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On stage and in the classroom, Mikhl Yashinsky is stoking the flame of the Yiddish revival
(New York Jewish Week) — In the Yiddish classes Mikhl Yashinsky teaches for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Workers Circle, he begins by asking students to explain why they decided to learn the language.
Often, a student will describe attending a performance of “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish,” the smash hit from the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.
This is literally music to the ears of Yashinsky, who not only teaches conversational Yiddish, translates Yiddish literature and writes Yiddish plays and videos, but who also played a beggar and innkeeper in the latest run of “Fiddler” in Yiddish, which closed on Jan. 1.
“Many thousands of people have seen Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ by now and it’s had a real impact on them and how they see the language,” he told the New York Jewish Week. “It makes me happy that one thing feeds into another.”
The 32-year-old Chelsea resident is in some ways the future of Yiddish, at least of the secular, artistic and academic variety that is spoken and studied outside of the haredi Orthodox community, where it is often the first language. While some Yiddishists bristle at the notion that the language of Ashkenazi Eastern Europe is undergoing a “renaissance,” figures like Yashinsky are making sure the language continues to flourish in communities beyond the yeshiva.
”Mikhl has played a very big role in my Yiddish journey,” said Judith Liskin-Gasparro, a retired linguistics professor from the University of Iowa. Liskin-Gasparro had four grandparents who were native Yiddish speakers but who never spoke the language in front of her. She estimates that over the course of her career she’s watched 1,000 people teach a language class. After studying with Yashinsky remotely from Iowa City for five semesters, Liskin-Gasparro said: “I have rarely seen anybody as good as he is.” His YIVO course has been so popular that YIVO had to create a second section.
Liskin-Gasparro now describes herself as obsessed with the language. In November, she made the trek to New York to see Yashinsky perform in “Fiddler.” During her visit she joined about 15 people from Yashinsky’s YIVO class to meet her teacher in person.
Yashinsky, who grew up outside of Detroit, credits his late maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Elkin Weiss, with putting him on the path to becoming a Yiddishist. Weiss and her husband Rube were veterans of Yiddish theater, performing on stage and the radio. His grandmother also performed in English-language radio dramas, and her ability to do accents and characters earned her the nickname “The Woman of 1,000 Voices.” A radio ad in which Weiss imitated the Hungarian Jewish actress Zsa Zsa Gabor convinced customers of an Italian restaurant in the Detroit area that Zsa Zsa herself had done the commercial.
Talent ran in the family, sometimes in unexpected ways: Yashinsky’s uncle, David Weiss, was one-half of Was (Not Was), a major funk-rock band in the 1980s and ’90s. David’s partner, Don Was, is celebrating his 30th year as a record producer for The Rolling Stones.
Yashinsky studied modern European history and literature at Harvard, attended the Vilna Yiddish Language Institute and in 2015-16 worked as a fellow at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass. In 2018, Yashinsky performed in the held-over runs of Yiddish “Fiddler “at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan, then left New York for a steady gig teaching Yiddish at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He rejoined the musical when it was staged in 2019 at Stage 43, the largest off-Broadway theater in the city.
Joel Grey, the director of Yiddish “Fiddler,” wrote in an email: “Mikhl is one of the most resourceful and delightful actors I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. He has more ideas for a moment than most actors do in a lifetime.”
Jackie Hoffman, the comedian and Broadway veteran who played Yenta the matchmaker in earlier runs of Yiddish “Fiddler,” said Yashinsky “is a truly Yiddish soul. He’s like someone who could’ve crept out of the 19th century. It’s like Yiddish is in his blood.”
Mikhl Yashinsky, center in gray apron, played Mordkhe the Innkeeper in “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish,” the smash hit from the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. (Jeremy Daniel)
Steven Skybell, who played Tevye in in the latest Yiddish “Fiddler,” attended Yashinsky’s classes for a few semesters, which enabled him to converse with Yashinsky in the mamaloshn (mother tongue) backstage.
Yashinsky’s mother in Michigan, who did not grow up speaking Yiddish, has attended all five semesters via Zoom. Debra Yashinsky, who said she can’t begin to count the number of times she’s seen Yiddish “Fiddler,” used her maiden name in the Zoom interface for the first two semesters.
“Mikhl once asked me, ‘Mom, are you taking the class to learn Yiddish or do you just enjoy seeing me teach?’” she recalled. “I didn’t know the right answer. The truth is I love seeing his punim [face] for an hour and a half and kvelling [being proud] while I watch him teach.”
In addition to teaching and acting, translation has been a big part of Yashinsky’s devotion to the language (and need to earn a living).
