More Posts

Candles of Song: Asya

Asya Kuritsky-Guy (1932-2009) was born in Vilna. Her father was a painter who wrote plays that were never produced. During the Second World War she and her parents fled to Soviet Russia. At the age of eight she began writing poetry in both Russian and Yiddish. When she was repatriated to Poland after the war she worked in an orphanage and created literature – poems and plays – for the children.

Candles of Song: Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman

Beyle has played a central role in reviving and inspiring interest in Yiddish song and poetry among a new generation of artists, and her songs have been performed by many of the major names in Yiddish music. She is the only Yiddish poet ever to be awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the top honor for folk arts in the United States.

Candles of Song: Malka Lee

She began writing poetry in German but in 1921, the year she emigrated to New York, she turned to Yiddish. In 1922 she made her literary debut in Di feder, NY, and after that she contributed poems, stories and memoirs to many newspapers and magazines.

Candles of Song: Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Yiddish poems about mothers, in memory of my mother, Miriam Pearlman Zucker, 1914-2012. Yermiahu Ahron Taub grew up in an orthodox (non-Hasidic) yeshivish community in Philadelphia. He began his formal… Read more »

Candles of Song: Rokhl Korn

Rokhl (Haring) Korn 1898-1982) was born near Podliski, East Galicia on a farming estate. Her love and knowledge of nature is reflected both in her poetry and prose. She was educated in Polish and started writing poetry at an early age in Polish.

Candles of Song: Celia Dropkin

Celia Dropkin (1888-1956) was born Celia Levin in Bobruisk, White Russia. She lost her father at an early age and her mother never remarried. She had a high school education and began writing poetry in Russian while still a young woman and was greatly encouraged by the Hebrew writer U.N. Gnessin.

My Daughter, The Soldier

I suddenly felt the presence of Jewish women throughout the ages who dared to defy social expectations by being strong, outspoken, independent and physical. I was filled with gratitude for all those brave women – and men – who gave their lives over the past 150 years so that Jews would have the opportunity to simply stand unimpeded in this space. I watched these young women and felt like they embodied that spirit

Memory and Teshuva: A Review of October Mourning

Leviticus 18, which deems men lying with men an abomination, has traditionally been part of the Yom Kippur service. Many congregations today opt for a substitute for this oft-quoted but underhistoricized text that has contributed to diverse forms of religious and secular homophobia. Whether we reject, historicize, or transform the meaning of these words that have hurt, we should relish opportunities to communally atone for complicity with traditional and contemporary forms of hate.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Gifts from a Religious Crisis

A little over a year ago, much of my life was shifting wildly or was already shattered: my relationship, my living situation, my health—and my religious observance. I had been secretly breaking Shabbos for a while, and finally acknowledged to myself that I was no longer committed to halakha, traditional Jewish law.

Be a part of the story

This Yom Hashoah, read the experience of a Jewish teen in Vilna in her own words.

In early 2017, almost 180,000 pages of lost Yiddish documents were discovered, mothballed and hidden in a Lithuanian church. Poignantly, these were pieces from a @yivoinstitute writing contest for Jewish teens in Europe, written and submitted before the Nazi incursion started. These young people, documenting their lives, had no idea of what was to come.

In the summer of 2018, @krinsteincartoons traveled to Vilnius/Vilna to bring six anonymous pre-WWII teenage autobiographies to life— using their words and his pictures. Here’s a snapshot of one of them, a middle-school Vilna girl he dubbed “The Rule Breaker.”

This Yom Hashoah, read the experience of a Jewish teen in Vilna in her own words.

In early 2017, almost 180,000 pages of lost Yiddish documents were discovered, mothballed and hidden in a Lithuanian church. Poignantly, these were pieces from a @yivoinstitute writing contest for Jewish teens in Europe, written and submitted before the Nazi incursion started. These young people, documenting their lives, had no idea of what was to come.

In the summer of 2018, @krinsteincartoons traveled to Vilnius/Vilna to bring six anonymous pre-WWII teenage autobiographies to life— using their words and his pictures. Here’s a snapshot of one of them, a middle-school Vilna girl he dubbed “The Rule Breaker.”
...

Our inner fears spoken out loud. 

From the Lilith archives, Rachel Hall on passing down her mother's stories, but not her nightmares. 

Read it now at Lilith.org.

Our inner fears spoken out loud.

From the Lilith archives, Rachel Hall on passing down her mother`s stories, but not her nightmares.

Read it now at Lilith.org.
...

"What My Mother's Ashes Revealed ," by Julia Silverberg Németh. A must-read, linked in our bio. ❤️

"What My Mother`s Ashes Revealed ," by Julia Silverberg Németh. A must-read, linked in our bio. ❤️ ...

Did you know that Jewish women were involved in all forms and formations of the resistance against the Nazis? 

In Lilith's Spring 2009 Issue, German journalist and filmmaker Ingrid Strobl uncovers the personal narratives of women who won quiet, small-scale victories against the viciousness of Nazis and their collaborators. Though their work has often been left out of official histories of the era, these were women who took their own instincts and impulses seriously, and acted on them.

Read it now at Lilith.org.

Portrait of Eta Wrobel from @jewishpartisans.

Did you know that Jewish women were involved in all forms and formations of the resistance against the Nazis?

In Lilith`s Spring 2009 Issue, German journalist and filmmaker Ingrid Strobl uncovers the personal narratives of women who won quiet, small-scale victories against the viciousness of Nazis and their collaborators. Though their work has often been left out of official histories of the era, these were women who took their own instincts and impulses seriously, and acted on them.

Read it now at Lilith.org.

Portrait of Eta Wrobel from @jewishpartisans.
...