Jewish Languages
The Beginnings of A Bintel Brief
In January 1906, a woman wrote a letter to a Yiddish daily newspaper called the Forward , to complain that her watch ...
Publishing the Unpublishable
It took me more than three years to finish Shlepping the Exile . I had a job as a researcher ...
Normal English and the Novel
Plot was the last thing on my mind when I sat down to make a novel out of the stories ...
Is “Schmuck” a Dirty Word?
One of the points I make in my book is that what’s dirty in Yiddish isn’t always dirty in English, and vice ...
Lithuania’s Past and Present
In my last blog post, I recounted the background of Yiddish linguist Dovid Katz, who has been reporting on troubling manifestations of ...
Ladino Pregnant Pop
“Ensuenyo Te Vi” Three words that normally don’t go together: Ladino, Pop, Pregnant. But in my world they make a ...
Is that baby DELICIOUS or what!?
When my siblings and I were little, my mom used to grab our chubby arms and pretend to munch on ...
The Jews of Poland: Recollections and Recipes by Edouard de Pomiane
When I was researching my last novel, my friend Michael Rohatyn found a book at the Strand he thought I might ...
Yoda’s Yiddishkeit: Jewish He Seems, Hmmm?
The month of May, known as “Liberation Month,” contains Cinco de Mayo (celebrating Mexico’s liberating victory over the French in ...
On Writing a Novel in Two Cultures
Yesterday I wrote that my novel, The Golem and the Jinni , is “pretty darn Jewish.” In truth, that’s only ...
Dreaming in Mother Tongues
Zi kholmt – she dreams.In Irena Klepfisz’s remarkable poem, “Etlekhe verter oyf mame-loshn / A few words in the mother tongue,” the speaker ...
Yiddish and Us
The three of us waited expectantly and somewhat nervously in the seminar room, wondering why we had been summoned by ...