Daryna Kahaniuk, a 19-year-old student of English philology at the University of Lviv, was in the middle of an online Yiddish class when the air raid started. Outside, the sirens were wailing. Her phone blared out a warning. After five years of war, these sounds didn’t surprise Kahaniuk anymore. She knew the rules: Seek out the designated shelter near her flat, or else a metro station. At the very least, she was supposed to follow the “two-wall rule” and keep away from windows.

But Kahaniuk stayed in her chair. Keeping one eye on her computer screen, where Yiddish class was carrying on somewhere in Zoomland, she checked the Telegram channels on her phone. On Telegram, “you can get information about how many drones, missiles, et cetera were launched and in what direction they were flying, as well as how many of them were destroyed by Ukrainian air defence,” she wrote over Whatsapp. She put her phone to the side and tried to focus on the Yiddish lesson: the aleph-beys, a story by Sholem Aleichem, a song about bulbes, potatoes. But her worries sucked her inward: “I was worried about my family, especially my cousin who lives in Kyiv,” she told me. Still, she didn’t leave class. “I sometimes neglected my own safety and stayed in the lesson because I didn’t want to miss anything studying Yiddish,” she said.

Kahaniuk, a bespectacled young woman whose expression can shift from concern to radiant sweetness in a moment, was 14 when Russia invaded Ukraine. At the time, she lived with her family in Nyzkynschi, a small village on the border with Poland. She has never known an adult life without sirens, air-raid alerts, and missile strikes on power plants that leave the city without electricity and running water for hours at a time. Sometimes she forgets that life used to be otherwise: “It is a little weird to realize how all these things became just a part of your life that it seems that there is no need to explain them.”

Kahaniuk is not Jewish. Neither are the other 14 Ukrainian students who began studying Yiddish this past semester through the Lilka Scholarship, a new partnership between YIVO and the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, a city in western Ukraine. The program is funded by Australian-Jewish philanthropist Irene Kronhill Pletka, whose mother was born in Lviv — or Lemberg, as the city is often known in the Yiddish world. From the 13th century to World War II, Lemberg buzzed with Jews busy with scholarship, journalism, theater and winemaking. Today no more than a couple thousand Jews live in Lviv, a city of more than 700,000.

There is no Jewish graveyard anymore. Technically, the Jewish graveyard is in the stones of Lviv’s streets: During World War II, the Nazis and then the Soviets destroyed the headstones of the Old Jewish Cemetery and used them as pavement all across the city. The names of these Jews are scattered across Lviv like pieces of a puzzle that nobody has cared to solve. When you consider that Yiddish has a whole term — ivre be-loy — to describe the phenomenon of Jews incorporating more Hebrew into their conversation to throw off gentiles who understand Yiddish, it is hard not to wonder what the forgotten Jews of Lviv would make of 15 youthful Ukrainian gentiles studying Yiddish over Zoom (“vos iz Zum?!”) in the company of mostly retired American Jews.

In a city where buildings sit on top of the rubble of Jewish cemeteries, Yiddish is a “subculture” in the most literal sense. Learning the language can feel like an excavation of Ukraine’s past. “Jewish people have been an important part of Ukrainian history and population, so I just wanted to be a little closer to their culture,” Kahaniuk told me. “And honestly, my mom is very interested in learning Jewish history and especially history of Jewish people in Ukraine. So it’s made her happy for me.”

Yiddish has a reputation for being a rootless, wandering language, the language of goles, or exile. It is the language of the Bundist principle of “doikayt,” which means “hereness” in Yiddish and represents the idea that home is portable: Wherever Jews live, that’s where home is. But as YIVO teacher Philip Schwartz, who teaches one of three Beginner Yiddish sections available to Ukrainian students alongside fellow teachers Vera Szabó and Nina Warnke, points out, Yiddish has deep Eastern European roots. “It’s a language that used to be spoken by sometimes a third or half of the population of the places [these students] live in today,” he said. “So it’s a language that has an intimate relation to the places they inhabit themselves … it’s a way of discovering that heritage, and those cultural riches that are out of your reach if you don’t know the language.”

Spotting similarities for the first time between Yiddish and Ukrainian, students describe flashbulbs of recognition going off in their brains. One student, 19-year-old Diana Blaha, told me about discovering that the word for “frog” in Yiddish, “zhabe,” was nearly the same as “zhaba” in Ukrainian. When I asked Olena Malinovska, also 19, if she saw any similarities between Yiddish and Ukrainian, she replied, “You just feel it spiritually.” The hardest part, she said, was learning the Yiddish alphabet and script. “But then unexpectedly I received a reward because I started recognizing words, phrases,” she said. “Oh yeah, I was excited.”

