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VIDEO: Social media activist asks Jerusalem passers-by why Yiddish is important
Yirmiyahu Danzig (aka @that_semite on Instagram and @Unpacked on YouTube), an Israeli Jewish rights and anti-racism activist of Caribbean and Ashkenazi descent, usually explores questions of identity on his Instagram account in English, Hebrew and Arabic. But last week, he posted a video where he speaks to Orthodox passers-by on the streets of Jerusalem — in Yiddish.
Although the official language of Israel is Hebrew, many Hasidic Jews in Israel speak Yiddish regularly.
Danzig, a digital educator for Unpacked, wrote me in an email that his work as an educator and activist is focused on dialogue. Until now his goal has been to try to bridge divides between Israelis and Palestinians through language, culture and empathy.
But in 2020, as tensions between Haredi and non-Haredi Israelis kept mounting over issues like the military draft, Danzig saw the same need for dialogue between those two groups as he did for Israelis and Palestinians — using language, culture and history to humanize, understand and imagine a shared future.
But he knew that he couldn’t access that world without knowing any Yiddish. So he decided to learn it, and did so on his own, using Yiddish language textbooks. He also took a few lessons, one-on-one, to practice speaking the language. “I’ve always found that speaking to people is the best way to internalize a language.”
Now that he’s fluent, Danzig created a video in the Haredi Jerusalem neighborhoods of Mea Shearim and Geulah in which he approaches people on the street with a microphone, asking them if they speak Yiddish.
In the clip, he begins by asking passers-by an easy question: “What’s your favorite Yiddish word?” — eliciting unsurprising responses like lekhayaim and zolst zayn gezunt un shtark, may you be healthy and strong. But the conversations get more interesting once he starts asking people why it matters to speak Yiddish in Israel.
Although there are no women in the clip, Danzig said it wasn’t intentional. “It was difficult to find Haredi women comfortable appearing on camera with a man,” he said. “But I remain committed to including more female Haredi voices, as I do across my work in Israeli and Palestinian society,” he said.
Danzig was raised in San Diego, with a father from Israel and a mother from Guyana. He was surrounded with Hebrew, Mizrahi music, reggae, hummus, falafel and plantains.
His father’s family traces back generations in Jerusalem’s Old Yishuv, the name used for the Jewish community in Palestine before the arrival of the modern Zionist movement. “My grandfather spoke Hebrew, Palestinian Arabic and Palestinian Yiddish,” he said. “I watched him move seamlessly between Jewish and Arab worlds in Jerusalem and Jaffa. He passed on to me his love for Hebrew and Arabic.”
Although Yiddish wasn’t part of his upbringing, Danzig expressed pride that he was a descendant of the Perushim — the students of the great 18th century Lithuanian rabbi, the Vilna Gaon, many of whom settled in in the Old Yishuv in the early 1800s and married local and Iraqi Jewish women.
In fact, the Yiddish dialect spoken in Jerusalem today, called yerushalmi yidish, is very similar to Lithuanian Yiddish — evidence of the deep linguistic influence that the Vilna Gaon’s students had on the language in Israel’s holiest city.
The post VIDEO: Social media activist asks Jerusalem passers-by why Yiddish is important appeared first on The Forward.
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Lebanon Plans UN Complaint Against Israel Over Border Wall
A UN vehicle drives near a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border which, according to the Lebanese presidency, extends beyond the “Blue Line”, a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, as seen from northern Israel, November 16, 2025. REUTERS/Shir Torem
Lebanon will file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council against Israel for constructing a concrete wall along Lebanon’s southern border that extends beyond the “Blue Line,” the Lebanese presidency said on Saturday.
The Blue Line is a U.N.-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli forces withdrew to the Blue Line when they left south Lebanon in 2000.
A spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said on Friday the wall has made more than 4,000 square meters (nearly an acre) of Lebanese territory inaccessible to the local population.
The Lebanese presidency echoed his remarks, saying in a statement that Israel’s ongoing construction constituted “a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and an infringement on Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Dujarric said the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had requested that the wall be removed.
An Israeli military spokesperson denied on Friday that the wall crossed the Blue Line.
“The wall is part of a broader IDF plan whose construction began in 2022,” the spokesperson said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
“Since the start of the war, and as part of lessons learned from it, the IDF has been advancing a series of measures, including reinforcing the physical barrier along the northern border.”
UNIFIL, established in 1978, operates between the Litani River in the north and the Blue Line in the south. The mission has more than 10,000 troops from 50 countries and about 800 civilian staff, according to its website.
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Iran Says US Is Not Ready for ‘Equal and Fair’ Nuclear Talks
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi speaks during a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran, Iran, July 12, 2025. Photo: Hamid Forootan/Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Washington’s current approach toward Tehran does not indicate any readiness for “equal and fair negotiations,” Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday, after US President Donald Trump hinted last week at potential discussions.
Following Israel’s attack on Iran in June, which was joined by U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, attempts at renewing dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program have failed.
The United States, its European allies and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear program as a veil for efforts to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran and Washington underwent five rounds of indirect nuclear talks prior to the 12-days-war, but faced obstacles such as the issue of domestic uranium enrichment, which the U.S. wants Iran to forego.
“The U.S. cannot expect to gain what it couldn’t in war through negotiations,” Abbas Araqchi said during a Tehran conference named “international law under assault.”
“Iran will always be prepared to engage in diplomacy, but not negotiations meant for dictation,” he added.
During the same conference, deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh accused Washington of pursuing its wartime goals with “negotiations as a show.”
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Israeli Government Decides ‘Independent’ Commission to Investigate Oct. 7 Failures
The Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – The Israeli government has approved the creation of an “independent” commission of inquiry to examine the failures that enabled the Hamas assault of October 7, 2023.
However, in a move sharply criticized by the opposition and contrary to the recommendation of the Supreme Court, the panel will not be a formal state commission of inquiry. Instead, its mandate, authorities, and scope will be determined directly by government ministers.
According to the decision, the commission will receive full investigative powers and must be composed in a way that ensures “the broadest possible public trust.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will form a special ministerial committee tasked with defining what the inquiry may investigate, the time periods to be reviewed, and the authority it will receive. The committee has 45 days to deliver its recommendations.
For the past year, the government has repeatedly resisted calls to establish a state commission, arguing at first that such a body could not operate during wartime. Later, some ministers accused Supreme Court President Isaac Amit of being incapable of appointing an impartial chairperson.
But on October 15, the High Court of Justice ruled that there was “no substantive argument” against forming a state commission, giving the government 30 days to respond.
Netanyahu maintains that responsibility for the October 7 failures lies primarily with Israel’s security agencies rather than with political leaders.
His critics accuse him of creating a weaker, government-controlled inquiry designed to limit scrutiny of his decisions, undermining the prospect of full accountability for the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.