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Eric Adams wants to combat hate in NYC through interfaith dinners. Can that accommodate Orthodox Jews?
(New York Jewish Week) — Mayor Eric Adams is famous for his love of the city’s nightlife, and that mood was on display last Thursday as he hobnobbed with more than 100 people at the 40/40 Club, an upscale bar and restaurant in the Barclays Center, while dining on lamp-warmed samosas and chicken skewers.
The gathering came with a goal: to jumpstart a program, called “Breaking Bread, Building Bonds,” that aims to bring together leaders of the city’s diverse ethnic and religious communities over food. The attendees, mostly city workers and nonprofit employees, were there to experience what such a dinner could feel like, and to learn how to host one of their own.
“We are going to finish with 1,000 dinners,” Adams said, speaking to the crowd. “Ten thousand people will become ambassadors for our city. Then those 10,000 people will branch out and do their dinners, turn into 100,000. We will continue to multiply until this city becomes a beacon of possibility.”
The dinner initiative was conceived with the Jewish community at its center — launching at a JCC in partnership with one of the city’s biggest Jewish nonprofits. Now, it faces an additional hurdle: Engaging the large haredi Orthodox communities in Brooklyn that have experienced a series of street attacks — and that observe a set of strict religious laws surrounding food that could hinder their participation in some interfaith meals.
Some haredi New Yorkers have attended the “Breaking Bread” dinners, and members of at least one large Hasidic community are planning to host one of the meals. But other haredi activists in the city told the New York Jewish Week that they’re skeptical the program can be sufficiently sensitive to their dietary and religious restrictions, which include close adherence to kosher laws and, for some, gender separation at public events.
The first catalyst dinner for New York City Mayor Eric Adam’s ‘Breaking Bread, Building Bonds’ initiative was held at Barclays Center on Thursday, March 2. (Jacob Henry)
Speaking on the sidelines of last week’s dinner, Adams said the initiative does account for the needs of observant Jews. When he held similar dinners as Brooklyn borough president in 2020, he said, the meals were always “considerate of Shabbos.”
“We allow the dinners to happen throughout the week,” Adams told the New York Jewish Week. “Those who can’t come on a Friday night or until sundown, we do that. If they eat kosher, we do that. We keep the meals simple, nothing complicated, so that everyone can feel at home at the same time.”
But the event where Adams was speaking did not, in fact, include kosher food, according to Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, who leads Kehilat Sephardim of Ahavat Achim, a Bukharian community synagogue in Kew Gardens Hills, Queens.
“It was a mistake,” Nisanov said. “I didn’t eat the food, I only had the drinks. I was complaining about it.”
However, three of the dinners hosted so far have been certified kosher, and many local Jewish activists — including Orthodox leaders — said they support the initiative and believe it can accommodate a broad portion of the city’s Jewish spectrum.
Devorah Halberstam, an adherent of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement and longtime campaigner against antisemitism, said she plans to host a dinner in the future.
“It’s actually not that complicated,” said Halberstam, who serves as director of foundation and government at the Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn. “You invite people to a table and you have conversations. If it’s Muslims, we’ll have halal stuff covered. Kosher food is in another setting. Ultimately, it ends up working.”
The initiative aims to hold 1,000 dinners across the city that bring together community leaders in the hope that eating together will foster mutual understanding that will trickle down to rank-and-file New Yorkers of different backgrounds. At the kickoff event at the Marlene Meyerson JCC on the Upper West Side in late January, Adams called the dinners a “potent weapon” against hate.
Breaking Bread is supported by multiple city agencies and Jewish organizations, including the UJA-Federation of New York; the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York; The People’s Supper, a non-profit that facilitates meals between people of different identities that began holding similar dinners in 2017; and the New York City Office of the Prevention Of Hate Crimes, which is overseen by the mayor. UJA is partially funding the program by reimbursing up to $150 per dinner.
The Adams administration, and organizations supporting Breaking Bread, declined to provide key pieces of information about the initiative, including a budget, list of hosts or people who had signed up or a list of scheduled dinners.
The initiative is designed around dinners of roughly 10 people each. The host is given a guide that includes instructions on how to facilitate a dinner and sample questions to ask fellow diners. One question asks attendees to describe “a time, recent or long passed, in which you were made to feel… fully seen, heard and like you fully belonged.”