He has a deadline looming at the end of January for his translation of the memoirs of Ester-Rokhl Kaminska, the Polish-Jewish actress considered the “mother of Yiddish theater.” He’s been working on the project for a few years and could often be found backstage at “Fiddler” translating a couple of sentences at a time between scenes.
Yashinsky has also been translating short stories by the Nobelist Isaac Bashevis Singer for a forthcoming anthology of the author’s early works. He describes them as “little gems” Singer wrote when he was a young writer that have never been translated into English. Yashinsky said he has translated three or four of the short stories so far.
Yashinsky is also a playwright whose Yiddish play, “Vos Flist Durkhn Oder” (“Blessing of the New Moon”), was performed at the Lower East Side Play Festival last summer. One of six plays chosen from more than 100 submissions, it was the only non-English play in the festival. The one-act play, set in a Lower East Side yeshiva in 1912, deals with the tradition of pranks that take place during the month in which Purim falls.
His full-length play “Di Psure Loyt Chaim” (“The Gospel According to Chaim”) will get a public reading this winter at the New Yiddish Rep in Manhattan. The play is based on the true story of Henry Einspruch, a Baltimore Jew who in the 1940s found Jesus and translated the New Testament into Yiddish for the purpose of converting his fellow Jews. Yashinsky said no Yiddish publisher would help Einspruch in his quest.
“I just thought that this was a very curious bit of history,” said the playwright. “It was really insidious in some ways. He was trying to convert Holocaust survivors in some cases. He would preach outside synagogues on Shabbos mornings.”
Yashinsky will be working on a Yiddish musical in 2023, thanks to a LABA Fellowship for Jewish artists. He plans to write the musical in collaboration with Mamaliga, a klezmer band based in Brooklyn and Boston. Yashinsky said he may write something about the underworld of Jewish life in Eastern Europe.
Another bright spot on the horizon: On Jan. 26 he’ll make his Carnegie Hall début, singing in a concert titled “We Are Here: Songs from the Holocaust,” which will feature Broadway stars Harvey Fierstein, Chita Rivera and Shoshana Bean. Yashinsky will perform “Zog nit keynmol” (“Never Say”), the anthem of the Vilna partisans.
And somehow Yashinsky will make time to produce more videos for the Workers Circle #YiddishAlive series on YouTube. Among the 11 videos he’s done so far are a Yiddish rendition of Tom Lehrer’s song “Hanukkah in Santa Monica” and a music video shot in Michigan to celebrate the strawberry harvest. That video featured “Trúskafke-vals” (“Strawberry Waltz”), a Yiddish song he wrote, as well as a strawberry cake baked by his mother.
He also produces humorous Yiddish music videos, including one based on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ demented, spooky classic, “I Put A Spell On You.” In his version, Yashinsky performs in drag as Bobe Yakhne, a sorceress he played in Folksbiene’s 2017 revival of the classic Yiddish operetta “The Sorceress.”
“This art form continues,” he said of Yiddish theater. “It’s a tradition that hasn’t evaporated and it’s nice to feel that I’m part of the continuity.”
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The post On stage and in the classroom, Mikhl Yashinsky is stoking the flame of the Yiddish revival appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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What It’s Like to Be on ‘Silent Alert’ in Israel
Rescue personnel work at an impact site following a missile attack from Iran, in Bat Yam, Israel, June 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
It’s a very Israeli “thing” — so much a part of our identity that we don’t even have a word for it. I call it the “silent alert.”
When the Israeli government prefers to not cause panic or tip off its enemies, when it wants to project confidence and strength, it sometimes announces … nothing at all. And yet somehow, we all know to prepare.
Despite the threats emanating from the situation in Iran, the Israeli government has not put out an official warning or any particular instructions to all of us here on the “Home Front” — even at points when a military response from Iran seemed very likely.
Yet still, we’re already double checking our bomb shelters. When away from home, we’re aware of our surroundings, and we note the location of the nearest shelters, as we did for almost two years during the Gaza war. We’re just a little more careful about keeping our phones charged, and our kitchens stocked.
Why?
The superficial, intellectual reason is this: If the United States strikes Iran, then Iran will likely respond by striking us. There’s precedent: after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991, Saddam Hussein fired massive Scud missiles on Israel, an absurd response given that Israel was one of the only countries in the Western world that had NOT joined the international strikes on Iraq.
Yet there is another significant and more Israeli reason: we just know.
Entrance to the bomb shelter at the RealityCheck offices in Tel Aviv. Photo: RealityCheck.
Israel is a small country, where everyone knows everyone — not literally, but almost.
Soldiers are not unknown figures on some distant base or overseas — they are our parents and children, our neighbors and co-workers, our friends — and in my case, many of my students. Small talk by the פינת קפה (Israel’s equivalent of the “water cooler”) or discussions over family dinner, are basically low-key intelligence briefings.
