Tune in! The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

Caraid O’Brien, one of the foremost contemporary interpreters and translators of Sholem Asch’s work, talks with "The Shmooze" about the Theater J class she’s teaching—Prostitutes, Criminals, and the Walking Dead: Sholem Asch’s Underworld Trilogy in Translation. The class is based on her translations of three of Asch’s seminal works, "God of Vengeance," "Motke Thief," and "The Dead Man" (forthcoming from White Goat Press, the Yiddish Book Center’s imprint). Episode 348 March 19, 2023 Amherst, MA

This week on "The Shmooze," two of New York’s finest vocalists, Eleanor Reissa and Cilla Owens, chat about their upcoming performance alongside the Paul Shapiro Quartet. Eleanor and Cilla have interpreted music for decades as soloists and bring their experiences and talents together for a foot-tapping, heart-grabbing concert. The upcoming concert salutes the rich contribution of Jewish women in Yiddish and English music. The program, co-sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center and the Museum of Jewish Heritage, is part of the 2023 Carnegie Hall Festival salute to women and music. The program will take place on March 5, 2023, in New York at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Episode 347 February 22, 2023 Amherst, MA

Following the release of "Birth and Later Years: New and Collected Poems, 1971–2021," poet Irena Klepfisz sat down to speak with "The Shmooze" about her life, work, and the release of her collected poems. Irena was born in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941. She survived the war hiding in an orphanage and later in the Polish countryside with her mother. After the war they lived in Łódź and Sweden before settling in New York in 1949. She played a key role in the emergent Jewish lesbian movement starting in the 1970s and has been dedicated to the recovery and transmission of women’s writing in Yiddish as an active scholar, translator, and teacher. Episode 346 February 2, 2023 Amherst, MA

"The Shmooze" caught up with Max Weinreich to talk about his interest in and work with the Great Jewish Books Club. Max, a postdoctoral researcher in mathematics at Harvard University, comes to Yiddish through his family ties to the language. His great-grandfather, also named Max Weinreich, founded the field of Yiddish sociolinguistics and was one of the three co-founders of YIVO. His grandfather, Uriel Weinreich, was a renowned Yiddish linguist in his own right. Drawn to Yiddish by a budding curiosity about this family history, he’s an alum of the Yiddish Book Center’s Steiner Summer Yiddish Program in 2016, where he worked on indexing poetry recordings, and has gone on to be the moderator for the Yiddish Book Center’s Great Jewish Books Club since its inception. As a book club steward, he leads discussion and conversation about both classic Jewish books and new translations. Episode 345 January 17, 2023 Amherst, MA

On "The Shmooze" from London, a visit with Dr. Sima Beeri to chat about her recently published "And what about the taste?" This book is the second part of a larger project to research and document her family’s roots and heritage. The first part deals with her family’s history in the 20th century, while the second part focuses on documenting recipes from her own and her husband’s family together with her personal culinary additions to pass on to the next generation. Episode 344 January 11, 2023 Amherst, MA

We caught up with Aaron Bendich this week to chat about his latest venture, the launch of his new record label imprint, Off Beet, a spin-off of his radio show Borscht Beat. To quote Aaron, he will be “releasing music from the fringes of musical expression.” We spoke about what’s behind this exciting new record label and what inspired him to create Off Beet. Episode 343 December 22, 2022 Amherst, MA

Joshua Mack and Gabriel Sanders sat down with "The Shmooze" to share a preview of what’s on for the 2022 New York Jewish Book Festival. On Sunday, December 11, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City will present its first-ever New York Jewish Book Festival, featuring talks, panels, and author signings. Joshua and Gabriel tease out some of what’s planned for the daylong event. Episode 342 November 30, 2022 Amherst, MA

Anita Norich visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about her translation of Chana Blankshteyn’s "Fear and Other Stories." Yiddish writer Chana Blankshteyn (~1860–1939) was a woman who may be almost entirely forgotten now but was widely admired during her long and productive life. The mere existence of these stories is itself a remarkable feat as the collection was published in July 1939, just before the Nazis invaded Poland and two weeks before Blankshteyn’s death. Episode 341 November 16, 2022 Amherst, MA

Editor Mindl Cohen sits down with "The Shmooze" to talk about the soon-to-be-released "2022 Pakn Treger Digital Translation Issue." This year’s anthology includes fourteen newly translated stories, poems, and memoirs about women’s experiences. In conversation we learn about some of the Yiddish writers whose work appears in this collection and about the translators who are bringing these works to English readers. Episode 340 November 15, 2022 Amherst, MA

Jordan Finkin and Jessica Kirzane visit with "The Shmooze" to talk about their latest project, a trilingual (Yiddish, Ukrainian, English) volume of two works of children’s poetry. The poems in the volume were originally composed in Ukrainian by Yuriy Budiak, and shortly thereafter translated by Yoysef Ravin (who was later killed in Stalin’s purges) and republished in Yiddish. Episode 339 November 13, 2022 Amherst, MA