Rabbi Bob Kaplan, who is the executive director of the Center for a Shared Society at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, told the New York Jewish Week that the organization is “taking this program very seriously.”
“We will be looking to encourage as much of this as we can throughout the city,” Kaplan said. “We really think that Breaking Bread opportunities are incredible ways of bringing together leadership and community leaders to really talk to each other.”
The few dinners hosted thus far have included religious leaders, city officials and leaders of nonprofit organizations. Anyone can sign up to host or attend a dinner via a city website. Hassan Naveed, executive director of the OPHC, told the New York Jewish Week that thus far, nearly 500 people have signed up as hosts or participants.
“There is so much interest happening,” Naveed said. “We want this to be something that is movement-building, that brings folks together from different parts of the city, to really build a relationship between communities.”
There have been several dinners in the weeks since Breaking Bread launched, including one that Naveed attended last month at Talia’s Steakhouse, a kosher restaurant on the Upper West Side, where the mayor himself made a brief appearance. Diners ate Jamaican cuisine, served by chef Kwame Williams, in honor of Black History Month. Other attendees ranged from a senior city official to Tenzin Tseyang, a community liaison for Queens City Councilmember Julie Won; UJA’s Rabbi Menachem Creditor and others.
Other dinners have taken place at the Manhattan JCC and at Manhattan College, both of which were also kosher. The JCC dinner included the executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project and a representative of the Asian-American Foundation, in addition to Jewish leaders and cosponsors of the initiative.
“Those who are seated around the table with one another will be able to call on one another for both simple and hard things,” said Rabbi Linda Shriner-Cahn of Congregation Tehillah in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale, who hosted the Manhattan College dinner. “When we strengthen our own communities, we’re more able to reach out to other communities.”
Bringing New Yorkers together to break bread is one of the best ways we can talk through differences and defeat the pipeline of hate.
Last night’s Breaking Bread Building Bonds event at Talia’s Steakhouse on the Upper West Side did just that. pic.twitter.com/Meugkqdt7Q
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) February 17, 2023
Nisanov, the Bukarian rabbi from Queens, said he believes in the concept and has hosted his own dinners with neighborhood Muslim leaders.
“We sat together at my synagogue with people from the Muslim faith because people didn’t know each other,” Nisanov told the New York Jewish Week. “Now, they know that kosher is the same as halal.” (Jewish and Muslim dietary laws are similar, but they are not the same.)
The initiative has not yet involved some large segments of the Brooklyn haredi community, including a major Satmar Hasidic organization. Moishe Indig, a prominent activist affiliated with another faction of Satmar, and a close confidante of the mayor, has also not attended. City Council member Lincoln Restler, who is Jewish and represents South Williamsburg, which is home to a large number of Satmar Jews, told the Jewish Week in a statement that he is “in touch with City Hall and eager to convene Breaking Bread gatherings” in his district.
“This is a wonderful new initiative building on the mayor’s work as borough president,” Restler said. “We will never arrest our way out of hate violence, so we need to deepen cross-cultural understanding to address our collective safety.”
Adams does have a close relationship with the Hasidic community. The mayor appointed Joel Eiserdorfer to the role of advisor in his administration, the first Hasidic Jew to hold that title. Adams received considerable Hasidic support in his 2021 election victory.
But despite that relationship, some Orthodox leaders and activists still have their doubts that the dinner initiative will successfully engage the haredi community. Some spoke to the New York Jewish Week anonymously, out of a fear that their criticism could hurt their community’s relationship with the mayor.
One Orthodox leader who works in government told the New York Jewish Week that “at this moment, it feels like this initiative doesn’t exist.”
“Personally everyone is rooting for the mayor on this,” the leader said, but he added that the initiative was “not comprehensive” in terms of reaching out to major Orthodox groups.
“Most of us haven’t heard of it,” another Orthodox community activist said. “The mayor’s head is in the right place. I’m sure this program is well-intentioned.” But he added, referring to kosher restrictions and norms of gender separation, that ”on a practical level, it’s hard to see how it will work in this community.”
He added that he believes leaders in the Hasidic community may participate, but “we don’t need to bring together leadership… We need people on the street to understand each other.”
Nisanov believes the Breaking Bread dinners can help accomplish that task by helping community leaders influence their constituents.
“It starts from the leaders and it goes down to the regular people,” he said. “It’s going to take a while, but at least when the elders do it, it will trickle down to the young. We will have to include young people to show and explain.”