This fall at Ivan Franko University, Yiddish classes are expected to kick into gear again — perhaps with even more students. But in the meantime, a few newly-minted Ukrainian Yiddishists are embarking on quests of their own. “I found out that my hometown was a place where one of the Hasidic dynasties stemmed from,” Diana Blaha told me. “I’d like to search it more because we have Jewish graveyards, I believe.” Which dynasty was this? “The Tzvi Hirsch Eichenstein Dynasty, from Zhydachiv,” Blaha said. I had never even heard of this dynasty; I wondered how many people in Zhydachiv had.

Daryna Kahaniuk has duties as a Yiddish tutor now. She has one pupil: her mother. After every lesson, “I had to phone her and tell her everything that happened during the lesson, what we did, what we listened to, even the few students from the USA who are Jewish people and what they share about their family experience and their family stories. I must tell her everything, and also how I write in Yiddish, and even the books we have, some songs. I just let her listen to them all the time.”

One of these songs is “Bulbes.” If beginning Yiddish classes had a theme song, “Bulbes” would probably be it. It is a song that teaches the Yiddish days of the week and the monotonous shtetl diet in one go: “Zuntik bulbes, muntik bulbes, dinstick un mitvokh bulbes, donershtick un fraytik bulbes, Shabbos in a novene, a bulbe kugele, zuntik vayter bulbes …” Every day of the week, potatoes. Once in a while, maybe a potato kugel. Then back to plain potatoes.

It’s an unmistakably Yiddish song, bleak and bouncy at the same time. It’s got the salty-sweet flavor of “lakhn durkh trern,” laughing through tears. When there is nothing to eat but potatoes, what is there to do but sing about it?

“So happy and funny it sounds, but just then I realize the dissonance of just feeling so light, and at the same time because of what people had to live with in that time…” Kahaniuk said, trailing off. She said she did not know how to express what she meant. I wondered if there was a way to say “lakhn durkh trern” in Ukrainian.

The post Amid bombs, drone-strikes and blackouts, these non-Jewish Ukrainian students are studying Yiddish appeared first on The Forward.

Three Jewish Democratic House members from Florida emerged victorious from their party primaries Tuesday amid a redistricting shakeup that scrambled South Florida’s congressional map and threatened to end some of their political careers.

U.S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel and Jared Moskowitz all won Democratic nominations in newly redrawn districts, each facing different challenges from the new map and their primary opponents.

But their victories only secured their spots on the November ballot. The bigger question is whether they can win reelection under a successful Republican effort designed to flip four Democratic seats. Earlier this year, Florida’s state legislators approved the new congressional lines at the urging of Gov. Ron DeSantis, to increase the number of Republican seats from 20 to 24 of the state’s 28 districts.

The three Jewish incumbents took different routes for survival.

After her old seat was transformed into more favorable territory for Republicans, Wasserman Schultz, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee and one of Congress’ most prominent Jewish members, moved into Broward County’s heavily Democratic Black-majority precincts, raising questions about representation in a district with a large Black population.

Wasserman Schultz’s opponents argued that the seat should continue to be represented by a Black lawmaker. In her victory speech, Wasserman Schultz promised “to work every day to live up to the legacy of Alcee Hastings,” the congressman who represented the district from 2013 until he died in 2021.

Frankel, a seven-term Jewish Democrat and outspoken supporter of Israel, also relocated to the neighboring district and easily defeated Lake Worth Beach activist Victoria Doyle, winning 75% of the Democratic vote. The seat is now ranked solid Democratic, according to the Cook Political Report.

Moskowitz survives the left. Now he faces a Jewish Republican.

For Moskowitz, who was elected in 2022 after Ted Deutch retired to become chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, Tuesday’s outcome is likely just the beginning.

Moskowitz, who built a reputation as an outspoken supporter of Israel and one of the more bipartisan members of the House, defeated Oliver Larkin, a democratic socialist and fierce critic of Israel, by a 63%-37% margin.

Larkin called for ending U.S. military aid to Israel and accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. He also associated with popular streamer Hasan Piker, who has been embraced by progressive insurgents even as he has championed terrorist groups as righteous fighters against Israel — leading to accusations he trafficks in antisemitism.