Of course we don’t know the specifics of secret capabilities in advance, such as the stunning “pager operation” against Hezbollah in 2024, or the myriad of tools brought to bear against Iran last June, but we know when “something’s up.”
This happened numerous times in the last few years — around conflicts with Hezbollah, and Iran. And we always come back to our “Silent Alert.”
Intellectually, we remember that some of Iran’s most deadly attacks during June’s “Twelve Day War” came in during its final days, with notable improvements in both targeting and munitions power. If the Iranian regime is truly nearing its end, it may decide to use the most powerful weapons it has been holding in reserve. Even chemical weapons, though not expected, are not entirely out of the question. On the other hand, Israel’s defenses have improved as well, including the unveiling of Iron Beam, the IDF’s new laser-based missile defense system.
Yet beyond intellect, we all “just know.” Like Hezbollah’s plan to wipe out Israel’s civilian infrastructure, these concerns might not come to pass. Yet for now, the danger is real, and Israeli civilians remain on “Silent Alert.”
Our thoughts are primarily with the astonishingly brave Iranian protesters, risking their very lives just to march and speak out — but in Israel, the threats are always real.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
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On Canadian Campuses, Intimidation Is Becoming Policy
Anti-Israel mob moments before it shattered glass door to storm Jewish event featuring IDF soldiers near Toronto Metropolitan University. Photo: Provided by witness of incident
Canadian universities like to describe themselves as guardians of free inquiry. But across the country, they are quietly training students to learn a different lesson: that some ideas are simply not worth debating, defending, or discussing.
Over the past two years, pro-Israel events have become uniquely difficult to hold on Canadian campuses — not controversial in the abstract, not banned outright, but rendered practically impossible through a combination of administrative obstruction and tolerated disruption.
Whether this pattern stems from ideological sympathy or institutional cowardice matters less than its effects. The result is the same: one set of students learns that their speech is a liability, while another learns that intimidation works.
The incidents are not isolated anomalies; they have become the norm over the past two years. Since late 2023 and continuing through 2025, anti-Israel protestors have repeatedly shut down or derailed campus events.
At Toronto Metropolitan University, anti-Israel protestors disrupted a pro-Israel event to the point of chaos. At Concordia, a student group was barred from holding an Israel-related event on campus entirely. When the event was moved off campus, protestors followed and physically blocked entrances.
In Winnipeg, a pro-Palestinian group protested an IDF soldier event at a community centre with children and families present, after the event was forced out of a college campus.
Less visible, but just as telling, are the quieter administrative encounters that epitomize how pro-Israel activity is increasingly treated as a problem to be managed rather than an expression to be accommodated.
Universities often respond by insisting that they’re merely enforcing neutral policies: security requirements, space approvals, risk assessments.
But neutrality collapses when the same scrutiny is not applied evenly. Pro-Israel events routinely face heightened security fees, last-minute conditions, location changes, or outright cancellations, while other politically charged programming often appears to proceed with fewer obstacles.
In practice, this amounts to a quiet “Jewish tax” on participation: higher security bills, more paperwork, more scrutiny, and more risk simply for wanting to host an event connected to Jewish identity or Israel.
In several cases, approvals are granted only to be quietly reversed days later, with vague references to new policies and no clear explanation, leaving students with no appeal and no timeline.
When the price of speaking is predictably higher for one community, exclusion no longer needs to be explicit to be effective.
Over time, this selective enforcement reshapes campus life in ways administrators rarely acknowledge. Student leaders internalize risk aversion. Event organizers self-censor choices, titles, and themes in the hope of slipping under the radar. Jewish and pro-Israel students stop expecting equal treatment and start planning around institutional resistance as a given.
What looks like peace from an administrative office is actually a culture of withdrawal. Students quickly learn that persistence brings scrutiny, while retreat brings quiet relief, and many choose accordingly.
Even more troubling is what this normalization teaches those who oppose these events. When protestors can disrupt, blockade, or intimidate with little consequence from the school directly, they receive a clear signal that escalation is rewarded.
The cost-benefit analysis becomes obvious. Why argue, debate, or organize a competing event when shouting loudly and causing enough chaos can make the opposition disappear? By failing to enforce their own rules consistently, universities in Canada and the US convert protest from expression into ideological enforcement.
This is not how pluralistic institutions are supposed to work. Universities exist precisely to host contested ideas without allowing one faction to exercise a heckler’s veto to another. Once administrators begin quietly calculating which viewpoints are too expensive, too disruptive, or too politically inconvenient to accommodate, the university ceases to be an arena for debate and becomes a manager of reputational risk.
The consequences extend beyond Israel. Today, it is Jewish activism. Tomorrow, it might be foreign policy dissent, religious expression, or unpopular research. Precedents do not remain neatly confined.
