanent home on the Upper West Side. (Michael Horowitz)
Congregation Shearith Israel, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, was the first Jewish congregation in the United States, made up of Sephardic Jews who had arrived in New York in 1654 via Recife, Brazil. The congregation was the only Jewish one in New York for a century and a half before a faction of Ashkenazi members grew big enough to split off and form B’nai Jeshurun in 1825. While the congregation was housed in several different buildings throughout its history, it has been in its current home on the Upper West Side since 1896.
Temple Emanu-El (1 East 65th St.)
Temple Emanu-El was named one of eight “religious” wonders in the United States by CNN, writes Hartman. (Michael Horowitz)
Founded by a small group of German Jews in 1845, Temple Emanu-El has become one of the grandest and more well-known synagogues in New York, boasting prominent members like ex-mayors Ed Koch and Mike Bloomberg, as well as hundreds of other influential Manhattanites.
Considered one of the leading synagogues in the Reform movement, Emanu-El made waves throughout the 19th century for translating all-Hebrew services into German, then English, as well as for installing an organ and for abandoning the mechitzah, the traditional divider between men and women during prayer. After several spots downtown, the congregation moved into its current building on 5th Avenue — the former site of John Jacob Astor’s mansion — in 1927. It can hold 2,500 people, making it one of the largest synagogues in the world.
Park East Synagogue (163 East 67th St.)
The architects Schneider and Herter “took a no-holds-barred approach to the elaborate Byzantine-Moorish design of the synagogue,” writes Hartman of the arches, colors, stained glass and ark at Park East. (Michael Horowitz)
Built in 1890 by brothers Jonas and Samuel Ephraim in honor of their late father, Zichron Ephraim, this Orthodox synagogue has elaborate and eclectic arches, cupolas and stained glass throughout its design, reflecting its prominence in the New York Jewish community. “The design of the synagogue is anything but subtle and so, too, is its spiritual leader for more than 50 years, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, who is outspoken in his advocacy of religious freedom, human rights, and mutual respect,” writes Hartman.
It was Schneier who invited Pope Benedict XVI to Park East in 2008, marking the first ever papal visit to a synagogue in the United States. Schneier, who is currently searching for a successor, was conferred a papal knighthood for interfaith effort for religious freedom. For many decades, Park East was a haven for Jews who immigrated from the Soviet Union.
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The post 6 spectacular synagogues from a new book on Manhattan’s houses of worship appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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NY woman charged with attempting to send over $30,000 to Palestinian Islamic Jihad
(JTA) — A New York woman was arrested and charged with attempting to provide financial support to “Palestine Islamic Jihad,” a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
Catherine Beth Washburn, 37, of Irondequoit, New York, allegedly sent more than $30,000 in cryptocurrency across 80 transactions to an individual who identified as a Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighter in Gaza and claimed to have engaged in attacks against Israel, according to the Justice Department.
She was charged with attempting to provide material support and resources, namely currency, to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
“As alleged in the complaint, this defendant, fueled by her self-described hate of Israel and Jewish people, went to great lengths to attempt to provide financial support to terrorist organizations that use violence to further their agendas, including the Palestine Islamic Jihad,” Michael DiGiacomo, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, said in a statement.
Despite Washburn’s alleged attempts to “support violent extremism,” he added, she was “stopped.”
In February and March 2026, the FBI obtained alleged communications between Washburn and the Islamic Jihad fighter in which she told him that she wished “every day were October 7th.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is an Iran-backed Palestinian terror group that attacked Israel alongside Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, during which its fighters abducted and killed Israeli citizens, including Dror Or, who was killed in Kibbutz Be’eri, and Oded Lifshitz, who was killed in captivity, and Gadi Mozes and Arbel Yehud, who were abducted by the group and released in January 2025.
“[I]f I lived in Gaza, I would fight alongside the resistance,” Washburn allegedly wrote, adding that she hated Jews “very much,” and that she wished Israel “would disappear.”
In one message, Washburn allegedly stated, “I feel excited every time I see news of the killing of an occupation soldier.”
Attempts to reach Washburn for comment by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency were unsuccessful.
According to the criminal complaint, Washburn is a leader of the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation, an extremist anti-Zionist group. The group, which operates in the United States and abroad, was launched last spring and engages in “direct action” to “protest, attack, destory [sic], sabotage and shut down Zionist and U.S infrastructures & business and all its affiliates,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
In August 2025, an affiliate of the group, Jermaiah Yusuf Sawaqed, 25, of Everett, Massachusetts, was charged with vandalizing the Massachusetts State House with paint.