“I’ve taken on extremes in the DSA and won,” Moskowitz said in his victory speech, adding in a post on X:  “My condolences to @hasanthehun.”

But the new district with a substantial Jewish population was deliberately drawn to be far more favorable to Republicans than Moskowitz’s previous seat, which Frankel will now represent, making him one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the state this fall.

His Republican opponent, Scott Singer, the Jewish former mayor of Boca Raton, won a five-way GOP primary with 31% of the vote. Singer, a Miami Beach native and Georgetown Law graduate, highlighted his support for Israel and his roots in the district.

This setup will test Moskowitz’s political strength.

“We’re running in a tough district hand-drawn by Republicans to defeat me, but I plan to win that too,” Moskowitz said on Tuesday night.

“People here don’t want ideological purity tests. They want someone who will lower costs, fight for the middle class, and stand up to antisemitism and hate in both parties.”

Fine easily defeats openly antisemitic Bilzerian

Elsewhere in Florida, Jewish Republican Rep. Randy Fine easily fended off a primary challenge that attracted national attention because of the antisemitic rhetoric of Dan Bilzerian, the social media influencer once known as the “King of Instagram.”

Bilzerian had repeatedly attacked Fine as a “fat Jew,” called Judaism “terrible,” promoted conspiracy theories about Jews and said he wanted to “kill Israelis.” In the final days of the campaign, Bilzerian posted antisemitic dog whistles, expressing confidence that each voter in the district “understands the Jewish problem,” and that “a vote for Randy is a vote for Israel.”

The race was one of several Florida Republican primaries that tested whether a growing online movement on the right — hostile to Israel and that has at times slid into outright antisemitism — could translate social media followings into electoral success.

Fine won 57% of the vote, which is located just under the northeast part of the state and includes Daytona Beach. Bilzerian came in second, securing nearly 19%.

The race to succeed Ron DeSantis 

A somewhat similar dynamic played out in the Republican primary for governor.

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the Trump-endorsed frontrunner, won the nomination to succeed DeSantis with about 48% of the vote. James Fishback, a 31-year-old investment manager who made opposition to Israel and AIPAC central to his campaign, finished third with about 10%.

Fishback, who ran what The New York Times described as a “rage bait” campaign, promised to pull Florida’s investments from Israel Bonds, criticized politicians who “visit another country” only to end up “kissing a stupid wall,” and associated himself with antisemitic personalities on the far-right.

Donalds, by contrast, has been a strong supporter of Israel, though he voted in 2024 against the  Antisemitism Awareness Act, bipartisan legislation addressing rising antisemitism on college campuses. He is now listed as a cosponsor of a modified bill that clarifies First Amendment protections. Born in Brooklyn and raised for part of his childhood in Crown Heights, he has spoken of his familiarity with Jewish communities and has maintained relationships with Chabad leaders in Florida.

He will face former Republican Rep. David Jolly, who won the Democratic gubernatorial primary, in November. Both nominees are outspoken supporters of Israel.

A progressive upset for Senate

The night was not a clean sweep for establishment candidates.

State Rep. Angie Nixon, a new member of the Democratic Socialists of America, defeated Alex Vindman, a Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union, for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Vindman, who became nationally known after testifying during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, entered the race with greater national name recognition and establishment support. Nixon, who pushed a pro-Palestinian agenda on a state level and actively campaigned with members of the Squad and alongside Larkin, pulled off an upset win, receiving 56% of the vote to Vindman’s 44%.

She will face incumbent Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, who easily won her primary. Moody was appointed to the seat after Marco Rubio left the Senate to become President Donald Trump’s secretary of state.

The post Florida redistricting scrambled the map. Three Jewish Democrats found a way through. appeared first on The Forward.

‘The people fighting to save Israeli democracy are fighting for the only version of Zionism that can last.’

META: Amit Cahanovich is charged with five counts of joint arson after giving someone a ride to a demonstration where recycling bins were set ablaze.

For nine months I was a political detainee in Israel. My trial is about to begin.

I am as Israeli as they come. My grandparents came to this country — then Palestine, in the 1930s — as Europe began to burn. They helped found a farming village in the Jezreel Valley, Beit Shearim, while most of the family they left behind was murdered in the Holocaust. My late father was a colonel in the Israeli army. I served as a combat soldier in a classified unit, and after Oct. 7, I used my expertise as a data professional to consult for the army during the war. I am married with three young children.

