Daniel Kahn on Radical Yiddish Autonomy, Bundism, and Productive Provocation
The singer-songwriter sits down with us at Yiddish New York to talk about his new album and what it means to sing in Yiddish today.
Latest
Introducing The ‘Tuers’: Translations from Doyres Bundistn, Part 3: Anne Braude-Heller
The doctor-activist is often publicly remembered for her heroism in the Warsaw Ghetto, and less for her political activity with the Bund before 1940.
For a Bundist Chanukah (the Best-Worst Jewish Holiday)
We can think of the struggles that might have been left out of history, so that new struggles can make history today.
Der Spekter needs YOU: 2025 in review
The future of Bundism and how to get involved with Der Spekter.
Manifesto of the General Jewish Workers’ Union (Bund) in Poland
Baited by Polish nationalism and scoffed at by Jewish nationalism, the Bund never grew tired of calling upon the Jewish masses; ‘‘Do not succumb to despair; do not surrender to any feeling of panic!’’
Word on the street is…
An article by Philadelphia shul teacher Shloyme Davidman reveals the extent to which secular Yiddish shuls were embedded in in the everyday lives and struggles of the working class.
Brothering Ketubah
Blessed is the Oneness, Spirit of the Universe, Which brings us Together and makes us more Whole
From the Editors: Two Years
Dear readers, It is a harsh reality that we have now surpassed two years of genocide in Gaza. A year ago, on October 7, 2024, we wrote a similar editorial whose words we may repeat here: “we bear the moral stain of wanton slaughter of tens of thousands of women
From the Shtetls to Palestine
To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed and never the oppressor.
Free DC, Free Palestine: Finding Hope Against All Odds
I am writing this to break the dam of unknowing and unseeing, to paint a “big picture” for those still clinging to their ignorance. There is, in fact, a horizon.
From the Workers Circle of Northern California: Doikayt through Yiddish Song
For the Worker's Circle of Northern California's 125th anniversary, a new adaptation of the classic Yiddish folk song "Ale Brider."
Whether the Bund: A Big Year
IJLB representative Luca Schmit offers an update on the accomplishments of the Bund's revival so far and the challenges it faces.
Visual Arts
The Studio
Brooklyn-based artist Ryan Fliegelman draws inspiration from Jewish artist Philip Guston.
Personal Essay
Plowshares into Swords: Religion, War, and Jewish Secularism
The Jewish Labor Bund, overwhelmingly secular and irreligious, and whose memory we are attempting to keep alive, spoke of a besserer, shenerer velt: a world free of conflict, which could only be brought about through socialist revolution.
History
Organized Labor, Politics and Klezmer Musicians in New York Until the First World War
From the early days of the 1880s to the First World War, klezmorim were present at every twist and turn of immigrant Jewish radicalism and labor organizing, from strikes to union elections.
Personal Essay
Why the Left Should Embrace Jewish Tradition
We cannot cede Jewish religion to the far right
History
Letters on Zionism Part 2: Socialism on Occupied Land
Socialism on occupied and stolen land, on land that still shrieks with the blood and sweat of the disenfranchised and the expelled… It is a perversion of socialism; it is a deformity of socialism!
Music
Why Have You Stolen the Blue and White Colours from Our Honest Sky
Exiliahu's debut album is "a golem charged with raising funds for my friends from Gaza, and with giving you and your ancestors music to dance to upon the grave of Theodore Herzl."
Music
Between the Letters
“Between the Letters” is an offering toward a diasporist aesthetic that values fragmentation, hybridity, and imagination as generative space.
Interview
The Rise of End Times Fascism w/ Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor
"These people are traitors — they are treasonous to this world and the wonders of this world. They’re not traitors to nation; they’re traitors to creation."
Dispatches
Doikaytn in Oceania
To what extent is being “here” dependent on the decision of the diasporic guests themselves?
Translation
Introducing The ‘Tuers’: Translations from Doyres Bundistn, Part 2: Ephraim (“Frank”) Zalman Atran
Translator’s Introduction: I am pleased to be continuing my series of translations from Doyres Bundistn, “Introducing the ‘Tuers,’” with the entry of Ephraim (“Frank”) Zalman Atran. While this installment only features one individual, his story presents a great deal to dig into. A barricade fighter who was shot three
Dispatches
We Do Not Belong Here: From the Diaspora to Jalūt
The following essay, drafted by Noah Brehmer under the collective alias Vilna Goles, is an outgrowth of research undertaken in the Exilic Politics Circle. The circle was established over the past year to broadly study histories of exile as a grammar for an emergent political community beyond empire. In the
History
Letters on Zionism, Part 1: The Two Worlds of Socialism and Zionism
You see the world as a Zionist, by which I mean you see the world with eyes full of darkness. You are not seeing the world as it is. Try to look at the world with socialist eyes and see.