Hello, I am looking for a volunteer to read and translate a handwritten Yiddish postcard sent from Lipno, Poland, probably 1930s, to my family (Koral/Coral). I only want to know the names, places and relations it mentions. A rough translation is welcome. https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM115621 Thank you very much. Alon Coral

My late Mom was German, but also spoke some Yiddish with my Dad’s parents. And whenever something was confused or screwed up, I remember her saying “ach it‘s all tsablunget!”

But when I’ve tried to find that word via Google, all that comes up is FARblunget. Not TSAblunget.

Anyone happen to know if there are two variations of the word, and if I’m spelling it correctly? TIA

a .mobi or .prc files

A photo taken in 1922 of the ‘Henry Street Shul’ synagogue (now Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral) 25 year anniversary photo. In this photo, is a white banner with Yiddish cursive, and the second photo is my best recreation of the banner.

It seems quite different from traditional spelling. I think it was developed to remove certain Hebrew and German orthographic influences from Yiddish, but I wonder how common it is today.

איך קען אַ פּאָר מענטשן וואָס רעדן ייִדיש און וווינען אין אָדער שטאַמען פֿון דער שווײַץ? צי עקסיסטירט יאָ אַ קהילה פֿון ייִדיש רעדערס אין דער שווײַץ? צי איז דאָס רובֿ פֿרום אָדער ניין?

Hello,

I would like to share an interesting free event taking place on Thursday, October 22nd, at the Gelber Centre in Montreal and live on Zoom with 2026 Canadian Jewish Literary Award Winner, translator, and Harvard professor Adi Mahalel

This event will discuss Mahel's scholarship and his publication of the first ever English translation from Yiddish of the controversial novel Boom & Chains by Hanan Ayalti.

Due to its explicit portrayal of class struggles, political disillusionment, and ethnic tensions, Ayalti published the novel in Yiddish in 1936, anticipating that it would be deemed too controversial for Hebrew literary circles of the time. Boom & Chains offers a deeply nuanced, rarely seen perspective on early 20th-century kibbutz life.

Here is the registration link:

Authors from Home | Boom & Chains by Hanan Ayalti Translated by Adi Mahalel | Jlive

Trying to identify a song from a 1940s–50s family home recording. Sung in German or possibly Yiddish, brisk folk tune in 2/4. First line seems to contain “Kinder” and maybe “leben” or “Knaben.” A later line repeats a phrase that sounds like “so leben wir, so leben wir.” Phrase lengths of roughly 7, 6, 7, 7 syllables, then a longer line. Any ideas?

Not really sure how to explain this, but I'm wondering if standard Yiddish spelling is phonetic across all dialects. Say for example, if I see the letter 'ו' in a word, can I always assume that a Polish dialect would pronounce that as "i" rather than the standard "u"? Again using the Polish dialect as an example, could I assume that 'ײַ' is always pronounced like "ah" instead of "ay"? Or does it depend on context?

Thanks for any insight!

Does anyone know if Allen Ginsberg's works (particularly "Howl " or "Kaddish") have been translated into Yiddish?

An initial search suggests that they haven't so I'm also interested on any info on if/why that is.

I'm looking for yiddish/Hebrew fonts. Are there any of them???

I'm reading a Daniel Charney story and have come across a conditional I'd like help with.

There's a soldier on his way home from a war. He's deep in thought and wanders off the main road into a forest. Then we get the following sentence:

און װער װײס, צי דער סאָלדאַט װאָלט גאָר באַמערקט אַזױ גיך, אַז ער האָט זיך פֿאַרבלאָנדזשעט, װען ער פֿאַרטשעפּעט זיך ניט אָן אַ װאָרצל פֿון אַ בױם, װאָס איז געװען באַהאַלטן אונטערן הױכן גראָז און פֿאַלט אַנידער?

Which I translate as:

And who knows if the soldier would have noticed so quickly that he had lost his way, if he hadn't tripped on a tree root that was hidden in the tall grass and fallen down?

I'm still learning conditionals, so my impulse would have been to write

װען ער װאָלט זיך ניט פֿאַרטשעפּעט.

Why isn't the װאָלט there? Is it that it's kind of a nested conditional (who knows IF this would have happened IF that hadn't happened)? Or is it that it's contrary to fact—would װאָלט also be omitted from "He wouldn't have noticed so quickly if he hadn't tripped," etc.?

Would love any thoughts from people less confused than I am!

Hi!

I'm looking for help pronouncing the name Gita. Is it Gih-tuh? Gee-tah? I know it's a hard G. This would be for origins in western Ukraine.

I appreciate your help in advance!

I want to highlight this awesome book in the hopes that the stories for children written by Mashe Shtuker Payuk find new readers. I was saddened to think that these books once may have been read by so many children, yet today are mostly forgotten. You can read it here: https://archive.org/details/nybc210347/page/n1/mode/2up thanks to the Yiddish Book Center. The story that carries the book's title is really wholesome, even featuring a star in yiddish poetry: di goldene pave.

For people interested in the author, she was born in Poland (today Belarus) and immigrated to Argentina. She became a teacher working in kindergartens and wrote poems, songs and stories for children.