Washburn made an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark W. Pedersen and was detained.
The post NY woman charged with attempting to send over $30,000 to Palestinian Islamic Jihad appeared first on The Forward.
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Columbia University pledged to revamp Mideast offerings. Students of the subject say fragmented courses fall short.
New president Jennifer Mnookin took the helm of Columbia University July 1, vowing to chart a steady course following a tumultuous Gaza War protest movement and Trump administration threats to pull funding that led the Ivy to make a controversial pledge for reforms.
The government also threatened a takeover of the department called Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department (MESAAS), which has long been associated with the Palestinian cause and known as a hub for scholarship critical of Israel.
Columbia’s July 2025 agreement, issued in response to allegations that the protests amounted to discrimination against Jews on campus, pledged to “conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of programs in regional areas across the University, starting with the Middle East” to ensure offerings are “comprehensive and balanced.”
Nearly a year later, the department has been left untouched, according to its chair, Gil Hochberg.
“No requests, suggestions, recommendations, changes were made or enforced by the university on MESAAS as a department. Our academic autonomy has been respectfully preserved,” she said in an interview with the Forward. “The department itself has not been directly or indirectly affected.”
Columbia has made other moves to offer more courses that cover Israel. But undergraduates who study the region say that fragmentation makes pursuing a major challenging.
Orpaz Zamir, a Middle East Studies major at Columbia who hopes to pursue a career in Mideast policy, said courses focused on the conflict are limited. “If you want to study about Israel and Palestine, there are only two classes you can take,” referring to a sociology course taught by Professor Yinon Cohen and the course taught by Massad. He took both.
Massad, the only professor currently teaching about the conflict in MESAAS, has been the department’s chief lightning rod. His article a day after the Oct. 7 attacks, describing the Israeli victims as “colonists” and videos of the attacks as “awesome,” sparked a petition with 70,000 signatures to remove him from Columbia. Massad, who is tenured, has been teaching the course Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies for years. Among his students was Darializa Avila Chevalier, a former Columbia Gaza encampment leader who last week defeated a longtime New York congressman on an anti-Israel platform and drew criticism for her refusal to condemn the Oct. 7 attacks. As an undergrad, she called Massad her favorite professor.
In Spring 2024, a visiting professor, Mohamad Abdou, was fired amid the Congressional hearings on campus antisemitism because of a social media post he made shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks that read: “I’m with the muqawamah [the resistance] be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.”
Activist faculty made headlines but also spoke to a broader reality, as identified by an internal Columbia University antisemitism task force that found in its December 2025 report that “Columbia lacks full-time tenure line faculty expertise in Middle East history, politics, political economy, and policy that is not explicitly anti-Zionist.”
The same report concluded: “Many Jewish and Israeli students reported that if they want to study the Middle East at Columbia, there currently are not enough options that don’t treat Zionism and Israel as fundamentally illegitimate.”
Exam questions
Students interviewed by the Forward describe experiences consistent with those findings. Zamir said he found Cohen’s course on Israel more balanced than Massad’s, though concluded the assigned readings disproportionately favored the Palestinian perspectives.
“To the Palestinian side, he would give entire chapters and long readings, and then for the pro-Israel side it would be mostly a few pages of an article,” said Zamir. “There’s one book that they did give to us that was a bit more pro-Israeli, but it was pro-Israeli in the bad sense, like it justified ethnic cleansing. It’s not the kind of thing that I would support.”
In Massad’s course, Zamir saw discussions of the conflict reflect a particular ideological viewpoint.
He recalled Massad questioning evidence of Hamas sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attacks and disputing claims that Hamas intentionally targets civilians. Zamir also found the questions on exams to be problematic. On one exam, Zamir said, two out of three questions had to do with how Zionism collaborated with the Nazis. On the final exam, one of three questions asked students whether Israel had the right to exist.
“Because he didn’t give any reason in class for why Israel should exist, it’s very hard to answer that question with anything other than ‘no,’” Zamir said. He said he drew on arguments he had learned outside the course to argue that Israel did have that right — and received full credit for the answer.
Zamir noted that despite their ideological differences, Massad made an effort to make him feel welcomed as the only Israeli in the class, even when fellow students didn’t.
Other students interested in the subject described similar difficulties finding courses they viewed as balanced.
