Out of the Archives: “The Ritchie Boys”
by Kevin Schlottmann, Levy Processing Archivist, Center for Jewish History
Werner Erwin Stark (1921 – 1995) was born in Munich, Germany, into a Jewish family of textile merchants. Together with his older brother Walter, he escaped to the United States via France in 1938.
During World War Two, Stark enlisted in the US Army and was…
NYT: Jewish Identity, Spelled in Yiddish
Modern Yiddish transliteration was created by early-20th-century scholars who saw Judaism as a nationality based on language and were fighting rising anti-Semitism.
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is one of the five partners of the Center for Jewish History.
In Memory of Frank Lautenberg
by David P. Rosenberg, M.P.A., Reference Services Research Coordinator, Center for Jewish History
Frank Lautenberg, the last World War II veteran in the United States Senate (he served from 1982-2001 and 2003-his death, today June 3, 2013), played an important role in allowing many Soviet Jews to come to America. His “Lautenberg Amendment” in 1990 relaxed certain standards for…
“Knaidel” is the Winning Word
by David P. Rosenberg, M.P.A., Reference Services Research Coordinator, Center for Jewish History
Perhaps you heard that a Yiddish word won the National Spelling Bee for Arvind Mahankali. Yes, knaidel is spelled K-n-a-i-d-e-l according to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary–the official dictionary of the National Spelling Bee. As you may know, Yiddish is a fusion language of principally German,…