We have no other passports, no other identity than Israeli. But I am now facing charges as an alleged criminal, part of a conspiracy no less — for nothing more than aiding a protest. My story speaks to the lengths of the Israeli government’s efforts to silence dissent.

On  Sept. 3, 2025, around the 700th day of the war in Gaza, the families of hostages still held and tortured in Hamas’s tunnels begged Israelis to take to the streets. More than 40 hostages were already dead in captivity, some murdered, some dead from other causes. Like many Israelis, I could not stand by while the government worked to frame this as the families’ private grief rather than a national emergency — anything to delay a reckoning and stay in power a little longer.

I was arrested after a demonstration day in Jerusalem, where a few recycling bins were set on fire — a common occurrence at such protests, before and since. My alleged part is giving a ride to a friend who allegedly lit one of them. Seven of us now face charges that would fit an organized crime indictment. I’m charged with five counts of joint arson, each carrying a sentence of up to 15 years.

I did not know most of my co-defendants. Lawyers call this a legal dragnet, a familiar tool in democracies that are sliding.

For 33 days I was incarcerated in appalling conditions, classified as a danger to the public, moved between three prisons, and even spent one night in a dungeon, for no real reason. After those 33 days, I was released, but remained on house arrest. A probation officer eventually found I posed no danger. The prosecution fought the finding anyway. It took a High Court justice, ruling on a co-defendant’s appeal eight months in, to confirm what we had argued from the start: that “dangerousness” was being used not to assess a threat but to punish us before any verdict. A month after that ruling, I was released.

Since Oct. 7, Jewish terror against Palestinians in the West Bank has surged, met by law enforcement so weak it barely counts as such. Yet dozens of investigators were assigned to the conspiracy cases that included my own, and, according to press reports, the Shin Bet itself took part in interrogations over recycling bins. The Shin Bet, Israel’s equivalent to the FBI, exists to fight terrorism and espionage, not to regulate protest. When a government routes political dissent through its most powerful security service, the question is no longer whether a protester broke a law. It is whether the state has begun treating opposition itself as a threat.

This is not incidental. It is the method of a coalition that unites Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the heirs of the banned, terrorist-designated Kach movement founded by the radical American-Israeli Rabbi Meir Kahane; and with ultra-Orthodox parties that take state money while keeping their youth from modern education and army service. Together they have spent years capturing the institutions meant to check them, the security services, the state comptroller’s office, a weakened judiciary. None of this happens in the dark. It happens on television, because the government’s allies all but run the news agenda. Nearly all criticism gets folded into “Israel as victim.” Antisemitism, though it does exist, gets invoked even when it doesn’t, as a method to silence dissent internationally. Protesters, including hostage families whose only demand was that the state bring their own home, got called traitors and enemies from within.

Meanwhile war has become the alibi. War in Gaza. War in Lebanon. War in Iran. Every operation begins with tactical wins and promises of strategic victory that never fully arrive. Every day of it was used to postpone the prime minister’s own corruption trial a little further.

In 1938 the Yiddish poet Mordechai Gebirtig wrote “Undzer Shtetl Brent” — “Our Town Is Burning” — about the violence closing in on Polish Jews. It calls out to brothers standing with folded arms, watching the fire instead of fighting it. By the time the song became an anthem, the fire had become a catastrophe. I think about it constantly now, not because I believe Jews are fated to see danger only once it’s too late, but because I fear we are, again, mistaking smoke for weather.

Israel is scheduled to hold elections in late October. Ahead of them, the government’s allies are working to inflame the West Bank, the same cynical mechanism that has worked before: unite a divided public against an external enemy, and postpone the reckoning again. There are even signs that the government could try to postpone the election using so-called emergency regulations or putting up other obstacles. Netanyahu himself once made this exact argument when he demanded former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resign while on trial for corruption, warning that a leader facing charges can never be trusted to put the country’s survival ahead of his own. He was right then. The dynamic he described is now his own government.

The people fighting to save Israeli democracy are fighting for the only version of Zionism that can last: an independent judiciary, free elections, equality before the law, a state that answers to its citizens rather than demanding loyalty to one man. If this government is not replaced, if it teaches a country that dissent is danger, the price will not be paid only by protesters like me. It will be paid by the dream my grandparents crossed the sea to build.

Amit Cahanovich is a native Israeli, married and a father of three, and an independent data consultant. He recently spent nine months as a political detainee in Israel and is now writing a play based on his experience.

The post I drove a friend to a protest in Jerusalem. Now Israel’s government wants to send me to prison. appeared first on The Forward.