Vox Tablet

Tablet Magazine recently moved its offices to a stretch of West 28th Street in Manhattan. The new digs are in an auspicious location—the block that was once Tin Pan Alley, the historic district where George Gershwin and Irving Berlin and many others went to play piano and peddle songs to music publishers. As the 20th century reached its midpoint, tunesmiths moved elsewhere. (The Brill Building, famously home to later generations of songwriters, is just north of Times Square.) Old buildings came down while new ones went up, and our portion of West 28th is now a bustling commercial hodge-podge bookended by the flower district to the west and the perfume district to the east. To learn more about our new neighborhood—where Emma Goldman founded her anarchist magazine, too, and Zero Mostel had a painting studio—Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke to

The holiday of Shavuot brings with it unique forms of observance. In addition to the consumption of dairy-rich delicacies, many people participate in a tikkun layl Shavuot, an all-night study session. During a tikkun, it’s traditional to peruse and discuss a portion from the Bible, the Talmud, or the Mishneh. To mark Shavuot this year, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry asked novelist Nathan Englander, musician Alicia Jo Rabins, Rabbi Phil Lieberman, and theologian Avivah Zornberg what text they’d most like to think about in the early-morning hours, and what...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the early 1900s, Puerto Barrios, in Guatemala, was on the cusp of becoming a thriving Caribbean port town. It was the bustling terminus for trains hauling produce for the United Fruit Company. From there, bananas were shipped north to the port of New Orleans and, thereafter, to destinations all over the United States. By the late 1930s, things had changed dramatically. Puerto Barrios’ indigenous charms had been all but eradicated, replaced by filth and destitution. It was inhabited mostly by Afro-Guatemalans and West Indians who worked on the docks for pitiful wages; those with means were advised to get out of town as fast as they could. It is here that we meet Samuel Berkow, the well-to-do German Jewish bachelor at the center of The Price of Escape, a new novel by David Unger. Berkow arrives in Guatemala from Hamburg, where the Nazi noose had begun to tighten...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you ask a kid to name a Jewish baseball hero it’s likely she’ll answer Kevin Youkilis if she’s thinking current day icons, or, if this theoretical kid is more historically oriented she’ll cite the great Dodger Sandy Koufax. But long before either of them put on a glove, there was Hank Greenberg. Greenberg made his major league mark in the 1930s and ’40s, playing primarily for the Detroit Tigers. He was a first-baseman and a phenomenal batter. In 1938, in a single season, he hit 58 home runs. He made the All Star team five times, was twice named American League MVP, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956, and still holds the American League record for runs batted in by a right-handed batter in a single season: 183 in 1937. Over this entire career, he had a whopping 1,276 RBIs. Like...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Death—always around us—seemed especially present in recent days. The killing of Osama Bin Laden revived memories of his 9/11 victims, while Yom HaShoah brought to mind those who perished in the Holocaust. Yet every day, private acts of mourning take place—people grieve over the loss of a loved one, a friend, a neighbor. In the short story “Walter and Edith,” Miami-based writer Jeremy Glazer offers a more intimate glimpse into the experience of personal loss. His story comes to Vox Tablet by way of Alicia Zuckerman, a senior producer of the radio show Under the Sun at WLRN in Miami. [Running time: 9:32.]  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the late 1950s, Florence Greenberg was a housewife in Passaic, N.J., with an itch to get into the music business. A tip from her daughters led her to a quartet of young African-American singers. Under Greenberg’s tutelage, the women became the legendary Shirelles, the group behind such hits as “I Met Him on a Sunday” and “Dedicated to the One I Love.” Greenberg’s name in the business was made. She formed three record labels—Tiara, Scepter, and Wand—and had a hand in the successes of talents including Dionne Warwick and the Isley Brothers. As the curtain rises on Baby It’s You, a new musical celebrating Greenberg’s life and work, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry speaks with Slate Magazine music critic Jody Rosen about the obstacles Greenberg might have faced as a pioneering woman, about her ability to identify voices and styles that others didn’t think America was quite ready for, and about the real meaning of the song “Say a Little...  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informatio