In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies

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.

11/03/2025

NEW in translation: "A Picture Speaks: A Page From a Diary" by H. Leivick; translated by Bluma Lange.

"The arti­cle trans­lat­ed below was pub­lished in Der tog in Octo­ber of 1954. In it, Leivick recalls a woman to whom he gives the pseu­do­nym of “Kh. N.,” or Kheyn (Grace, as she will be referred to below). He recalls his days of Bundist activism and his attrac­tion to Grace, his fel­low rev­o­lu­tion­ary, in 1906; his reunion with her in 1925 in the Sovi­et Union; and his even­tu­al dis­cov­ery of her fate many years lat­er, in 1950, long after his own break with Communism.
Grace’s exile — believed by Leivick, in his lat­er years, to be a result of her asso­ci­a­tion with him — pre­oc­cu­pies him deeply."

https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/picture-speaks

10/31/2025

"To get a sense of the seven-hundred-plus languages spoken in New York, you can visit languagemap.nyc, a map-based portal chock-full of information and recordings from Ross Perlin’s Endangered Language Alliance. But to learn in depth about many of those languages, the enterprises of linguistics and language documentation, and the past and present of various immigrant and indigenous groups, check out Perlin’s excellent book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York."

Sarah Bunin Benor reviews Ross Perlin's LANGUAGE CITY:

https://ingeveb.org/articles/language-city

10/30/2025

"I don't know where I'd be without In geveb. This journal has given me incredible opportunities for exposure and publication, especially given that I am a junior scholar with naught but a bachelors' degree in History and a great deal of enthusiasm. What's even more incredible is that In geveb's whole team is dedicated to fostering not only intellectual curiosity but professional stability and mutual respect--I can't say I've ever heard of another journal paying contributors as a matter of policy. When I work with In geveb I know that I'm going to be taken seriously despite my inexperience; that I'll be treated respectfully and with patience. Biz hundert un tsvantsik, In geveb!"

-Nadav Pais-Greenapple

support our continued development of early-career scholars and Yiddish enthusiasts--contribute to our Tsen Yor campaign today! 🦚

https://donorbox.org/tsen-yor

10/29/2025

"In the shadowed alleyways of eastern Europe, a man in clever disguise watches and listens. Each passerby, each word, each gesture, he considers with great thought. Later that night, he will return to the inn where he has rented a room, reconvene with his trusted assistant, and hatch a plan to uncover the truth. He will ultimately succeed, and the cycle will begin again the following evening. Detective Max Spitzkopf, the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes, is an unstoppable force for good..."

Isadora Kianovsky reviews The Adventures of Max Spitzkopf: The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes by Jonas Kreppel (translated by Mikhl Yashinsky)

https://ingeveb.org/articles/the-adventures-of-max-spitzkopf

10/27/2025

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

In 2023, the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies joined forces with In geveb to pro­vide a series of grants to schol­ars and artists to work with Yid­dish mate­ri­als in the archive’s col­lec­tion. The first cohort of fel­lows result­ed in five suc­cess­ful projects rang­ing from tra­di­tion­al research and the cre­ation of ped­a­gog­i­cal mate­ri­als for using Yid­dish tes­ti­mo­ny in the class­room to musi­cal per­for­mance and artis­tic works. Build­ing on this suc­cess, we are now pub­lish­ing a call for a sec­ond cohort of fel­lows. The goal, again, is to encour­age and fund schol­ars to work with the col­lec­tion — to bring the archive off the shelf and into the class­room and beyond. After all, of the more than 4,400 tes­ti­monies, only a frac­tion has ever been used in teach­ing, research, or cul­tur­al pro­duc­tions. The Yid­dish tes­ti­monies are a rich body of mate­ri­als that can be employed in a wide range of disciplines.

To encourage this use, the Fortunoff Video Archive, together with In geveb, will provide two fellowships of USD 3,000 each for projects that are based primarily on the Yiddish language materials in the Fortunoff Video Archive. We are looking for an In geveb/Fortunoff Pedagogy Fellow who will develop a project that aims to employ testimonies in teaching at the university level and an In geveb/Fortunoff Arts and Culture Fellow who will draw upon testimonies in some form of cultural production (for example, plastic arts, music, podcasts, or documentaries).

Following the completion of the fellowship, In geveb will invite the fellows to submit their projects for inclusion in a continuing iteration of In geveb’s special issue “Engagement with Yiddish Language Materials in Video Holocaust Testimony” for further dissemination.

https://ingeveb.org/blog/call-for-proposals-2025

10/21/2025

Un Tango Para Rachel: A Conversation between Joanna Spyra and Lea Kalisch NEW on the blog today!

