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How our Yiddish group uses the Forverts podcast to learn the language
When the Iowa City Yiddish Group began meeting at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was one of the absolute beginners. Six years later, I lead the enthusiastic group of some 12-15 retirees and produce lesson plans for each class that incorporate a variety of activities to promote listening and Yiddish speaking skills.
Each class draws from printed, auditory, and visual texts: songs, excerpts from interviews in the Wexler Oral History Project at the Yiddish Book Center, advertisements in old issues of Der Forverts, poems, folk tales, film clips, and the like. For each text, I design activities to promote comprehension, get students interacting with the text and with each other, and learn a bit of grammar, much as I did for many years when I taught Spanish to college students.
When I discovered that the Forverts had introduced a podcast intended for intermediate-level students, Yiddish with Rukhl, I knew I could use it to help the group learn.
One of the challenges of working with authentic texts — that is, texts produced by native speakers for native speakers, not for language learners — is that they are often frustratingly difficult for students. In addition, there are particular challenges with texts that students listen to rather than read or view, since listening happens in real time with no way to pause to look up a word or ask a question, nor can listeners rely on visual elements (as one could do with a film) to get clues to meaning. But Yiddish with Rukhl avoids those issues.
The format is straightforward: In each episode, editor Rukhl Schaechter reads two articles on a topic clearly at a relatively slow pace. Because the articles were previously published in the Forverts, I could use the audio recording and printed texts in tandem, which our group particularly appreciates.
A frequent topic of conversation among language teachers is how to come up with class activities that can bridge the gap between students’ comprehension levels and texts that the students would struggle to understand on their own. This is especially true for authentic texts, but also applies to any text students find somewhat difficult. With the first podcast episode, devoted to coffee, I created activities for the first half of the first article, Di kave-hoypshtot fun der velt (“The Coffee Capital of the World”) by Leyzer Burko.
This was my lesson plan:
- I started with a pre-listening activity, whose purpose was to introduce students to the themes of the audio text so that some of the information they would then hear would already be familiar to them. In this case, I wrote some open-ended questions to get the students talking (oyf yidish) about their feelings about coffee as children, their current coffee-drinking routines, and what the term kave-kultur means to them. The Iowa City Yiddish group is made up of smart people, and they had a lot to say about coffee culture in Europe, both past and present, that they then heard in the podcast.
- Then, I played five minutes of the podcast, which corresponded to the first half of the article. Depending on the platform one chooses (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.), you can modify the playback speed, which can be helpful if a group finds the pace too fast. Although the students had the printed text in front of them, I asked them to close their eyes and focus just on comprehension. A quick self-assessment revealed that most understood 70-80%, which I consider ideal for learning.
- I played the recording again, and this time asked the students to follow along in their printed texts and circle words they did not know.
- We then read the text aloud, stopping at words that needed explanation. Each time I asked someone who already knew the word to derklern oyf yidish; that is, explain the meaning of the word without recourse to English. Paraphrasing, or using language you know to explain something you do not have the words for yet, is a skill that language learners at all levels need, and it is also a way for me to conduct as much of the class as possible in Yiddish.
- Finally, I used the printed text to teach grammar. Our group has never warmed to learning grammatical patterns in isolation, so I have turned instead to teaching such topics as inflection of nouns and pronouns, word order, and separable-prefix verbs by showing students how they work in texts to make meaning. This activity is the only one we did in Yiddish; the rest of the class was conducted almost entirely in Yiddish.
When we worked on Zikhrones fun an unterban-pasazhir (“Memories of a Subway Passenger”) by Rukhl Schaechter, I opted to focus exclusively on listening comprehension. Rather than activities based on the printed text (lesson plan steps 3, 4 and 5), I designed a series of collaborative listening activities. The narrative structure of the article was a good match for collaborative listening, because events in chronological sequence are often easier to understand and remember.
After a couple of pre-listening activities to orient students to the content of what they were about to hear, they focused on understanding as much as they could while listening to the audio of the article.
I then divided them into breakout rooms, where their task was to collaboratively create a list in simple Yiddish of the pieces of information they had understood in the six-minute article. We then got back together and I played the audio again with the goal that they would confirm their comprehension, notice and understand what their group mates had contributed, and pick up additional new pieces of information. They then returned to their breakout groups to expand on what they had written earlier. The final step was to return to the whole group once again and combine the groups’ lists to recreate as full a picture as possible of the content of the article.
The members of the Iowa City Yiddish group have expressed enthusiasm for working with the podcasts, and I plan to design lessons for more of them over the coming months. The relatable topics, appropriate difficulty level, and clear audio quality make them ideal for a community Yiddish group.
The post How our Yiddish group uses the Forverts podcast to learn the language appeared first on The Forward.
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Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater.
