In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies

12/12/2025

NEW INTERVIEW 🦚

A Brief History of Yiddish Dictionaries: Ilan Stavans in Conversation with Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath

"In the constellation of Jewish languages (from Judeo-Spanish, aka Ladino, and Judeo-Portuguese to Hybriya, aka Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian, and not counting biblical and Modern Hebrew), Yiddish, or Judeo-German, is unquestionably the most popular. Its development over a millennium is attested, among other things, by the variety of dictionaries it has produced, the earliest one dating back to the end of the sixteenth century..."

https://ingeveb.org/blog/conversations-on-dictionaries

12/10/2025

NEW blog post (and a new, associated translation!) 🦚

In a fartsaytishn Poyln / The Search for Jacob Morgenstern by Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren

"It wasn’t until 2010, right after I moved to the city to begin my MFA in poetry and literary translation, that my mom...sent me an email that began “Unbelievable!!!!!” A Polish researcher named Gosia, whom she’d hired to try and find Harry’s birth certificate (after Cleveland- and New York-based researchers came up empty-handed), inadvertently located the first evidence of our literary ancestor’s existence. A short but dramatic entry in Andrzej Kempa and Marek Szukalak’s The Biographical Dictionary of the Jews from Lodz described this writer’s personal and professional life. But, surprisingly, it said that this man was born a Kaczka. Meaning that we’d had things reversed, and Morgenstern—what my family had been calling themselves for over one hundred years in America—was actually a pen name."

https://ingeveb.org/blog/jacob-morgenstern

___________

Yankev Morgenshtern by Itzik Manger, translated by Lazer Lederhendler:

https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/yankev-morgenshtern

In my parents’ attic in Cleveland, crammed into cardboard boxes that bow in the middle, is our ever-expanding hand-drawn family tree, along with old photos capt

12/05/2025

WE DID IT! 🎉

A sheynem dank to all of you who helped us to raise $20,000 (and counting!) in honor of In geveb's tsen yor anniversary. We are so, so honored by your support and engagement in the community that makes up In geveb: readers, writers, editors, board members, and supporters.

This fund has helped us to undertake necessary and important updates to our website, to create an expanded managing editor staff position, AND to start our 10th year feeling confident in the future of our work. Thank you for supporting us. 🦚

12/04/2025

NEW: Occupations Past and Present: A Visual Literacy Curriculum Kit created by and shared with In geveb by Deborah Berman.

"Occupations Past and Present is a visual literacy curriculum drawing on Mayer Kirshenblatt’s images of eastern European Jewish life to teach general (not only Jewish) grade school audiences how to relate to, ask questions of, and learn from images....
In 1992, to complete the requirements for a masters in social work, I wrote a thesis entitled “Roots To Routes: Evolving An Ethnic Identity,” which focused on KlezKamp, a foundational festival of Yiddish folk arts that ran for thirty years, beginning in 1985. I have now worked as a psychotherapist for many years. My motivation for this project was not only an interest in pedagogy or psychology per se but rather one that runs through my work in both these fields (and my life): the creation of beauty as a force of healing. I have drawn from the world of Yiddish, especially language, music, and—most recently—visual expression, to that end. As an artist my work happens to often be appealing to children. I am drawn to those fundamental preoccupations that are with us from childhood to death."

If you use this or any other of our published pedagogy resources in your classroom, please let us know!

Occupations Past and Present is a visual literacy curriculum drawing on Mayer Kirshenblatt’s images of eastern European Jewish life to teach general (not only J

12/03/2025

We were thrilled to join the Writing It! team with the UF Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies to chat about the process of starting a journal.

Give it a listen here:
https://writingit.fireside.fm/64

12/03/2025

Re-upping our joint Call for Proposals with the Yale Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies:

The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University is collaborating with In geveb to encourage and fund scholars to work with the collecti

12/02/2025

Tayere fraynt,

Today is Giving Tuesday. We know your feeds are inundated with asks and appeals, so we’ll keep it short and sweet:

In geveb’s mission to be the online focal point for discussions of Yiddish literature, language, and culture depends on you–our readers. Our peer-reviewed articles, translations, blog posts, and special issues are available to all without a subscription, and generous contributions from our readers makes it all possible. If In geveb has changed the way you engage with modern Yiddish culture, or deepened your connection to the Yiddish Studies community, online or off, please consider making a donation to support our work.