"I first heard of Lea Kalisch through that ever-reli­able net­work known as “Jewish/Yiddish geog­ra­phy.” A friend from Switzer­land sent me a link to her music video “Eshet Chay­il of Hip Hop,” where Lea raps, sings, and con­fi­dent­ly sports a shtrayml. There was some­thing about her cre­ative bold­ness that imme­di­ate­ly stood out...

This inter­view delves into the intense and vul­ner­a­ble process behind Lea’s first-ever film. We explore what it means to cre­ate a world that bal­ances his­tor­i­cal imag­i­na­tion with emo­tion­al truth, how Yid­dish lan­guage ani­mates the story’s tex­ture, the dif­fi­cult cre­ative choic­es Lea made along the way, and how stub­born vision fueled the entire project. "

https://ingeveb.org/blog/un-tango-para-rachel

10/17/2025

NEW: An Interview with Stefanie Halpern about YIVO’s New Centennial Coffee Table Book 🦚

Ste­fanie Halpern is the direc­tor of col­lec­tions at the YIVO Insti­tute for Jew­ish Research and the edi­tor of 100 Objects from the Col­lec­tions of the YIVO Insti­tute for Jew­ish Research, released as part of YIVO’s cen­ten­ni­al anniver­sary. The book pro­files one hun­dred objects cho­sen from YIVO’s twen­ty-four mil­lion, each accom­pa­nied by a short essay by one of fifty-sev­en lead­ing scholars.

Halpern and In geveb edi­to­r­i­al intern Dinah Meg­i­bow-Tay­lor sat down in YIVO’s new­ly built Learn­ing and Media Cen­ter to talk 100 Objects. There, the book comes to life: Its fea­tured prints adorn the walls, a hand seal press sits atop a shelf, and the draw­ers are filled with repro­duced repro­duced posters from YIVO’s col­lec­tions. The two took note of their sur­round­ings and dis­cussed, among oth­er things, the process of choos­ing the one hun­dred objects, how Yid­dish remains all-encom­pass­ing with­in the pages, and their per­son­al con­nec­tions to their favorite objects.

https://ingeveb.org/blog/yivo-100-objects

10/15/2025

NEW translation up on the site: "In Ford's Factory" by Joseph Opatoshu, translated by Nadav Pais-Greenapple.

"Opatoshu made his own pere­gri­na­tion to Detroit in the spring of 1929 and penned “In Ford’s Fac­to­ry” (Bay Fordn in fab­rik) which appeared in Der Tog and, with minor changes, in Warsaw’s Naye folk­st­say­tung, on May 17, 1929.

Immune to the “vast mechan­i­cal appa­ra­tus of enchant­ment” that was Fordist man­u­fac­tur­ing, Opatoshu’s account of his guid­ed tour at the Riv­er Rouge com­plex – an expe­ri­ence Ford still offers to vis­i­tors today – pre­sent­ed a human-cen­tered alter­na­tive to the alien­at­ed, hyper-mechan­i­cal images of the fac­to­ry which pre­vailed in pop­u­lar reporting. Where the main­stream Anglo­phone press tend­ed to por­tray the plant as “bereft of almost any human beings,” as “tem­ple machin­ery inno­cent of toil, impreg­nable by injus­tice, [and] unsul­lied by lust for pow­er or prof­it,” Opatoshu did near­ly the oppo­site, mak­ing the read­er con­stant­ly aware of the human pres­ence – and human suf­fer­ing – of the workers."

Opatoshu reports on working conditions in a Ford factory in Detroit.

10/14/2025

Ready to show your love for In geveb as we cruise into our second decade? NEW tsen yor designs are available via our Redbubble shop--linked below! 🦚

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/174859274

10/09/2025

Our first book review of the year is now LIVE!

Daniel Soyer reviews "East End Jews," a new anthology in translation from editors Vivi Lachs and Barry Smerin via @ waynestateuniversitypress.

"East End Jews, as the subtitle indicates, is an anthology of brief articles from Yiddish newspapers and magazines published in Britain....The translated pieces are accompanied by a helpful introduction by Lachs, notes on the authors, and a list of titles and dates of the publications from which the sketches were drawn. The well-translated articles make for entertaining, and often moving, reading. But they also serve as an introduction to the social and cultural history of life in the Jewish East End."

https://ingeveb.org/articles/east-end-jews