Yiddish Center: Audio books in Yiddish

The Yiddish Book Center and the Jewish Public Library of Montreal produced the audiobook Kinder-yorn (Childhood Years) as part of Y.Y. Trunk's seven-volume Poylen (Poland: Memories and Images).

The work is considered one of the most important memoirs of Jewish Polish life. The author began the work two days after he arrived in the US in March 1941.

According to the Yiddish Book Center, "He knew that Europe’s Jews were facing an unimaginable disaster, and his book has been called a 'portable literary gravestone for a destroyed community.'"

Two Fellows of the Yiddish Book Center have returned with an additional 200 Yiddish audio books on tape. They will be digitized and made available for free online.

Poyln has also been translated into English and published by the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada.

For those who can read Yiddish, click here . Sample the audio book here.

Food: 'Jewish' in America?

[My traveling schedule has forced me to cut back a bit on posting -

everyone needs a few days to kick back.

Here's a post of a few weeks ago - but still delicious -

that was languishing in draft format]

American Jews are mostly familiar with Ashkenazi-based food products, both in supermarkets and at home. Have you ever looked at the shelves in a large Middle Eastern market?

When I'm in northern California, a favorite store is the Rose Market in Mountain View, a well-stocked bazaar of exotic Persian foodstuffs and kitchen essentials. If they don't carry a desired Persian product, it's likely not available anywhere!

Today I arrived in Los Angeles from Seattle. My schedule is tight with the 30th IAJGS International Conference of Jewish Genealogy starting on Sunday, but I'm still hoping for a chelo kabab meal at one of the great Persian restaurants here.

Attesting to the influence of the Los Angeles Persian Jewish community - sometimes called Irangeles or Tehrangeles - are the many kosher-certified products, from exotic ice cream specialties, baked goods, canned foods, dairy items and much more. These products are available across the US, wherever there are Persian or Middle Eastern shops.

It's a far cry from Eastern European gefilte fish to Persian faloudeh (a frozen rosewater-rice stick confection that's both delicious and safe for the lactose-intolerant!). Frozen confections - from little ice cream sandwiches encased in wafers, to large containers of exotic items such as creamy saffron pistachio or rosewater ice - bear the names of Golnazar or Mashti Malone's and others.

US supermarket yoghurt is too watery to the Middle Eastern palate. If you're a yoghurt aficionado, try some Persian mast (yoghurt) - I recommend the thick Ab Ali brand - perfect for making various summer salads with spinach (borani-esfanaj) or other vegetables. Ab Ali comes out of the container looking like thick stiffly beaten whipped cream. For those who want an even thicker type, there is mast-e-kiseh (literally "yoghurt in a bag," where the yoghurt is even further drained) which can be mistaken for cream cheese.

Another Ab Ali product is doogh, a carbonated tangy yoghurt drink, beloved by most Persians. It isn't to my taste, but watching someone shake it, carefully open it with a glass on top, is an experience. Those who love it claim it is very refreshing on very hot days.

Ab Ali, a natural spring, was a destination resort for picnics and barbecues outside of Teheran. My husband's family went there very often when he was young.

Persian breads are different and delicious. Instead of bagels, try breakfast-size nan-barbari (photo left). While the original version is a long flattish bread with ridges; the loaves are about 8" wide and may be more than 24" long, the breakfast size is about 4" by 8". Split it, toast it, spread with Persian-style panir (a feta-type cheese).


In Iran, the best panir(also sheep mik) was from Bulgaria and it came in large green or green-and-white cans. Here in the US, an excellent less salty, milder brand is Valbreso (sheep milk from France, photo right) is available in bulk and smaller portions. For an even more exotic taste, spread the Valbreso on your barbari and add some Persian halvah over the cheese. Yum! The combo of salty and sweet can't be beat!

Or, use a bit of butter on your barbari and add sour-cherry (al balu) jam. With a cup of fragrant steeped Earl Grey tea, this is heaven!

