Jewish Word | ‘Momala’ of the Year
At a brunch during the DNC in Chicago, California assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan was wearing a hat with two Stars of David flanking the slogan “Jews for Momala.”
Jewish Word | Verklempt: The Yiddish Word that Wasn’t
Borrowed from Yiddish and launched into the cultural stratosphere by a Canadian comedian and his Jewish mother-in-law, “verklempt” keeps evolving.
Jewish Word | Doikayt: The Jewish Left Is Here
Embraced by 1940s Bundists opposed to Zionism, the Yiddish word for “hereness” is being popularized by progressive American Jews.
Jewish Word | The Twisted Path of the Word ‘Genocide’
Since October 7 and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war, the word genocide has been used liberally by parties on both sides of the conflict.
Jewish Word | Not That Kind of Rabbi
In 1970 The New York Times ran an article about the secret language of New York City police officers.
Jewish Word | Beware the Fires of Moloch
In 2012, days after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 20 children and six adults, historian Garry Wills wrote an impassioned essay in The New York Review of Books.
Jewish Word | Israel: What’s in a Name?
Israel was not considered as a name for the new Jewish state until late in the deliberations.
Jewish Word | ‘Almah’ Grows Up
After working for seven years at a Jewish parenting website, Molly Tolsky wanted to create a space for an audience she herself identified with: young Jewish women focusing on careers and their place in the world who weren’t necessarily thinking about marriage or children.
The Conversation
What makes a word Jewish? Every word is Jewish when it has a Jewish story to tell.
Special Edition | The Making of a Jewish Word
Technology inexplicably fails us often enough that we need a word for the occasion.
Jewish Word | Why We Say ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’
Seders all over the world this Passover will end with the words L’Shanah Ha Ba’ah b’Yerushalayim—“Next year in Jerusalem.”
Jewish Word | Shmita: A Sabbath for the Land—and Ourselves
Flapping proudly in fallow fields, large green and yellow banners in rural Israel proclaim: Kan Shomrim Shmita (“Here We Keep Shmita”).