He said that there are some people within the Jewish community who “would like to live in a secluded world.”
“That’s not possible,” Nisanov said. “There will always be restrictions. God will not change. We will always have that, but we have to learn to coexist.”
Motti Seligson, a Hasidic communal leader and Chabad spokesman, told the New York Jewish Week that “there are dinners already planned in neighborhoods like Crown Heights that will certainly have participation from the Hasidic Jews.” He added, “Building these bonds is something that Mayor Adams has not only seen and experienced first hand… he also created many of them through events like the Breaking Bread dinners in Brooklyn, which he organized.”
Deborah Lauter, the inaugural director of the OPHC, said Breaking Bread “has enormous potential” but acknowledged that navigating the range of haredi groups takes time.
“There are so many different factions within the haredi community,” Lauter said. “Some will be more inclined to participate than others. There’s a lot more work to get people on the ground to know each other.”
—
The post Eric Adams wants to combat hate in NYC through interfaith dinners. Can that accommodate Orthodox Jews? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A decaying historic farmhouse finds a savior in Chabad
A Dutch Colonial home, just one of a handful of pre-Revolutionary War houses left in New York City, has been vacant and decaying for years. The windows are boarded up, signs warning against trespassing cover the property, and chunks of the ceiling are missing inside.
This historic landmark has an unlikely savior: Chabad, the global Lubavitch movement, which is planting one of its thousands of outposts there.
“Dilapidated is an understatement,” Rabbi Zalman Liberow of Chabad of Flatbush said as he gave the Forward a tour.
Chabad of Flatbush, led by Liberow and his wife, Chana, bought the historic Brooklyn property in December 2024 and will soon begin renovations to make the place livable. In the meantime, the couple has already transformed the barnhouse next door into a sanctuary, where a photo of the Lubavitch rebbe hangs on the wall near a compartment once used to store hay.
As other Jewish organizations have shifted toward digital community, Chabad has continued investing heavily in brick-and-mortar real estate, ranging from modest suburban homes to multimillion-dollar towers and converted landmarks. It’s a strategy that anchors Chabad in the communities it serves, but can also be costly: For the most part, Chabad couples — each unit headed by a rabbi and rebbitzin — finance their own operations, raising their own money to buy homes and establish centers of Jewish life.
The Liberows said a generous donation of Bitcoin from a donor, Eliot Stavrach, ultimately allowed them to purchase the 22,000 square foot lot for roughly $3 million, along with securing a high-interest loan to pay the mortgage while the couple awaited the sale of their old headquarters down the street. Last week, that transaction went through and reaped nearly $1.1 million.
The seller had also cut the asking price by nearly half, offloading what had become a white elephant, Liberow said.
“For him, it was a pain. For us, it was good,” Liberow said. “And I thought, even better, this is such an important piece of United States history.”
The prior landlord had reportedly struggled to find a buyer for the landmarked home, which by law cannot be demolished, and any alterations to the facade must be pre-approved by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission. In buying the home, the Liberows are also preventing its further deterioration — to the relief of neighbors who said the abandoned site had become a hotspot for drug use and a symbol of neglect.
“I’m just happy that the house will not be torn down and will actually have a future — a good one, it seems,” said Lori Citron Knipel, a former leader in the Brooklyn Democratic Party who used to frequent the house. “So that absolutely warms my heart, because it’s been breaking every time I pass it.”
The house’s history
The Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead is likely among the ten oldest properties in Brooklyn and the 50 oldest houses in all of New York City, according to Simeon Bankoff, former executive director of the Historic Districts Council.
A 1968 report from the Landmarks Preservation Commission noted that “two hundred years of wear have done little to diminish the simple beauty of its clear-cut profile,” and described it as “the most beautiful example of Dutch Colonial architecture in Brooklyn.”
The house is also notable for its role in the Revolutionary War: During the conflict, it quartered German soldiers fighting for the British, known as Hessians. Two of the soldiers etched their names and units into a windowpane.
A historical marker at the house notes that those troops may have taken part in the Battle of Brooklyn, the first major battle after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
According to Liberow, local legend holds that George Washington once stopped at the Wyckoff-Bennett house for tea — though, “we never did find the teacup,” he joked.
Bankoff attributed the properties’ staying power partly to the fact that prior to a venture called 22nd Street Investors LLC purchasing the lots in 2021, the property had only ever been owned by three families over more than 250 years.