Feel like making barbari? Try this recipe.

When we visited Shiraz years ago, we sometimes stayed at the Park Hotel, with its lovely gardens. We enjoyed breakfast outdoors, amid the fragrant roses, with all the delightful essentials plus fresh watermelon juice. Who would want to forget those experiences?

Giving Jewish American food its due is a current National Yiddish Book Center exhibit presenting food-related artifacts reflecting the search for a balance between acculturation and identity.

The Jewish experience in America has been told in home kitchens and grocery shelves across the country. It represents the past, present and future from the early-20th century immigrant community through today and beyond. I don't know if the exhibit includes any references to the Jewish Persian influence, but that would be nice.

The Amherst, Massachusetts-based center offers signs, menus, ads and packaging from the collection of Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, and a Garden Cafeteria sign is on loan from the Museum at Eldridge Street. The exhibit runs through October 3.

Enjoy!

Massachusetts: Paper Bridge arts festival, July 11-15

The annual Paper Bridge Summer Arts Festival is hosted by the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.

This year's dates are July 11-15.

It's billed as "a dynamic arts festival exploring the full range of modern Jewish culture" for the whole family.

It includes concerts, films, performances, pre-performance talks, workshops and two exhibits.

For more information, click Paper Bridge Summer Arts Festival.

Texas: LOC spotlights Houston Jewish Herald (1908-1911)

The only thing better than a general historic newspaper - for Jewish family historians - is a Jewish historic newspaper.

This is one of the best ways to find out about the Jewish communities where our immigrant ancestors lived, as well as additional generations. Sometimes the paper was originally in Yiddish, and later added English as generations had forgotten how to read Yiddish.

These ethnic papers covered local issues and named local citizens in a way that the general press did not. They detailed birthdays, weddings, visitors, children leaving for college, burials and other events.

The Library of Congress' Chronicling America offers many searchable Jewish papers, which you can browse here. Browse issues here http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93068209/issues/.

The LOC recently spotlighted the Houston Jewish Herald (1908-1911, 1,500 searchable pages). Today it is the Jewish Herald-Voice.
The paper also included sermons, editorials, commentaries and articles on events of national and international interest, information on local Jewish organizations and more. From the beginning, he included photographs, which make for a very interesting pictoral record of the community.

Founded in 1908 by Edgar Goldberg, The Jewish Herald was “a weekly publication, devoted to matters of interest to the Hebrew citizens of Houston.” In its first year, the paper was published every Friday, on eight pages measuring 10 x 13 inches each. By the end of 1910, The Jewish Herald had expanded to eight pages measuring 13 x 17 inches, and the paper’s circulation had reached 1,150. Goldberg published the Herald through the Herald Printing Company, and the paper initially cost $1.00 for an annual subscription.

The first issue of The Jewish Herald appeared on September 24, 1908 (in the Jewish calendar year 5668, as stated on the nameplate), but the paper had its origins in a news bulletin that Goldberg sent to the Jewish community in April 1908. At that time, Houston could count approximately 1,700 Jewish residents and two Jewish congregations. Goldberg’s bulletin stated that the community should keep informed of current events throughout the world, and especially of developments within the growing Jewish community. He proposed an “Anglo-Jewish weekly which would chronicle the news affecting the Jews of Texas.”

Other searchable Jewish newspapers available include:

• The Jewish Reformer. (New York, New York)1886-???? (English, German) 
• The National Jewish Daily. ([Van Nuys, California) 1986-1988
• The Jewish Post. (Indianapolis, Indiana) 1933-1946
• The Jewish Journal. (San Francisco, Caliifornia) 1928-1932
• The Jewish Exponent (Philadelphia, Pennsylvaniaa.) 1887-????
• The Texas Jewish Post. (Fort Worth, Texas) 1947-current
• The Youngstown Jewish Times. (Youngstown, Ohio) 1935-1987
• The Jewish Monitor. (Birmingham, Alabama) 1948-1980
• The Jewish Times. (Brookline, Massachusetts) 1951-1983
• The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) 1921-current
• The Jewish Chronicle. (Worcester, Massachusetts 1976-1980
• Las Vegas Israelite. (Las Vegas, Nevada) 1966-current
• Idishe velṭ = The Jewish World. (Cleveland, Ohio) 1913-1952  (English, Yiddish)
• The Boston Jewish Times. (Brookline, Massachusetts) 1983-2001
• The Jewish Chronicle-Leader. (Worcester, Massachusetts) 1980-1992
• The Jewish Voice. (St. Louis, Missouri) 1888-1933 (English, Yiddish) 
• The Iowa Jewish News. (Des Moines, Iowa) 1932-1952
• Der Ṿegṿayzer = The Jewish indicator. (Piṭtsburg, Pennsylvania) 1924-1930 (English, Hebrew, Yiddish) 
• Der Fihrer = The Jewish leader. (Pitṭsburg, Pennsylvania) 1930-1938 (English, Yiddish) 
• Di Idishe posṭ = Jewish post. (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) 1903-1909 (English, Hebrew, Yiddish) 
• Jewish Pictorial Leader. (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) 1949-19??
• Der Ṿegṿayzer = The Jewish leader. (Pitṭsburg, Pennsylvania) 1938-194? (English, Yiddish) 
• The Jewish Times and Observer. (San Francisco, Calififornia) 1879-19?? (English, German) 
• Jewish Weekly News. (Springfield, Massachusetts) 1945-199?
• Las Vegas Israelite of Nevada. (Las Vegas, Nevada) 1965-1966
• The Jewish Chronicle. (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) 1962-current
• The Southern Jewish Times. (Birmingham, Alabama) 192?-????
• The National Jewish Post. (Indianapolis, Indiana) 1946-1957
• The National Jewish Post and Opinion. (Indianapolis, Indiana) 1957-1966
• The Indiana Jewish Post and Opinion. (Indianapolis, Indiana) 1966-current
• Di Idishe shṭime ([Reading, Pennsylvania) 1922-1929  (English, Yiddish)
• The Journal. (Salem, Massachusetts) 1986-199?
• The Jewish Journal. (Youngstown, Ohio) 1987-current
• Heritage. (Los Angeles, Calififornia) 1954-1958
• Hakol (Allentown, Pennsylvania) 1976-current
• Monthly Reporter. (Madison, Wisconsin) 19??-????
• Jewish Reporter. (Framingham, Massachusetts) 1970-current
• The Delaware Valley Jewish Reporter. (Morrisville, Pennsylvania) 198?-current
• Hayom (Portland, Maine) 19??-current
• Forward (St. Louis, Missouri) 19??-19??  (English, Hebrew)
• The Jewish Tribune. (St. Louis, Missouri) 1879-1884
• The people's friend = Der Volksfreund = Der Vosterer folksfrend. (Worcester, Massachusetts) 1913-19?? (Yiddish)
• Der Vosterer idisher folks-frend = The Worcester Jewish people's friend. (Worcester, Massachusetts) 19??-19?? (English, Yiddish)
• Every Friday. (Cincinnati, Ohio) 1927-1965
• The Jewish Digest. (Miami, Florida) 1926-????
• The Jewish Chronicle. (Worcester, Massachusetts) 1992-current
• Ṭeglakhe prese (Los Angeles, California) 1934-19?? (English, Yiddish)
• Der Yidisher siṭizen = The Hebrew citizen. (Boston, Masschusetts) 1893-1??? (Yiddish)
• Folḳs-tsayṭung = Folks-Zeitung (Los Angeles, California) 1936-19?? (English, Yiddish)
• Di Press (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) 19??-19?? (English, Yiddish)

Search the papers - at the link above - where your ancestors lived and see what you can find.

There are many additional papers focusing on other ethnicities.

