Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath

Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, born in 1958 in the Bronx, grew up in a staunchly Yiddishist home. She studied in the Sholem Aleichem Folkshul 21 and graduated from the Jewish Teachers Seminary with a degree in Jewish literature. She also earned degrees in Russian (Barnard College), nursing (Columbia University) and public administration (New York University), and currently works as a clinical consultant in long-term care. She has been devoted to Yiddish her entire life, and has worked as an editor at several Yiddish magazines. The first volume of her Yiddish poetry (with English translations), Sudden Rain, was published in 2003. She is co-editor-in-chief of the monumental new Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary (Indiana University Press, 2016), which has recently been launched in an online searchable format. She is the chairperson of the New York-based League for Yiddish, and raised three Yiddish-speaking children living in Teaneck, New Jersey.