Hendrick H. Wyckoff, son of a Dutch settler who emigrated to New Amsterdam in 1637, is believed to have built the house before 1766. In 1835, Cornelius W. Bennett purchased it, and it remained in the Bennett family for four generations before a Jewish couple, Annette and Stuart Mont, bought the property in 1983.
‘A piece of Brooklyn’s history’
The Monts had a deep appreciation for the home’s history, Citron Knipel said, and often opened it to the community. They hosted political fundraisers, birthday parties, and even a wedding at the house, she said, and they welcomed school groups into their home for local history field trips.
Only the facade of the house is landmarked, making its preservation legally required. But the Monts also preserved its interior details, including furniture from the Wyckoffs and Bennetts, an ornate fireplace framed by decorative tiles depicting biblical scenes, and an antique Richardson & Boynton Co. stove.
“There’s a sense of being part of and having a responsibility to the rest of the community to preserve it and move it forward,” Stu said in the 2013 documentary Living in a Landmark.
“And share it,” Annette added. “Because we have bought a piece of Brooklyn’s history.”
But an effort to secure the home’s legacy fell apart in 2010. The Monts had been in talks with the city to purchase the property, only to withdraw after the city reduced the sale price, deducting the rent the Monts theoretically would have paid to continue living there.
Annette died in 2013 at age 72, and Stuart died three years later at age 76. Their children, Ira and Randi Mont, sold the property to 22nd Street Investors LLC, registered to real estate investor Avraham Dishi, in 2021.
In an interview with the Forward, Ira Mont said he believed at the time of sale that 22nd Street Investors LLC would keep the house in good condition — and was disappointed that they ultimately did not.
Dishi drew two complaints for failing to maintain the Wyckoff Bennett house: one for the poor condition of the fence, still active, and another for the condition of the facade and roof, later withdrawn.
Officials at a Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing in March to discuss the Liberows’ minor proposed changes to the home noted there had been “all kinds of vandalism, fires, squatters, [and] drug users” there in recent years.
The Forward reached Dishi’s office by phone and left a message, but did not hear back.
Liberow said he has big plans for the house pending approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, including displaying a video in the front yard highlighting Jewish history in the United States. The Commission has already approved plans to install porch railings, a curb cut and a driveway at the site. And like the Motts, the couple plans to open the space up to the public. They’ve already begun hosting Hebrew school and holiday gatherings in the barnhouse next door, which they renovated for about $200,000 with rustic touches including wood paneling, barrels, lanterns and candle chandeliers.
For neighbors, the most meaningful change may simply be that the property is occupied at all.
“We got a very big welcome over here, because everyone’s so happy,” Liberow said. “Someone is going to save the property.”
The post A decaying historic farmhouse finds a savior in Chabad appeared first on The Forward.
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A staggering act of antisemitic hate proves the danger of Israel’s death penalty
A recent pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal featured something shocking: hanging effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, United States President Donald Trump, and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. They were the latest nauseating reminder that calling for executions only feeds the cycle of violence — a reminder that Israel itself needs, after the Knesset enacted two laws calling for the death penalty for terrorists.
There is no excuse for the antisemitic horror of this recent display in Canada, where I live. But there is also no doubt that Israel’s new death penalty laws will only ripen the environment in which this insidious kind of hate takes root and festers. The fact that the executed effigies of Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu both wore the same noose lapel pin that Ben-Gvir wore as he championed these death penalty laws through the Knesset underscores this point.
The lesson is simple: calls for death only fuel the urge for more killing.
This was made apparent by Hamas’ reciprocal call for violence against IDF soldiers in response to the death penalty acts. It is for this reason — the simple truth that killing tends to beget more killing — that Elie Wiesel prophetically warned of capital punishment: “Death should never be the answer in a civilized society.”
An affront to humanity
The Canadian effigies — captured in videos posted on social media — are now the subject of a hate crimes investigation, and drew widespread condemnation from local and provincial politicians across Canada, as well as Jewish groups. Montreal4Palestine, the group that hosted the mobilization where the effigies were filmed, wrote on Instagram in response that it “strongly condemns the defamatory accusations and deliberate distortion of events” and said that it has “stood firmly against all forms of hate, including antisemitism.”
The effigies, the group added, “were directed specifically at political figures” and were not “intended to represent Judaism, Jewish people, or any religious, ethnic, or identifiable community.”