In any other year Deni Avdija, the NBA’s reigning Israeli superstar and its most talented Jewish player in at least half a century, might be a shoo-in for the league’s Most Improved Player award. The 6-foot-8 forward inflated his scoring average from 16.9 to 24.2 — good for 14th in the NBA — as he made his first All-Star team and guided the Portland Trail Blazers to their first winning season in five years.
But in spite of his team’s social media campaigning, this year’s award seems most likely headed to the Atlanta Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker, whose 20 points-per-game more than doubled last year’s average. Sportsbooks made Alexander-Walker an overwhelming favorite to win, and while I would debate the merits — Avdija also raised his assist numbers, had a bigger role on his team and made a more difficult leap — I can’t really argue the odds.
Anyway, with the regular season over, Deni is onto more important things — starting Tuesday night, when his Blazers take on the Phoenix Suns in the biggest game of his career to date. The winner of Tuesday’s Play-In (10 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime) advances to the one place Avdija’s never been in his six seasons: the NBA Playoffs.
At stake is more than just Avdija’s drought of 425 games without a playoff appearance — the fifth longest streak of any active player. It’s also the 10 years Israeli fans watched Avdija’s Jewish countryman Omri Casspi play without seeing him in the postseason. Casspi’s 588 games with seven different teams are the fourth-most without playing in the playoffs in NBA history (and the most of any player born after 1950). An ignominious record, indeed.
As Jewish Telegraphic Agency has noted, Israeli-born journeyman TJ Leaf, who is not Jewish, made the playoffs as recently as 2021. And others have pointed out that Casspi’s team made the playoffs in 2014, but he did not play. But Avdija himself seems to regard this as a possible breakthrough.
“First taste of the playoffs — I think ever for an Israeli player,” he said — last year, before the Blazers barely missed the Play-In.
If the Blazers do end the Jewish Israeli playoff curse, it will be thanks to Avdija, who’s answered every call for the franchise this season. In two critical late-season games against the Los Angeles Clippers — their rival for the 8th playoff seed — Avdija led all players in scoring both times, including 35 points April 10 as Portland grabbed hold of the 8-seed.
Avdija’s work will be difficult against Phoenix, which in Dillon Brooks employs one of the stingiest wing defenders in the Association. Avdija was one of the best in the league at drawing fouls — he was third in the NBA in free throw attempts — and the game may depend on how closely the referees officiate contact. As for prior experience, Avdija only played one full game against the Suns this year, scoring 19 points in a 17-point loss; Portland split the other two matchups.
Because they secured the 8-seed, the Blazers will have a second chance at making the playoffs even if they lose. The winner of Wednesday night’s Clippers-Golden State Warriors matchup will face the loser of Blazers-Suns. Two chances to win one, and make (Jewish) Israeli hoops history.
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German Court Drops Antisemitic Motive in Attack on Jewish Student, Sparking Outcry Over Reduced Sentence
A protester wrapped in an Israeli flag at a rally against antisemitism at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
More than two years after the brutal attack on Jewish student Lahav Shapira, a German court has acquitted the perpetrator of antisemitic-motivated charges and handed down a reduced sentence, in what appears to be yet another case of the justice system in Europe dismissing antisemitism as a driving factor in violent crime.
On Monday, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced Shapira’s 25-year-old classmate to two and a half years in prison for aggravated assault, delivering a lighter punishment than the one handed down during the initial ruling last year.
However, the court found no antisemitic motive behind the attack, overturning the previous ruling that had concluded otherwise, a decision that has prompted outrage and renewed criticism over how such cases are interpreted and prosecuted.
The court found there was not enough evidence to establish that the accused had expressed antisemitic views prior to the attack, and that investigators’ discovery of anti-Israel material and a pro-Palestinian map in his apartment could not be definitively tied to him or any of his family members.
Shapira strongly condemned the verdict, describing it as a reversal of perpetrator and victim, and expressed hope that the public prosecutor’s office would appeal so the case could be reconsidered “by competent people.”
“What other motive could there have been?” 33-year-old student Shapira said when leaving the courtroom. “I’m annoyed; it’s sad.”
The attack took place in February 2024, when Shapira was out with his girlfriend and was recognized by a fellow student of Arab descent who confronted him over posters he and other students had placed around the university regarding Israeli hostages taken during the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
As the argument escalated, Shapira was knocked to the ground with punches and kicked in the face, suffering a complex midface fracture and a brain hemorrhage.
During the first trial, the public prosecutor’s office argued that “Shapira was attacked because he is Jewish and stood up against antisemitism.”
Even though the accused admitted to the assault in both trials, he consistently denied that it was motivated by antisemitism.
Shapira has also tried unsuccessfully to force the Free University of Berlin (FU) to offer stronger protection against antisemitic discrimination. However, the Berlin Administrative Court rejected his lawsuit against the university as inadmissible.
This latest case is by no means the first in Europe to raise alarm bells among the Jewish community, as courts have repeatedly overturned or reduced sentences for individuals accused of antisemitic crimes, fueling public outrage over what many see as excessive leniency.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials warn that the real number of antisemitic crimes is likely much higher, as many incidents go unreported.
