Yiddish @ Sydney

Wal-Mart had planned to build a new store in Monsey, NY, a small town of approximately 28,000 residents and 200 synagogues. The residents, a good majority of which are ultra-Orthodox Jews, had been dead-set against the proposal, as had the newly elected community supervisor. As a matter of fact, part of his election campaign had been to stop the development which would have caused a number of headaches for Monsey and the surrounding towns.

The campaign for and against Wal-Mart ran in Yiddish:

Wal-Mart also hired a firm to send mailings in Yiddish to local homes, asking residents to suggest ways the company could improve the area.

“A lot of us sent the mailing back to them with the words, ‘No, thanks,’ written at the top,” said a 36-year-old Hasidic man who has lived here for 18 years and who requested anonymity to keep with his religious tradition of modesty.

Then, the community hit back. Residents joined union workers for a rally in December 2006, and circulated petitions and ran ads in Yiddish and English every week for 32 weeks in a local newsletter, Community Connections.

Wal-Mart will not be going to Monsey. The developer pulled out.

From the Forward:

While investigating the 4,700 documents included in the “The Argentina Declassification Project,” Carlos Osorio, director of the Southern Cone Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, found a handwritten letter from 1979. The letter, written in Yiddish explains the plight of Héctor Catovsky who went to work one day and never returned.

To read more... click on the link above.

Yiddish Sof Vokh (weekend retreat) is an annual event organised by Yiddish Oystralye to provide Yiddish lovers and learners with a Yiddish immersion environment. For two days people of all ages participate in a variety of activities -- lectures, cooking classes, craft workshops, sport, drama and more -- and all in Yiddish.

This year's weekend will take place from May 2 to May 4th -- the group meet before dinner on Friday night and leave after lunch on Sunday. The venue is comfortable and attractive - Chestnut Hill Lodge in Kallista in the Dandenongs, a 1 hour drive from central Melbourne.

For more information, contact me.

“Unterzakhn” — Yiddish for “undergarments” — is Corman's first graphic novel. It deals with life in turn-of-the-20th-century, Lower East Side New York City. Dialogue is in both Yiddish and English.

Corman was interviewed by the Forward for this article:
Introducing a New Graphic Novel

Remember her? She won a Grammy for her song, "Stay (I Missed You)". Well, she's now an advice columnist for the Forward.

Lisa Loeb says honesty is the best policy