What Montreal4Palestine missed, while advocating in its statement for “values of human dignity,” is the reality that any call for execution runs counter to those values.
Intention and effect
This holds true across countries and ideologies: once killing is legitimized, it becomes hard to control.
Montreal4Palestine should have understood that pretending to execute politicians who have called for executions can only raise the temperature, not lower it. Using this same principle, Israel could, perhaps, have anticipated that Hamas leadership would call for the kidnapping of IDF soldiers in response to the death penalty laws. That development only confirms a fear that opponents of Israel’s renewed execution push have articulated time and again: that these laws will jeopardize the safety and security of Jews across the globe.
In the document that was published by Israeli Public Broadcaster KAN News, Hamas leadership stated clearly that it is planning to intensify efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers, describing such action as the only effective means of securing the release of Palestinian prisoners who might otherwise face the death penalty in Israel.
Hamas described one of the death penalty laws as a “fascist law.” The group also warned that if Israel were to execute any Palestinian prisoners, the result could be more clashes between Hamas and Israeli soldiers in Gaza. “Any harm to the life of a prisoner is an explosive that will lead to the eruption of a volcano,” the letter read.
A chance to turn back
There is still a chance to avoid this escalation. The Israeli Supreme Court will soon debate the legality of the first of the death penalty laws. If the Supreme Court fails to repeal the act, the ensuing executions will stain the moral fabric of Israeli society, and antisemitic extremists will assuredly blame all Jews for the escalation in Israeli state violence.
It will be yet another piece of data to fit into an already-warped view of Israel, and perhaps, as well, of Judaism. For some, that may be all it takes to replace hanging effigies with attacking human beings.
If repeal at the Supreme Court level succeeds, however, it could also set a precedent for the eventual repeal of the second death penalty law, which specifically targets convicted terrorists who carried out the reprehensible Oct. 7, 2023 massacres across Israel.
Repealing both laws would help to lower the global temperature. It would make Jews safer in Israel, in Montreal, and everywhere.
For this reason, amid many others, the Israeli Supreme Court must act. It must forcefully encourage Israel to return to the civilized, abolitionist path for which Wiesel called. Only then can we begin to halt the seemingly endless cycle of violence and killing.
The post A staggering act of antisemitic hate proves the danger of Israel’s death penalty appeared first on The Forward.
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A guide to the Corpus interviews with European native Yiddish speakers
דאָס איז איינער פֿון אַ סעריע קורצע אַרטיקלען אָנגעשריבן אױף אַ רעלאַטיװ גרינגן ייִדיש און געצילעװעט אױף סטודענטן. די מחברטע איז אַלײן אַ ייִדיש־סטודענטקע. דאָ קען מען לײענען די פֿריִערדיקע אַרטיקלען אין דער סעריע.
אַ דאַנק דעם נײַעם „קאָרפּוס פֿון דער ייִדישער שמועסשפּראַך אין אײראָפּע“ (קיש״אָ) קענען ייִדיש־סטודענטן אינטעראַקטיװ פֿאָרשן װידעאָ־אינטערװיוען מיט כּמעט 200 געבױרענע ייִדיש־רעדערס װאָס האָבן איבערגעלעבט דעם חורבן.
פֿאַרשטײט זיך, אַז אַזאַ עדות־זאָגן פֿון לעבן געבליבענע איז רײַך מיט היסטאָרישער אינפֿאָרמאַציע װעגן דעם ייִדישן לעבן פֿאַר, בעת און נאָכן חורבן. ווי עס שרײַבט דזשעפֿרי שאַנדלער אין דעם אַרטיקל, קאָנצענטרירט זיך דער קאָרפּוס אָבער, דער עיקר, אױף שפּראַך־ענינים — אױף װי אַזױ די שמועסשפּראַך װאַרפֿט אַ שײַן אױפֿן אַמאָליקן טאָגטעגלעך ייִדיש איבער מיזרח־אײראָפּע. אַזאַ טראָפּ לײגט זיך אױפֿן שׂכל, װײַל דער פּראָיעקט איז געװען די המצאה פֿון אײַזיק בלימאַן, אַ פּראָפֿעסאָר פֿון לינגװיסטיק אין בערקלי אוניװערסיטעט.