https://donorbox.org/in-geveb-giving-tuesday-2025

A hartsikn dank,

Jessica Kirzane,
Editor-in-chief

Mindl Cohen,
Chair, Board of Directors

Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler
Development Associate

11/24/2025

Join us to celebrate tsen yor in D.C.! We are celebrating our 10th birthday with a party moytse Shabes (Saturday evening) before the Association for Jewish Studies conference in Washington, DC on December 13th, 2026. We are excited to celebrate together with Yiddish Book Center attending AJS and in the DC area, and we hope to see many familiar faces from around the Yiddishist world - including *your* sheynem ponim! Many thanks to the Yiddish Book Center for co-sponsoring this party. Please RSVP by getting a ticket below.

The event is free, but donations to In geveb are encouraged! Event location will be emailed out to those who have a ticket. The event will be held at an outdoor (but heated!) beer garden within walking distance from the Marriott Marquis hotel where the AJS takes place. Forshpayzn (hors d'oeuvres) will be provided and attendees can purchase their own beverages and additional food.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions, we look forward to sharing a lekhayim with you soon!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrate-10-years-of-in-geveb-tickets-1975007868701?aff=oddtdtcreator

11/19/2025

NEW Pedagogy piece: Scientific Literature in the Yiddish Classroom

"Working with authentic material that consistently exemplifies such structures enables teachers to sharpen students’ grammatical and lexical awareness and to highlight how Yiddish functioned beyond its traditional literary boundaries."

If you use this material in your classroom--let us know! 🦚

Working with authentic material from Yiddish scientific and technical textbooks enables teachers to sharpen students’ grammatical and lexical awareness and to h

11/17/2025

NEW on the blog:

"Displays of Belonging: Polish Jewish Collecting and Museums, 1891-1941" by Sarah Ellen Zarrow (our peer review editor!), reviewed by Elena Hoffenber (a former peer review associate!) 🦚

https://ingeveb.org/articles/materials-matter

11/12/2025

"Ira Kho­nen Temple’s album Strange Tongue/מסתּמא־לשון / Mis­tame-Loshn, out from Borscht Beat, is a tes­ta­ment to Q***r Yid­dishkayt. The album is a balm for this moment of ris­ing fas­cism. It is a reminder that the work of lib­er­a­tion is messy but nec­es­sary, and we need to do that work with each oth­er and not alone. Ira man­ages to cre­ate an arti­fact for our exact moment, mean­ing that the album feels deeply of our times and engages with dif­fer­ent tem­po­ral­i­ties from our spe­cif­ic van­tage point, with­out cal­ci­fy­ing any of the songs, or putting the arti­facts behind muse­um glass. Strange Tongue is a piece of a liv­ing, breath­ing, chang­ing cul­ture."

Yael Horowitz and Ira Khonen Temple talk q***r Yiddishkayt, collage, and masoyre in Temple's new album.

11/07/2025

NEW: An Interview with the Editors of Iberzets

Iberzets, an online mag­a­zine for trans­la­tions from Yid­dish to Hebrew, is the result of an ini­tia­tive by Yid­dish lit­er­a­ture research stu­dents, and is sup­port­ed by the Jona Goldrich Insti­tute for Yid­dish Lan­guage, Lit­er­a­ture and Cul­ture at Tel Aviv Uni­ver­si­ty and the Nation­al Author­i­ty for Yid­dish Cul­ture in Israel (הרשות הלאומית לתרבות היידיש).

In geveb has had a long con­nec­tion with this ini­tia­tive, which was cre­at­ed with the guid­ance and sup­port of its aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor, Han­nah Pollin-Galay, who serves on – and is a found­ing mem­ber of – the edi­to­r­i­al board of In geveb. We recent­ly spoke with its edi­tors to learn more about this project, which we see as a sis­ter project to In geveb, com­ple­ment­ing our work by offer­ing an excit­ing new out­let for trans­la­tions from Yid­dish. The ques­tions below come from the In geveb edi­to­r­i­al team, and the answers were com­posed joint­ly by the edi­tors of Iberzets.

In geveb is an open-access digital forum for the publication of peer-reviewed academic articles, the translation and annotation of Yiddish texts, the exchange of pedagogical materials, and a blog of Yiddish cultural life.