In one of the latest incidents, unknown perpetrators defaced a home over the weekend in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district with a swastika and the slogan “Kill all Jews,” prompting an investigation by the State Security Service.
Last week, an Israeli restaurant in the German city of Munich was attacked when assailants smashed multiple windows and threw pyrotechnic devices inside in what authorities suspected was an antisemitic assault.
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Majority of Israelis Oppose Iran Ceasefire, Back Continued Campaign, Polls Find
An Israeli air defense system intercepts a ballistic missile barrage launched from Iran to central Israel during the missile attack, March 1, 2026. Photo: Eli Basri / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A poll released ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day found that a majority of Israelis – 61 percent – oppose the ceasefire with Iran, despite nearly six weeks of missile fire, mass disruption, and repeated trips to shelters.
Some 73 percent of respondents in the poll conducted by the Institute for National Security Studies said they believe Israel will have to renew military action against Iran within the next year, while 76 percent said negotiations with the Islamic Republic would not accomplish the war’s stated aims of crippling Iran’s ballistic missile array, dismantling its nuclear weapons program, and bringing an end to the regime in Tehran
A separate survey by Agam Labs at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem pointed to even stronger opposition, with only 15 percent backing the ceasefire. Two-thirds said they oppose it.
Two other polls, by Kan and Channel 13, suggested that only a minority of Israelis believe the US and Israel have won the war. In the Kan survey, roughly one-third said they view the outcome as a victory. In the Channel 13 poll, that figure fell to a quarter, while 40 percent said they do not know.
On Lebanon, more than 61 percent of Israelis said the truce with Iran should not be extended to include the fighting with Hezbollah, a condition Tehran has pushed in its talks with Washington, according to the Agam poll.
That was broadly in line with findings from the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), which reported that four out of five Jewish Israelis believe Israel should continue its campaign against Hezbollah.
Arab Israelis, by contrast, stood well apart in all of the polling. They overwhelmingly indicated they support the ceasefire with Iran, and only a small minority, less than a fifth according to the IDI poll, back continuing the fighting against Hezbollah.
Although missile alerts have eased across much of Israel since the halt in launches from Iran, communities in the north are still coming under sustained fire, with sirens continuing around the clock. A Hezbollah rocket that was not intercepted struck Nahariya on Monday afternoon, causing heavy damage to a residential building and lightly injuring two people. Days earlier, rocket fire hit the remains of a 1,500-year-old Byzantine church in the northern Israeli city.
The Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the United States are due to meet in Washington on Tuesday for discussions on the possibility of direct negotiations between the two countries. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem called on Lebanon to cancel the meeting, accusing the Lebanese government on Monday of turning itself into “a tool for Israel.”
Israel’s former national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat warned that expectations for the talks should be limited, arguing that “security without an agreement is preferable to an agreement without security.” Ben-Shabbat, who now heads the Misgav Institute for National Security, warned that the Lebanese government is not capable of removing the threat posed by Hezbollah and would also be unable to grant Israel the operational freedom it would need to act independently.
“The outcome of the negotiations may result either [in] an agreement lacking adequate security arrangements, or a crisis in which Israel is portrayed as refusing the demands of the Lebanese government,” he cautioned, adding that Israel should avoid making any security concessions before or during the talks.
The Israeli military said it had killed 250 Hezbollah operatives in a major operation in southern Lebanon in recent days, including more than 100 in the Bint Jbeil area alone, most of them in close-quarters combat. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the battle for the southern Lebanese city, long considered a Hezbollah stronghold, was nearing its final stages. It added that some of the terrorists may have been preparing for an incursion into Israeli territory.
The IDF says the fighting has again exposed what it describes as Hezbollah’s entrenched use of civilian sites for military activity. According to the military, weapons are stored beneath homes and launchers are brought out into courtyards to fire toward Israel and then moved back inside. Israeli forces say they are working to identify those sites, destroy the weapons, and kill the operatives using them amid continuing clashes on the ground.
Bint Jbeil carries particular symbolic weight in the conflict. After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, then-Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah delivered a triumphal address at the city’s soccer stadium, using it as a stage to cast Israel as fragile and beatable.
“Israel has nuclear weapons and the most powerful air force in the region, but in truth, it is weaker than a spider web,” Nasrallah said at the time.
Brigadier General Guy Levy, commander of Division 98, addressed troops from the ruins of that same stadium, which was hit in the latest round of fighting: “In Bint Jbeil in 2000, someone made a speech here and bragged about spider webs. Today, that man does not exist, the stadium doesn’t either, and his words are worth nothing. Now our forces control the area, destroying terror infrastructure and dozens of terrorists.”
Writing on X, IDF Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said that “glory is not built with speeches, but with the impact of soldiers’ footsteps. Controlling the Bint Jbeil stadium is not merely a military achievement, but a dismantling of its arrogant symbolism.”