די װידעאָ־אינטערװיוען אינעם קאָרפּוס שטאַמען פֿונעם אַרכיװ פֿון דער װיזועלער געשיכטע, װאָס איז אַ טײל פֿון דער שואה־פֿונדאַציע בײַם דרום־קאַליפֿאָרניער אוניװערסיטעט. ס׳רובֿ פֿון די ווידעאָס האָט מען רעקאָרדירט אין די 1990ער יאָרן, װען אַ גרױסע צאָל פֿון דער שארית־הפּליטה האָט נאָך געלעבט. דער פֿונדאַציע־אַרכיװ באַשטײט פֿון טױזנטער אינטערװיוען אױף פֿאַרשײדענע שפּראַכן; דערווײַל באַטרעפֿט דער קאָרפּוס 172 פֿון די ייִדיש־שפּראַכיקע אינטערװיוען. אַרום די דאָזיקע ווידעאָס האָט בלימאַן געשאַפֿן דיגיטאַלישע מכשירים, װאָס ייִדיש־סטודענטן קענען ספּעציעל געניסן דערפֿון.
דאָ האָט מען צוטריט צו די אינטערװיוען פֿונעם קאָרפּוס. זײ זענען אַלפֿאַבעטיש אױסגעסדרט לױטן משפּחה־נאָמען פֿונעם רעדער. אין דער רשימה נעמען זעט מען אַ בילד פֿון יעדן מענטש צוזאַמען מיט זײַן געבױרן־אָרט אױף ייִדיש און ענגליש, זײַן מין און זײַן עלטער בעת דעם אינטערװיו. אַ „קאָד“ װײַזט אָן װאָסער ייִדיש־דיאַלעקט זײ רעדן׃ צפֿון־מיזרח־ייִדיש (NEY), צענטראַל־ייִדיש (CY), אָדער דרום־מיזרח־ייִדיש (SEY). מען קען אױך אַ זוך טאָן לױטן רעדערס נאָמען, געבױרן־אָרט, מין אָדער דיאַלעקט.
װען מען גיט אַ קוועטש אױפֿן קנעפּל פֿון אַן אינטערװיו באַקומט מען װײַטערדיקע אינפֿאָרמאַציע װעגן דעם רעדער, אַרײַננעמנדיק מאַפּעס מיט זײער געבױרן־אָרט און אינטערװיו־אָרט. יעדער אינטערװיו ווערט באַגלייט מיט ייִדישע אונטערקעפּלעך. די דאָזיקע אונטערקעפּלעך זענען ניט געשאַפֿן געװאָרן פֿון אײ־אײַ, אָבער פֿון אַ קלײנער גרופּע מומחים. פֿאַרשטײט זיך אַז אַזאַ פֿאַרלאָזלעכער אָנשפּאַר איז גאָר נוצלעך פֿאַר סטודענטן. איך אַליין האָב זיך צוגעהערט צו אַ פּאָר אינטערװיוען אָן די ייִדישע אונטערקעפּלעך (כ׳האָב פֿאַרמאַכט די אױגן, אָבער מע קען אױך „באַהאַלטן“ די אונטערקעפּלעך דורכן קוועטשן אַ קנעפּל) און אַ צווייט מאָל — מיט זײ. אָן אַ ספֿק האָב איך פֿאַרשטאַנען אַ סך מער מיט זײ. די אונטערקעפּלעך זענען אַגבֿ ניט איבערגעזעצט אױף ענגליש — מען קען זײ לײענען בלויז אױף ייִדיש.
אונטער יעדן װידעאָ געפֿינט זיך אַ טאַבעלע מיט די טראַנסקריפּציעס, אױף אַ בלױען הינטערגרונט. יעדע פֿראַזע איז אַ פֿאַרבינדונג אױף די דאָזיקע װערטער אינעם װידעאָ. דערווײַל זענען די טראַנסקריפּציעס אין דער טאַבעלע מערסטנס אױף לאַטײַנישע אותיות, כאָטש אין עטלעכע פֿאַלן קען מען אױך אױסקלײַבן ייִדישע אותיות. מיט דער צײַט װעט מען אָפֿטער האָבן אַ ברירה.
װײַטער אונטן קען מען אַראָפּלאָדן אַן אױדיאָ־טעקע פֿונעם אינטערװיו, און אַ דאָקומענט מיטן גאַנצן טראַנסקריבירטן טעקסט. פֿאַרשטײט זיך אַז אױף דערװײַל זענען די טראַנסקריפּציעס, װי די אונטערקעפּלעך, מערסטנס אױף לאַטײַנישע אותיות.
