The Brooklyn Public library thankfully has many Yiddish books but overwhelmingly of the chasidish variety. This makes sense considering that clientele consists of a vast majority of Brooklyn Yiddish readers but it is disappointing that there's not one Sholem Aleichem, Peretz or Moykher Sforim book available. There are a few secular books but largely by obscure authors.

Surprisingly Queens public library has a few classics and Brooklyn should follow suit. Most of these books are available digitally on the yiddish book center but nothing compares to reading the physical book.

Does anyone know of any methods of requesting books for the library? Either way I just wanted a vent a bit.

Found some old letter from my great grandfather (1903). His life was an exiting mystery and reads like a india jones story. Not sure if this is connected to him directly but i believe its yiddish. Apologies if not.

Hello, I really like the Yiddish language. I love the script and the way it sounds. It seems incredibly fun to learn. I am still unsure whether I should learn Yiddish or not. I don't want to be a bother about this but if someone can, can you please give me some advice on this or tell me what I could learn first.

I have a bit of an advantage from what I've heard: I speak Polish fluently and I have a basic understanding of Dutch as I'm still learning. I would love to know if I should start learning and if so if there are any resources I could use.

Any advice will be extremely helpful. Thank you very much.

מיין נאָמען איז עדי, איך וואוין אין ישראל, איך וועל באַלד גיין לערנען אין אַ ישיבה און איך וויל פּראַקטיצירן יידיש מיט עמעצן, איז דאָ עמעצער פֿון ישראל?

My late Mom was German, but also spoke some Yiddish with my Dad’s parents. And whenever something was confused or screwed up, I remember her saying “ach it‘s all tsablunget!”

But when I’ve tried to find that word via Google, all that comes up is FARblunget. Not TSAblunget.

Anyone happen to know if there are two variations of the word, and if I’m spelling it correctly? TIA

Hello, I am looking for a volunteer to read and translate a handwritten Yiddish postcard sent from Lipno, Poland, probably 1930s, to my family (Koral/Coral). I only want to know the names, places and relations it mentions. A rough translation is welcome. https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM115621 Thank you very much. Alon Coral

a .mobi or .prc files

A photo taken in 1922 of the ‘Henry Street Shul’ synagogue (now Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral) 25 year anniversary photo. In this photo, is a white banner with Yiddish cursive, and the second photo is my best recreation of the banner.

It seems quite different from traditional spelling. I think it was developed to remove certain Hebrew and German orthographic influences from Yiddish, but I wonder how common it is today.

איך קען אַ פּאָר מענטשן וואָס רעדן ייִדיש און וווינען אין אָדער שטאַמען פֿון דער שווײַץ? צי עקסיסטירט יאָ אַ קהילה פֿון ייִדיש רעדערס אין דער שווײַץ? צי איז דאָס רובֿ פֿרום אָדער ניין?

Trying to identify a song from a 1940s–50s family home recording. Sung in German or possibly Yiddish, brisk folk tune in 2/4. First line seems to contain “Kinder” and maybe “leben” or “Knaben.” A later line repeats a phrase that sounds like “so leben wir, so leben wir.” Phrase lengths of roughly 7, 6, 7, 7 syllables, then a longer line. Any ideas?

Not really sure how to explain this, but I'm wondering if standard Yiddish spelling is phonetic across all dialects. Say for example, if I see the letter 'ו' in a word, can I always assume that a Polish dialect would pronounce that as "i" rather than the standard "u"? Again using the Polish dialect as an example, could I assume that 'ײַ' is always pronounced like "ah" instead of "ay"? Or does it depend on context?

Thanks for any insight!

Does anyone know if Allen Ginsberg's works (particularly "Howl " or "Kaddish") have been translated into Yiddish?

An initial search suggests that they haven't so I'm also interested on any info on if/why that is.

I'm looking for yiddish/Hebrew fonts. Are there any of them???

I'm reading a Daniel Charney story and have come across a conditional I'd like help with.

There's a soldier on his way home from a war. He's deep in thought and wanders off the main road into a forest. Then we get the following sentence:

און װער װײס, צי דער סאָלדאַט װאָלט גאָר באַמערקט אַזױ גיך, אַז ער האָט זיך פֿאַרבלאָנדזשעט, װען ער פֿאַרטשעפּעט זיך ניט אָן אַ װאָרצל פֿון אַ בױם, װאָס איז געװען באַהאַלטן אונטערן הױכן גראָז און פֿאַלט אַנידער?

Which I translate as:

And who knows if the soldier would have noticed so quickly that he had lost his way, if he hadn't tripped on a tree root that was hidden in the tall grass and fallen down?

I'm still learning conditionals, so my impulse would have been to write

װען ער װאָלט זיך ניט פֿאַרטשעפּעט.

Why isn't the װאָלט there? Is it that it's kind of a nested conditional (who knows IF this would have happened IF that hadn't happened)? Or is it that it's contrary to fact—would װאָלט also be omitted from "He wouldn't have noticed so quickly if he hadn't tripped," etc.?

Would love any thoughts from people less confused than I am!