Today is “Shakespeare Day,” or the day that is known as the birth date and death date of William Shakespeare. Did you know that Shakespeare’s works have been translated into Yiddish for the education and enjoyment of Yiddish-speakers? In honor of Shakespeare and National Poetry Month, you can enjoy the famous Sonnet 18 in Yiddish (above) – available online by clicking here….
by David P. Rosenberg, M.P.A., Senior Reference Librarian – Collections, Center for Jewish History
Boy in corn field, Woodbine, New Jersey (ca. 1900)
American Jewish Historical Society. Click here for more information.
Selections from Yingl tsingl khvat by Mani Leib, illustrated by El Lissitzky.
Yingl tsingl khvat images from YIVO microfilm printout 00004383.
From the Norton Jewish American Literature Anthology: “The most famous of [Mani Leib’s] ballads was Yingl tsingl khvat, a narrative about a boy who, stuck in the shtetl mud, persuades a nobleman to give him the magic ring and flying horse…
Images: Recha Freier; Jewish children singing at the Youth Aliyah School in Berlin, ca. 1940; a group of German children who have made it to Palestine as part of Youth Aliyah in 1934.
The following poems (in German) are taken from Recha Freier’s Auf die Treppe. (Hamburg : Hans Christians Verlag, 1976). Freier founded the Youth Aliyah organization in 1933,…