נאָך אַ קאָרפּוס־מכשיר, װאָס הײסט די „װערטער מאַפּעס“, װעט ספּעציעל צוציִען סטודענטן װאָס פֿאַראינטערעסירן זיך אין דיאַלעקטן. איך אַליין װײס גאָרניט װעגן דעם, בין איך טאַקע פֿאַרכאַפּט געװאָרן דערפֿון. מען קען דאָרטן זוכן אַ ייִדיש װאָרט כּדי צו זען אין װעלכע אינטערװיוען דאָס װאָרט באַװײַזט זיך. דאָס געבױרן־אָרט פֿון די רעדערס װאָס ניצן דאָס װאָרט װײַזן זיך אַרױס אױף אַ מאַפּע. אַזױ באַקומט מען אַ רושם פֿון די געאָגראַפֿישע ראַיאָנען װוּ דאָס װאָרט איז געװען פֿאַרשפּרײט.
מען קען אױך פֿאַרגלײַכן צװײ װערטער אָדער נוסחאָות פֿון אַ װאָרט. איך האָב למשל פֿאַרגלײַכט „געבראַכט“ און „געברענגט“, װאָס זענען בײדע פֿאַרגאַנגענע פּאַרטיציפּן פֿון „ברענגען“. אױף דער מאַפּע האָב איך געזען אַז „געבראַכט“ באַװײַזט זיך זײער אָפֿט אין צפֿון־מיזרח־ייִדיש, און „געברענגט“ ניצט מען דער עיקר אױף צענטראַל־ייִדיש. דאָס זוכן װערטער פּאָרנװײַז איז טאַקע אַ ביסל אַדיקטיװ! ס’איז אָבער װיכטיק איבערצולײענען די אינסטרוקציעס כּדי צו פֿאַרשטײן די רעזולטאַטן.
דער קאָרפּוס שטעלט אױך צו אַן אינטעראַקטיװע היסטאָרישע מאַפּע. אױף דער מאַפּע געפֿינען זיך די געבױרן־ערטער פֿון די רעדערס: װען מען גיט אַ קוועטש אױף אַן אָרט זעט מען אַ פּינטל פֿאַר יעדן רעדער װאָס איז דאָרטן געבױרן געװאָרן — די פּינטלעך זענען דיגיטאַלישע פֿאַרבינדונגען צו די דאָזיקע אינטערװיוען. מען קען אױך זוכן דעם נאָמען פֿון אַ רעדער אָדער פֿון אַן אָרט אין אַ זוך־קעסטל.
דערצו געפֿינט זיך אונטער דער מאַפּע אַ קנעפּל װאָס מען קען רוקן כּדי צו זען װי אַזױ די פּאָליטישע גרענעצן האָבן זיך געענדערט מיט דער צײַט. מען קען אױסזומירן (zoom out, בלע״ז) כּדי צו זען גאַנץ אײראָפּע אָדער אײַנזומירן אױף אַ ספּעציפֿישן ראַיאָן. מען קען אױך אױסקלײַבן עטלעכע „שיכטן“ װאָס באַװײַזן זיך אױף דער מאַפּע, למשל די גרענעצן צװישן ייִדיש־דיאַלעקטן. נאָך אַ מאָל איז עס װיכטיק איבערצולײענען די „נאָטיצן“, װאָס דערקלערן די פֿאַרשײדענע ברירות.
אינעם אָפּטײל װאָס הײסט „גלאָסעס“ קען מען לײענען אַרטיקלען פֿון בלימאַן און די קאָרפּוס־טראַנסקריבירערס װעגן דער ייִדיש־פּעדאַגאָגיק, און װעגן דער שפּראַך אין די אינטערװיוען. כאָטש די אַרטיקלען זענען מסתּמא געצילעװעט אױף פֿאָרשערס און לערערס קענען זײ אױך פֿאַראינטערעסירן סטודענטן.
מיט דער צײַט װעט זיך דער קאָרפּוס פֿאַרגרעסערן און צושטעלן נאָך װײַטערדיקע אינטערװיוען און מכשירים. פֿאַרשטײט זיך אַז ער איז שױן אַ װיכטיקער רעסורס פֿאַר ייִדיש־סטודענטן. פֿאָרשט דאָס װעבזײַטל אַלײן — איר װעט זיך אַ סך דערוויסן.
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