Debra Olin's "Every Protection: Folk Culture and Motherhood in the Jewish Pale of Settlement" is currently on exhibit at the Yiddish Book Center’s Brechner Gallery. Debra sat-down with "The Shmooze" to talk about her intricate mixed-media collages created around An-sky’s probing, evocative questions on superstitions and religious rituals. Episode 338 November 2, 2022 Amherst, MA

In conversation with "The Shmooze," author Josh Lambert talks about his latest book, "The Literary Mafia." The book examines the relationships between Jewish editors and Jewish writers; how Jewish women exposed the misogyny they faced from publishers; and how children of literary parents have struggled with and benefited from their inheritances. Episode 337 October 24, 2022 Amherst, MA

This week on "The Shmooze," Ellen Cassedy, author of "Working 9 to 5: A Women’s Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie," newly published by Chicago Review Press with a foreword by Jane Fonda. Ellen was a founder of the 9 to 5 movement in the early 1970s. In conversation we talk about how the Yiddish-speaking women activists of a hundred years ago inspired the women of the 9 to 5 movement. And we learn about Ellen’s work as a Yiddish translator and an alum of the Yiddish Book Center’s Translation Fellowship. Episode 336 October 4, 2022 Amherst, MA

On the "The Shmooze" this week, Piotr Nazaruk. Piotr is a researcher, educator, curator, and Yiddish translator at the Grodzka Gate–NN Theatre Center in Lublin, Poland. Piotr tells the story of the vanished Library of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, or Academy of the Sages of Lublin—one of the greatest mysteries from the postwar history of Lublin, if not from the history of Jewish heritage in Poland. The Yeshiva book collection—consisting of tens of thousands of volumes, including priceless and extremely rare old Hebrew prints—disappeared almost without a trace. For years historians and journalists have been searching for it in vain, trying to unravel some of the many threads of this convoluted mystery. Piotr shares news of two books that were part of the Yeshiva Library that are being returned to Lublin from Germany. After more than 80 years of tragic journeys they will finally reach home and once again will be held in the building of the former Yeshiva. Episode 335 September 25, 2022 Amherst, MA

Dorothée Rozenberg, daughter of Lena Jedwab Rozenberg, joins "The Shmooze" to talk about her mother’s wartime diary, "Girl with Two Landscapes: The Wartime Diary of Lena Jedwab." Lena wrote her diary in Yiddish not only because it was her mother tongue but also as a conscious effort to maintain her Jewish identity. Her writing has left us a moving testimony to some of history’s darkest days. The book was translated by Solon Beinfeld. Episode 334 September 19, 2022 Amherst, MA

"Sasha Senderovich, author of the recently published How the Soviet Jew Was Made, sits down with The Shmooze to talk about his latest work, which has been described as “a close reading of postrevolutionary Russian and Yiddish literature and film [that] recasts the Soviet Jew as a novel cultural figure: not just a minority but an ambivalent character navigating between the Jewish past and Bolshevik modernity.” Episode 333 August 17. 2022 Amherst, MA"

This week on The Shmooze, we talk to Asaf Galay, award-winning director of films that examine modern Jewish culture and creativity. He has explored the magical literature and complex life of Isaac Bashevis Singer, celebrated ultra-Orthodox and queer Swedish pop music, and traced the development of comics and cartoons in the United States and Israel. His documentary "The Adventures of Saul Bellow" will be screened at the Yiddish Book Center and as part of the PBS American Masters series in December 2022. In conversation we talk about how Asaf’s documentary brings the viewer into the world that informed Bellow, the writer and the person. Episode 332 August 8, 2022 Amherst, MA

"The Shmooze" visited with Jake Krakovsky, an Atlanta-based puppeteer, writer, actor, director, teaching artist, and as of late Yiddishist. In conversation, Jake recounted how he successfully turned the Yiddish story "Labzik" into a puppet film and how in the process he discovered the richness of Yiddish language, literature, and culture. Episode 331 August 4, 2022 Amherst, MA

Irving Massey, son of Yiddish writer Ida Maze, joins "The Shmooze" to talk about his mother, her writing, and the newly published "Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel" by Ida Maze, translated by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub (White Goat Press 2022). Irving shares a personal portrait of the writer, her role in Montreal’s Yiddish literary circles, and the story behind the posthumously published "Dineh." Episode 330 July 17, 2022 Amherst, MA

"In conversation with Chuck Fishman we learn about his 45-year career as a freelance photographer whose work focuses on social and political issues with a strong humanistic concern. In 1975 he traveled to Poland to photograph the “dwindling remnant of a once-vibrant Jewish community on the brink of extinction,” and he has returned several times, most recently to photograph the Jewish community’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis occurring there now. Chuck Fishman’s visiting exhibit "Roots, Resilience and Renewal—A Portrait of Polish Jews, 1975–2016" is on view at the Yiddish Book Center through fall 2022. Episode 329 June 13, 2022 Amherst, MA