Canada: Yiddish oxen, tractors in Saskatchewan

The Yiddish Book Center (Amherst, Massachusetts) sends out periodic newsletters on books and events.

The latest update, just received by Tracing the Tribe, has several interesting items, particularly a Yiddish book on a Saskatchewan farming community and an update on the Hania, Crete synagogue fire and attempts at rebuilding its destroyed library.

Learning how our ancestors lived is key to understanding who they were and how they coped with local conditions.

When, in 1911, Michael Usiskin arrived in the Jewish settlement of Edenbridge, in northeastern Saskatchewan, he and the other pioneers struggled.

Weather conditions, isolation and other factors contributed to their attempt to form Jewish cultural life. He recorded this life in his 1945 Yiddish book, Oksn un motorn (Oxen and Tractors).

To learn more about this book, click here.

Readers may remember the devasting fire at the Hania, Crete synagogue that destroyed its library. Many people have already donated books to rebuild that important resource. The drawing at left is part of director Nikos Stravroulakis' drawing of the town.

Click here to read the thank you message from Stavroulakis and his staff. Read the names of those who donated books and see an interactive map, as well as a list of books they still need.

Subscribe to the National Yiddish Book Center's newsletter.

Museum of Family History: New exhibits

What's new at the Museum of Family History this month?

Walk in My Shoes: Collected Memories of the Holocaust

-- Chaim Basist (Lida, Belarus): He and his family hid in the forest with the Bielski partisans. Hebrew/English.

-- Peter Kleinmann (Munkacs/Mukachevo, Ukraine). Nine of 12 chapters of his autobiography are online with more to follow very soon. He was in Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen and Flossenburg.

MOFH Film Series (through April 18): World War II and the Holocaust

-- "The Jews of Krakow's Kazimierz District." 1936 archival film shows Krakow's Kazimierz Jewish district. Most buildings can be visited today and are in a similar condition - only the people who walked those streets are long gone. Note: A YouTube version of this film states the years are 1938-9, not 1936.

Exhibit: "The Jewish Ghetto" (coming in 2010)

-- "The Ghettos of Dabrowa Grnicza and Bedzin" (10:51). Two parts shot in the ghettos of Dabrowa Grnicza and Bedzin, probablywhen the ghetto was founded in May 1942, although deportations began in October 1940. Despite cooperation with the occupiers, as shown in this film, several large deportations took place in 1942; the last major ones were in 1943: 5,000, 22 June 1943; 8,000, around 13 August 1943. The 1,000 remaining Jews were subsequently deported. An uprising took place August 1943, was quelled and the ghetto eliminated. Both films are in the Polish film archive (ul. Chelmska, Warsaw.

Al Jolson Film Festival

-- Jolson stars in and sings in the film trailer to "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum." Don't forget to visit the Museum's large Al Jolson exhibit, "The Immortal Al Jolson" (see and hear many more videos, more than 40 sound clips).

ERC Lecture Series: The Development of Yiddish Literature

-- Since the Czernowitz Conference: In October 2008, Boris Sandler, Forverts editor-in-chief, gave a Yiddish speech at the IAYC (International Association of Yiddish Clubs) conference about the development of Yiddish literature since the 1908 Czernowitz conference on the future of the Yiddish language. A transcript of the talk is now available in English and can be found within the "ERC Lecture Series" at the Museum's Education and Research Center.

Visit the Museum of Family History online. Learn what's new at the Steve Lasky's blog.

Questions for Steve on new exhibits or material you'd like to share? Contact him.

Tablet: A fine young criminal

Tablet magazine is presenting a series of articles based on historic newspaper accounts.

The introduction to the series reads:

One of the convenient aspects of studying Jewish history is its 3,000-year-old paper trail—the texts and records of the rabbinical and intellectual elite allow us to examine contours of Jewish law and history. But we tend to know less about the lives of average Jews, who didn’t receive much attention in the writings of the intellectuals. That began to change in the late 19th century, when the Yiddish press hit the streets, for the first time recounting the lives of the unwashed masses of Jews in the public record. Tablet Magazine offers some of their stories, reconstructed from century-old newspaper accounts.