“I was looking up every professor and looking pretty scrutinizingly through the description of every class,” said Zev Huneycutt, a rising senior majoring in Middle East studies, economics and political science.
“In the Middle East studies department, when I would look them up, and they’d have leveled this kind of crazy criticism of Israel, and it’s not stuff like, ‘I have some issues with current Israeli government policies,’ it’s stuff that goes a little farther than that. It’s delegitimizing, and I’m like, ‘Okay, well, I’m not taking that professor then.’”
In February, as part of the agreement with the federal government, Columbia published an internal review committee’s recommendations and commitments from several academic departments to enhance Middle East-focused offerings — almost all of which are set to occur outside the MESAAS department.
Indeed, the first recommendation from the review committee reads: “Expand coursework on the Middle East … by developing offerings that complement — and are clearly differentiated from — courses offered by MESAAS.”
Hochberg concludes that this is because MESAAS is already fulfilling its mandate. She noted that the department was “rigorously reviewed” both internally and externally in 2024 during the standard review process that takes place for every department at Columbia every eight years.
“It would be very strange to have another, and the university would never do that,” she said, adding that the review done in 2024 generated a file of 20 pages of recommendations detailing the strengths and weaknesses of the department. According to Hochberg, none of the recommendations made in internal and external reviews had to do with how Israel is taught at MESAAS.
Hochberg, who was born in Israel and identifies as an anti-Zionist, has previously taught courses on Israeli culture. Serving as chair of MESAAS for the past six years, she said, administrative responsibilities have required her to step back from teaching those courses, contributing to what she acknowledges as a gap in the department’s offerings on Israel.
She contends much of the criticism of an anti-Israel bias within MESAAS has been overblown. “It’s a very vigorous department,” she said. “The picture of it as being like a propaganda machine, it’s just not fair.”
Arab Studies search
Though Columbia has left MESAAS largely untouched, it has made additions to other departments and institutes, including bringing on a visiting professor in the economics department to teach about the Middle East, and arranging a visiting appointment in the History Department to teach the history of modern Israel. Its School of International and Public Affairs has appointed a visiting professor, jointly with Columbia’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, to teach on the Jewish world and Middle East policy with courses beginning this fall.
The university also plans to hire a new Edward Said Professor in Modern Arab Studies and Literature, a tenured position that was vacated last August by Rashid Khalidi, a leading scholar of Palestinian history. Khalidi cited the university’s adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism as part of its agreement with the federal government — which equates denying Jews their right to self-determination in Israel with antisemitism — as his reason for resigning.
One potential candidate, Max Weiss, was active in Princeton’s pro-Palestinian movement, serving as a spokesperson when faculty occupied Princeton’s Clio Hall in April 2024 and 13 people were arrested. Another, Rosie Bsheer, was removed from her leadership post at Harvard after she organized a panel that former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers described as “very likely” antisemitic under the IHRA definition.
The university also plans to launch a new undergraduate major in Global Affairs and Public Policy, which it says will expand Middle East course offerings. But the proposal has drawn criticism. In a June 15 statement, the Student Affairs Committee of the University Senate, a body that sets campus policy, questioned “the role of the Global Affairs and Public Policy major in regard to the federal resolution agreement’s commitment to offer politically prescribed curricula on the Middle East.”
To help expose students to a range of analyses of the Middle East, the internal review committee encouraged cross-listing among the Jewish studies institute, MESAAS and the proposed new program.
But this upcoming school year, the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies is offering several courses that pertain to the Middle East, including a course on the history of modern Israel and a course on Jews living in North Africa, that are not cross-listed with MESAAS. (The Institute’s director declined to speak with the Forward, saying that she does not discuss Columbia in the media.)
The only Israel-focused course that MESAAS will cross-list for the upcoming year is the sociology course taught by Cohen.
According to Hochberg, “There are absolutely no political barriers to including courses offered by Jewish and Israel studies in the department, and there never have been.”
She said, “I don’t think it’s a hostile relationship between MESAAS and IIJS. There’s just no substantial relationship. But we do cross-list some courses.”
For Zamir, Columbia’s new reforms are unlikely to address what he views as the underlying problem.
“Adding some classes in the Israel Institute won’t change things, because no one will take a class in the Israel Institute unless they are pro-Israeli to begin with,” he said. “If it’s in the Middle East department, it’s like ‘okay, well, it sounds neutral,’ even though it’s definitely not.”
