«Yiddish — a language rooted in Ukrainian soil»: how this language adapts to new realities and why it needs to be supported in Ukraine — video

In early February 2026, Ukraїner released a conversation about the Yiddish language as part of the podcast "Language Issue" — a Ukrainian project about languages considered vulnerable and in need of support. The guest of the episode is Tetiana Nepypenko, a researcher and teacher of Yiddish, translator, and literary scholar; the conversation is led by Bohdana Romantsova. The episode was made in collaboration with House of Europe with the support of the European Union.

Key points from the conversation in text version (Ukr.):
The key framework of the conversation is formulated simply and strictly: Yiddish is not a "language somewhere alongside Ukrainian history," but part of the fabric of this history, because before World War II, millions spoke Yiddish in Europe, and in the territory of modern Ukraine, there were towns and villages where Yiddish was not a marginal code but an ordinary everyday reality — the language of family, trade, press, theater, and literature. Nepypenko separately articulates the scale of the loss: the Yiddish-speaking community in Ukraine sharply decreased due to the Holocaust and Soviet repressions, and after the creation of Israel, Yiddish in the state…

Read more:
news.nikk.co.il/en/yiddish-a-l…