Tablet previously carried the Benjamin Nathan case, and today's piece is the story of Yitzhok Farbarovitsh, a yeshiva boy who became a gang member and then wrote about it in plays which "portrayed the street life of Jewish pimps, prostitutes, and criminals in its own raw reality, complete with nasty language and foul behavior."

Read Eddy Portnoy's story about Farbarovitsh, later known as Urke Nahalnik (Yiddish, brazen master criminal).

Yitzhok Farbarovitsh was known as a good kid in the shtetl of Vizne, a small town in Russian-ruled Poland, in the years just before World War I. He excelled in cheder, Jewish elementary school, and, when he reached his tweens, was sent to another town in the Pale of Settlement to attend a yeshiva. Yitzhok was on track to fulfill his mother’s dream that he become a rabbi. But not long after his bar mitzvah, his mother died, sending the Farbarovitsh household into a depression, and throwing Yitzhok’s life onto a different track.

The detailed story contains blockbuster elements: sex, crime, religion, jail, bad boy makes good, theater, spicy Yiddish slang and mentions YIVO along the way.

About one of his plays, the story relates:

Warsaw’s Jewish underworld was not the only group dissatisfied with the play. The socialist Bund’s arts magazine fulminated angrily against what they called theatrical “trash.” On the front page, an editorial griped that “when the prostitutes are on stage, talking their dirty talk, and the thieves are doing business in their pubs and hideouts, it’s ugly, it’s disgusting…. For three hours, the audience and the theater is dragged through the mud.”

The critics didn't like it, but the people did and it was a minor hit.

Farbarovitsh was also involved in some of the first attacks on the Nazis, according to the article, and demanded funding from Jewish underground leaders to organize attacks against the Nazis. Although they refused, he returned to his town of Otwock, outside Warsaw, where he sabotaged rail lines to Treblinka and helped Jews escape the trains and hide in the forest.

He was caught by the Germans in 1942. As he was being led to his execution in Otwock, he attacked his guard and nearby soldiers fatally shot him.

Read the complete story at the link above. Tracing the Tribe is waiting for the next article in the series.

Yiddish Book Center gets $3 million gift

The National Yiddish Book Center is expanding its Yiddish language program, thanks to a surprise $3 million bequest from television comedy writer Mickey Ross, who died in May at age 89.

According to a Center press release, "This is truly a historic gift, the largest in the Book Center's history," said founder and president Aaron Lansky.

In a separate email received today by Tracing the Tribe, Lansky writes:

Along with his incredibly generous cash gift -- the residual is still to come -- Mr. Ross left the Yiddish Book Center a permanent, 25% share of his rights to "All in the Family" and other shows. As one of our Board members wrote on hearing the news, "To think that Yiddish will benefit every time Archie Bunker utters an ethnic slur on a rerun is almost too delicious to absorb!"

The National Yiddish Book Center, established 30 years ago, says the bequest was a surprise. Lansky said, "As far as we know, Mickey Ross never visited here and we never met face-to-face."

An Emmy winner, Ross worked on such television comedies as "All in the Family," "The Jeffersons" and "Three's Company."

Lansky says the Center's intention is to create a Yiddish university for the hands-on exploration of Jewish language, history and culture. It will make possible the appointment of a full-time Yiddish language instructor to design and teach intensive Yiddish courses - both online and on-site.

The Center's endowment was about $8 million and with this gift, grew to $11 million. The annual budget is about $3.5 million.

Ross died at age 89 following stroke and heart attack complications.

In 2009, he created - with a $4 million gift - the Michael and Irene Ross Program in Jewish Studies at his alma mater, UCLA, endowing a chair in Yiddish language and culture. Ross also made bequests to YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and the Los Angeles Jewish Foundation.

Learn more about the Center's history, goals and year-round programs.