Lishi Baker, who graduated this spring with a major in history and a specialization in the Middle East, said he largely built his Middle East studies education outside the MESAAS department. He sees the university’s efforts to expand Middle East offerings in other departments as a welcome development.
“A lot of people do what I did, which is study the Middle East through other departments,” Baker said.
He pieced together courses from the History Department, political science, policy school and Jewish studies, ultimately earning a minor in Jewish studies because many of the courses he took related to Israel did not count toward his major.
“I think now, the best place to study the Middle East at Columbia is everywhere but the Middle East Studies Department,” said Baker.
The post Columbia University pledged to revamp Mideast offerings. Students of the subject say fragmented courses fall short. appeared first on The Forward.
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VIDEO: Literature scholar Nathan Cohen speaks about ‘shund’ literature
נתן כּהן, דער אָנגעזעענער פֿאָרשער פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור בײַם בר־אילן אוניווערסיטעט, האָט לעצטנס געהאַלטן אַ רעפֿעראַט אויף ייִדיש אין מינכן, דײַטשלאַנד, וועגן דער ייִדישער מאַסן־ליטעראַטור (דער עיקר, שונד־ליטעראַטור) צווישן 1860 און 1914.
דער נאָמען פֿונעם רעפֿעראַט, „ביכער פֿאַר אַלע“, איז געווען אַ רמז אויפֿן פֿאַרלאַג פֿונעם זעלבן נאָמען, וואָס זײַן שליחות איז געווען צו מאַכן די וועלטלעכע ייִדישע ליטעראַטור מער צוטריטלעך און וואָלוועלער פֿאַר די אָרעמע ייִדישע מאַסן.
די לעקציע, וואָס כּהן האָט געהאַלטן דעם 17טן יוני אינעם לודוויג־מאַקסימיליאַנס־אוניווערסיטעט, איז געווען טייל פֿון אַ יערלעכער טראַדיציע אין מינכן, אײַנגעפֿירט אין 2011 — דעם שלום־עליכם־רעפֿעראַט אין אָנדענק פֿון עוויטאַ וויעצקי, ז״ל. אַרום זיבעציק מענטשן זענען געקומען הערן דעם רעפֿעראַט, און נאָך אַ פֿופֿציק האָבן זיך צוגעהערט דורך דער אינטערנעץ. די אונטערנעמונג איז געשטיצט געוואָרן דורכן קולטור־צענטער פֿון דער מינכנער קהילה און דורך דער קושנער־פֿונדאַציע.
מיט אַ טאָג פֿריִער האָט כּהן געגעבן אַן אַרײַנפֿיר צו דער טעמע פֿאַר אַ גרופּע אָרטיקע ייִדיש־סטודענטן. ווי מע האָט געהערט פֿון די אָפּרופֿן נאָכן קלאַס, האָט נישט נאָר דער תּוכן, נאָר אויך כּהנס אופֿן רעדן גופֿא פֿאַרכאַפּט די תּלמידים. בײַ עטלעכע סטודענטן איז דאָס געווען צום ערשטן מאָל וואָס זיי הערן אַ גאַנצענע לעקציע אויף ייִדיש, און דערצו נאָך – פֿון אַן אומבאַקאַנטן לערער.
אינעם רעפֿעראַט גופֿא דעם צווייטן טאָג האָט כּהן אָנגעהויבן מיט אַ היסטאָרישן אַרײַנפֿיר, דערקלערנדיק ווי אַזוי און ווען עס האָט זיך אָנגעהויבן פֿאַרשפּרייטן די ייִדיש־וועלטלעכע ליטעראַטור און וואָסער ראָלע האָט אין דעם געשפּילט די ייִדישע פּרעסע, אָנהייבנדיק מיטן אַמאָליקן ייִדישן וואָכנבלאַט „קול מבֿשׂר“.
אין צוואַנציקסטן יאָרהונדערט האָבן זיך די ייִדישע צײַטונגען גענומען פֿאַרשפּרייטן אַלץ מער און מער. אין וואַרשע אין 1906 האָט מען אַרויסגעגעבן אַ סך מער ייִדיש־שפּראַכיקע צײַטשריפֿטן ווי העברעיִשע אָדער פּויליש־ייִדישע. האָבן די ייִדישע צײַטונגען געמוזט אויסהאַלטן אַ שטאַרקע קאָנקורענץ, און איין מיטל אין קאַמף איז געווען צו דרוקן די ראָמאַנען אין המשכים (אָדער, ווי מע פֿלעגט עס רופֿן אויפֿן דײַטשמערישן שטייגער – „אין פֿאָרזעצונגען“). אַ בולטער בײַשפּיל פֿון אַזאַ „ראָמאַנען“־קאָנקורענץ געפֿינט מען אין די צוויי וואַרשעווער טאָגצײַטונגען, „הײַנט“ און „מאָמענט“.
