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Evgeny Kissin is not only a phenomenally active, high-strung, and almost unfailing pianist, he also declaims poetry in public -- in Yiddish. [more inside]
posted by Namlit on Jan 6, 2012 - 5 comments

BBC World Service has over 500 audio documentaries you can download. The subject matter is incredibly wide ranging, for example, internet cafés, the influence of Islamic art on William Morris, South African female AIDS activist Thembi Ngubane, Yiddish, the importance of cows, novelist Chinua Achebe, financial risk management, Obama as an intellectual, the physical and emotional effects of a car crash and many, many more. If the quantity and variety are overwhelming, you can subscribe to a podcast, which delivers a new documentary to you every single day.
posted by Kattullus on May 8, 2010 - 22 comments

The Dybbuk (Yiddish, 1937; based on the 1914 play by S. Ansky.)
posted by Iridic on Mar 27, 2010 - 12 comments

The Yiddish Song of the Week [more inside]
posted by serazin on Mar 27, 2010 - 9 comments

Ultimate Matzoh Balls is a simple, quick (10 level, automatically advancing) Flash basketball game that may help keep your mind off the lack of leavening in your diet this coming week. And by "your" I mean "my". The Yiddish exclamations for both the baskets and missed shots are worth the click.
posted by yiftach on Mar 27, 2010 - 15 comments

The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band performs a Hannukah Platter Patter. This musical style from a klezmer band shouldn't be too surprising; after all, with productions of Di Yam Galoznim, Di Yidisher Pinafore, and Der Yidddisher Mikado (Danny Kaye and Jerome Robbins appeared in Sylvia Fine's translation), and with translators and adaptors ranging from Miriam Walowit and Sylvia Fine in the 1940s to Al Grand in the present, Gilbert and Sullivan are no strangers to the Yiddish stage.
posted by nonane on Dec 16, 2009 - 6 comments

The Survey of American Jewish Language and Identity reports on the results of an online survey of 25,179 American Jews and 4,874 American Gentiles. Non-Jews say "klutz" but not "schmutz." The more Orthodox you are, the more likely you are to say "Good Shabbos" instead of "Shabbat Shalom." And so much more you'll plotz.
posted by escabeche on Nov 10, 2009 - 87 comments

Two guys join forces together to write a book about classic Jewish LPs. [more inside]
posted by martinc6 on Nov 30, 2008 - 11 comments

A linguist and a sociologist at Hebrew Union College have teamed up to track the inroads made into American English by words and idioms from traditionally Jewish languages, including Yiddish, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), and Hebrew. They've created an online survey and are looking for people from all religious and ethnic backgrounds to answer a few questions about their word choices, phrasing, and pronunciation. They're also trying to determine whether certain linguistic quirks usually attributed to Yiddish's influence are actually carried over from Jewish ancestors' speech patterns and accents, or whether they're merely an artifact from growing up in or near New York City. [via]
posted by Asparagirl on Jul 23, 2008 - 65 comments

Claire and Merna Bagelman, better known as The Barry Sisters. Every Sunday from 1938 to 1955 on WHN in New York, they mashed Swing with Yiddish Folk as the main attraction on the radio program Yiddish Melodies in Swing.[via] "We take a tune that's sweet and low, and we rock it solid and make it gold." They are indeed a Hebrew National Kosher Classic. More Yiddish music webceptacles. [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on May 27, 2008 - 8 comments

"Cohen on the Telephone" (real audio) is "not politically correct by modern standards, due to its Yiddish stereotyping, but certainly popular in its time and rumored to be the first comedy record to sell a million copies. This bit primarily made fun of the crude telephone system in use during 1913, when Joe Hayman recorded it in London in July of that year for Regal/Zonophone (it was issued on Columbia here in the States the following year). Several other labels hastily released versions by other artists, and a series of sequels followed right up into the mid-20's." Such as "Cohen Exceeds the Speed Limit", "Cohen at the Pay-station", "Cohen Phones His Tailor", "Cohen Telephones the Health Department" and "Cohen's Recruiting Speech" (all mp3s from The Virtual Gramaphone). There was even a movie.
posted by grumblebee on Feb 26, 2007 - 10 comments

Feed Me Bubbe
Why doesn't everyone do this with their grandmother? Avrom and his bubbe in a charming series about her great looking food. Learn a little yiddish while you're at it. O, yeah, there's videos here people...
posted by dozo on Feb 16, 2007 - 15 comments

I'm a Jewish Yankee Doodle Dandy and other Yiddish sheet music on topics ranging from the Dreyfus affair to interreligious romance. How Broadway evolved from Yiddish theater.
posted by jonp72 on Sep 22, 2006 - 10 comments

"One could go on, and one will -- praising (...) the National Center for Jewish Film for releasing all four of Edgar Ulmer's Yiddish films in restored editions. But the DVD player is beckoning, and I think it is time for me to get back to the couch".
The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF) is a unique nonprofit motion picture archive, distributor and resource center housing the largest, most comprehensive collection of Jewish-theme film and video in the world. In their archives you can discover the works of Leo Fuchs, the "Yiddish Fred Astaire", restored gems (scroll down) like "Motl the Operator" and re-releases like "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg". (More on Greenberg, the Jewish kid who challenged Babe Ruth’s homerun record here, more on the NCJF inside).
posted by matteo on Jan 9, 2006 - 9 comments

"May you be like a lamp: hang by day, burn by night and be snuffed out in the morning." Welcome to the long tradition of Yiddish curses. According to one scholar of insults: Curses in other languages differ from Yiddish in both content and style...Anglo-Saxon cultures prefer insults dealing with excrement and body parts, Catholic countries are partial to blasphemy, and cultures of the Middle and Far East go for ancestor insults, while Yiddish curses have a baroque splendor. A bunch more examples are here (keep scrolling).
posted by blahblahblah on Nov 18, 2005 - 33 comments

Klingon Klezmer. CD Review. Video (real, sorry). Audio clips, including Klingon Mating Dance, as cited in Webster's Online. QaHplaH! er, I mean, l'chaim!
posted by mwhybark on Oct 4, 2004 - 4 comments