Universities will insist they are under immense pressure, and that may be true. But pressure is not an excuse; it is the test. Institutions that pride themselves on courage and independence cannot outsource their values to whomever shouts the loudest or threatens disruption most effectively.
This is where students, parents, alumni, and donors should step in. Silence has costs. Universities respond to incentives, not press releases or paltry condemnations. When unequal treatment becomes reputationally and financially uncomfortable, policies change. When it does not, administrative drift hardens into doctrine.
The demand here is not special treatment for pro-Israel students. It is equal treatment. Clear rules, enforced consistently. Events allowed to proceed without ideological filtering. Protest protected, but disruption penalized. Safety ensured without turning one group’s existence into a logistical burden.
If universities cannot guarantee that, they should stop pretending they are neutral forums. And if Canadians care about the future of higher education as a space for genuine debate rather than managed conformity, now is the moment to insist that campuses live up to the principles they so eagerly advertise.
Because once students learn that they can shut down ideas they disagree with, the damage is already done.
Adam Katz is a 2025-2026 CAMERA on Campus fellow and a political science and history student at the University of Manitoba.
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Palestinian Authority Just Disguised 6,000 More Pay-for-Slay Terrorists as Innocent Pensioners
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers the State of the European Union address to the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Sept. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
In the first week of February 2026, the Palestinian Authority (PA) camouflaged the files of 6,000 Pay-for-Slay recipients.
The PA turned some of those terrorists into “pensioners,” and others are now being paid salaries in the civil service for fictitious jobs, so the payments are obscured from international scrutiny and impossible to monitor.
Palestinian Media Watch has acquired original copies of the following three conversations held between recipients of Pay-for-Slay.
Conversation #1: PA disguises 6,000 prisoners and injured terrorists as pensioners:
Recipient One: “Has anyone received a call from any government office and been asked to provide a bank account number in the last two weeks?”
[There was no response.]
“How many times have we told you: demand, demand, demand [your payments]. And what happened? The whole matter was reduced to only 6,000 cases that were transferred to [government] offices, and now they’re verifying their names, calling them, and asking for active bank account numbers to deposit their salaries.”
Member A: “Who told you?”
Member B: “Who is this about?”
Member C: “On what basis did they choose the 6,000?”
Member B: “No one knows.”
Recipient One: “This is the issue: The wounded and prisoners — 6,000 of them [had their files] transferred to pensions in different offices, and they are now registered there, and they are calling them one by one, asking them for bank account numbers to confirm them as pensioners.”
There was great frustration that no one in this particular group of Pay-for-Slay recipients had been notified that they were among the 6,000 new camouflaged members.
Conversation #2: Released prisoner: I went to the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and they confirmed that salaries for released prisoners are being paid and “all matters will be resolved:”
I was at the [PLO] Commission [of Prisoners’ Affairs], I went to have them sign my insurance and asked them about the salaries. They told me word for word that there are currently salaries for those who served 5 years, meaning for released [prisoners] who served 5 years or more.
They are given a salary of 1,500 [Israeli] shekels ($500 – ed.), and those who served 10 years are given a salary of 3,000 shekels ($1,000 – ed.), as he told me. I asked him, what about someone who is under 5 years. He told me word for word, come back to us in a month, Allah willing the issues will be resolved. In other words, don’t [complain] every day: ‘The salaries, the salaries, the salaries.’ Allah willing, from now on the matters will be resolved.
Conversation #3: All families of Martyrs and wounded will be moved to government offices
Member A: “Good morning. We have learned that the issue with the last payment is being fixed. There will be allowance payments soon, Allah willing. And we have learned that the committee that was established is studying several proposals to handle the matters definitively. When approval and agreement on a procedure [is reached], we will inform you about it … and coordinate the necessary steps with you, with Allah’s help. Explicitly, they are going to divide up [the families of] the Martyrs and the wounded across government offices.”
Member B: “Okay. So we understand from this that there will be a payment soon[?] … At the same percentage. Will they commit[?]”
Member A: “The old percentage of your salary. The [PA] Labor Ministry took on some of those [Martyrs and wounded] who weren’t paid. Other government offices also took on those about whom there is no [information]. PNEEI is done with; this is the last salary we receive from them. Do you understand? Be well.”
Member B: “That’s what I meant.”
Member A: “Sure, the [old] percentage of your salary.”
Member B: “Okay. The distribution to government offices [will be] under which clause [?]”
Member A: “There will be a payment before Ramadan.”
All of these authentic conversations among recipients of Pay-for-Slay confirm beyond a doubt that the PA is intentionally lying to the US, the EU, France, and other Western countries, claiming to have stopped Pay-for-Slay, while working around the clock to find ways to secretly continue rewarding Palestinian terrorists.
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.