די לעקציע האָט כּהן אילוסטרירט מיט אָן אַ שיעור בילדער, ניט נאָר פֿון די צײַטונגען, נאָר דער עיקר אויך פֿון די שיינע שער־בלעטלעך פֿון די אַרומגערעדטע ראָמאַנען; צווישן זיי — ניט ווייניק ווערק פֿון די ייִדישע „שונד“־מחברים אײַזיק־מאיר דיק און שמר. אָט נעמט למשל אַזאַ טיטל: „די בלינדע יתומה, אָדער צווישן טיגערן“ פֿון שמרן, געדרוקט אין 1892.
גרויס הנאה האָט דער עולם געהאַט קוקנדיק אויף ייִדישע באַאַרבעטונגען פֿון אַזעלכע באַקאַנטע ווערק ווי „שערלאָק האָלמס“, „ראָבינזאָן קרוזאָ“ און „מאַקס און מאָריץ“ — אַן אילוסטרירטע דײַטש־שפּראַכיקע דערציילונג פֿון 1865. כּהן האָט זיך באַזונדער אָפּגעשטעלט אויף די דעמאָלטיקע נאָרמעס פֿון איבערזעצן, אויף דער נטיה צו פֿאַרייִדישן פֿרעמדשפּראַכיקע ווערק: אָט הייסט למשל ראָבינזאַן קרוזאָס געפֿונענער חבֿר ניט „פֿרײַטיק“ ווי אין אַנדערע לשונות, נאָר דווקא „שבת“.
מיט פֿילצאָליקע קאָמישע בײַשפּילן האָט כּהן געפֿירט דעם עולם דורך דער געשיכטע פֿון ייִדישער ליטעראַטור, און בולט אָנגעוויזן ווי אַזוי זי האָט אַלע מאָל געזוכט אַ מיטל־ליניע צווישן די אַמביציעס און פֿאָדערונגען פֿון דער הויכער ליטעראַטור מיטן געוואַלדיקן נאָכפֿרעג בײַ די מאַסן נאָך אַ מער „צוטריטלעכער“ ליטעראַטור.
כּהן האָט אַזוי שיין און דראַמאַטיש באַשריבן די שונדראָמאַנען מיט זייערע סענסאַציאָנעלע קעפּלעך, אַז דער עולם איז שוין, דאַכט זיך, גרייט געווען צו קויפֿן און צו לייענען די ביכער. אַ שאָד וואָס קיין מוכר־ספֿרים איז דאָרטן ניט געווען!
דערצו האָבן אַ סך צוהערערס זיך געפֿרייט אַז זיי קענען הערן אַ לאַנגע לעקציע אויף ייִדיש. עטלעכע האָבן זיך אַפֿילו נאָכגעפֿרעגט וועגן ייִדיש־קורסן – וואָס דאָס איז אפֿשר די שענסטע פּעולה פֿון כּהנס רעפֿעראַט.
כאָטש מע האָט אין אָנהייב 20סטן יאָרהונדערט אָפֿט געהאַלטן ייִדיש פֿאַר אַ „זשאַרגאָן“ קען מען זאָגן אַז טיילווײַז „זשאַרגאָניזירט“ מען ייִדיש ביז הײַנט צו טאָג, ווײַל ס’רובֿ פֿונעם עולם אַסאָציִיִרט ייִדיש ראשית־כּל מיט מוזיק (און געוויינטלעך בלויז מיט איין געוויסן טיפּ מוזיק – קלעזמער) אָדער וויצן. מיט זײַן רעפֿעראַט האָט כּהן דערוויזן דעם היפּוך — אַז ייִדיש טויג יאָ פֿאַר אַן אַקאַדעמישער בינע, און אַז אַפֿילו וועגן אַזאַ „נידעריקער“ טעמע ווי שונד, קען אַ פּראָפֿעסאָר האַלטן אַן ערשטקלאַסיקע לעקציע.
כּדי צו הערן דעם גאַנצן רעפֿעראַט, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
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