The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

Elissa Bemporad's latest book, "Legacy of Blood," traces the legacies of the two classical and most extreme manifestations of tsarist antisemitism--pogroms and blood libels--in the Soviet Union from 1917 to the early 1960s. Elissa talks with us about what drew her to research and write about this lesser-known history. Episode 0261 June 4, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

"The Shmooze" catches up with the Yiddish Book Center's director of translation initiatives, Mindl Cohen, to talk about the 2020 "Pakn Treger Digital Translation Issue." This year's anthology of newly translated work includes memoirs, stories, and other works themed to "Yiddish Comes to America." As Mindl explains, "While there are some extremely funny and touching moments in these newly translate...

The Shmooze recently caught up with Deb Krivoy, director of the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival (PVJFF), to ask her for a list of past Festival favorites that can be streamed at home. The annual ten-day festival, which features screenings presented at venues across the Pioneer Valley, had to be postponed this year due to the pandemic, so while we wait for it to be rescheduled, we thought it wo...

In 2012 Caraid O'Brien interviewed actor Jerry Stiller for WABI radio. She joins us on The Shmooze to talk about that interview and her friendship with the actor. In conversation with Caraid, we learn about Stiller's life on and off the stage and how he pursued acting at a very early age at the Henry Street Playhouse. We also hear about the Jewish and Yiddish roots that may have informed some of h...

For 106 years, Russ & Daughters has been an integral part of the history of New York City, a touchstone in the lives of generations, and the torchbearer of Jewish food in America. Niki Russ Federman--who, along with her cousin Josh Russ Tupper, is a fourth generation owner of Russ & Daughters--took time to talk with us about the history of this iconic Jewish appetizer shop and how she and Josh are...

Translator and Yiddish literary scholar Anita Norich and Yiddish Book Center director of translation initiatives Mindl Cohen join The Shmooze this week to talk about their respective, recently published articles about women's writing in Yiddish, "Translating and Teaching Yiddish Prose by Women" and "The Feminine Ending: On Women's Writing in Yiddish, Now Available in English." Over the course of o...

Lesley Yalen, the Yiddish Book Center's education manager, joined The Shmooze recently to talk about her work as co-editor of teachgreatjewishbooks.org, the Yiddish Book Center's site that provides a trove of resource kits designed to help teachers bring modern Jewish literature into their classrooms. The site's resources--which cover classic Yiddish works and Hebrew poetry in English translation,...

This week we visit with Eli Rosen to talk about his work on the Netflix hit series "Unorthodox." Eli was raised in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn and now serves as the managing director of New Yiddish Rep, as well as a Yiddish cultural consultant for film and television. Our conversation touches on all that went into the making of this series - and his role as the Yiddish consultant. Episode 02...

After nearly a decade in development, the Yiddish Book Center has launched a new website that will allow users to search the full text of nearly 11,000 scanned Yiddish books. This optical character recognition (OCR) technology will enable searches that used to take years to occur in a matter of seconds, revolutionizing research in Jewish history, literature, linguistics, ethnography, and genealogy...

Rabbi Avram Mlotek visits with The Shmooze to talk about the tradition of the Third Seder and how, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, he's found a way to celebrate this tradition with an online international Yiddish cultural event taking place on April 12. The live event will feature a stellar ensemble of some of our leading contemporary Yiddish performing artists--Frank London, Zalmen Mlot...

Melissa Martens Yaverbaum, executive director of the Council of American Jewish Museums and curator of Project Mah Jongg, chats with us about Mah Jongg, a game more widely known than played or understood, which made a surprisingly lasting impression on American audiences, including a generation of Jewish women in the 1920s and '30s, and has endured as a cultural touchstone ever since. Episode 0251...

Author Anna Epstein visits with us from her home in Australia to talk about her recently published book about Yiddish poet Melekh Ravitsh. The book tells the story of Ravitsh's 1933 trek across the Australian outback in search of a homeland for the threatened Jews of Europe. Along the way, he took photographs, which inspired his son, Yosl Bergner, to create a series of paintings. Inspired by this...

The Shmooze talks with Yiddish professor and translator Jessica Kirzane, a three-time alumna of the Yiddish Book Center, about the recent publication of her translation of Miriam Karpilove's "Diary of a Lonely Girl, Or the Battle against Free Love," first published serially in the Yiddish daily newspaper "Di varhayt" in 1916–18. Jessica began working on this translation in 2017 as a Yiddish Book C...

From Warsaw, Poland, Gabe Miner joins us on The Shmooze to chat about the current Yiddish scene in Poland. Gabe is a Warsaw-based Jewish educator, freelance writer, and award-winning playwright who has written digital children's media for "Shalom Sesame" and "The Dodo" and recently wrote about the biannual Sholem Asch Festival for "In geveb." In a fun exchange, we learn about the Festival and curr...

The Shmooze caught up with Yiddish translator Arun Viswanath to learn about the story of his work translating "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" into Yiddish. Over the course of our conversation, we chat about what drew Arun to translating "Harry Potter" and learn about some of the challenges he faced in translating this work--from character names to magical places. Episode 0247 February 13,...

To celebrate the Yiddish Book Center's 40th anniversary in 2020, we're looking back at the Center's storied history. As part of this effort, we wanted to record interviews with our zamlers (volunteer book collectors), continuing with an interview with zamler Eric Ellman. Eric has been a volunteer for the Yiddish Book Center for many years and periodically updates us with how many pounds of books h...

To celebrate the Yiddish Book Center's 40th anniversary in 2020, we're looking back at the Center's storied history. As part of this effort, we wanted to record interviews with our zamlers (volunteer book collectors), continuing with an interview with zamler Julie Plaut Mahoney. Julie has been collecting books for the Yiddish Book Center for more than 20 years. As Yiddish Book Center founder and p...

Today's episode is the first in our series of conversations with Yiddish Book Center "zamlers" (volunteer book collectors). To celebrate the Yiddish Book Center's 40th anniversary in 2020, we're looking back at the Yiddish Book Center's storied history. As part of this effort, we wanted to record interviews with our "zamlers," beginning with an interview with "zamler" Jack Hirschberg. As Yiddish B...

Co-editors Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert visit with The Shmooze to talk about their newly released anthology "How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish," described by Kirkus Reviews as, "For readers unfamiliar with Yiddish writing, a revelation; for readers and aficionados of the language, a treasure." Ilan and Josh talk about the process of editing this rich anthology that celeb...

This week we visit with Daniel Libenson, host of the "Judaism Unbound" podcast. Daniel talks about the launch of a new series of episodes entitled "Yiddish in America," presented in partnership with the Yiddish Book Center's Decade of Discovery, a new initiative of the Yiddish Book Center designed to foster a deeper understanding of Yiddish and modern Jewish culture in the United States. The "Juda...

"The Shmooze" caught up with Rokhl Kafrissen--journalist, playwright, and Jewish world gadfly--in New York. During our visit we spoke about her engagement with Yiddish and the current Yiddish scene, we learned about what set her in the direction of Yiddish at an early age, and we talked a bit about Rokhl's Golden City, her weekly column on "Tablet." Episode 0241 December 19, 2019 Yiddish Book Cent...

In a conversation with Alex Weiser, composer and the director of public programs at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, we learn about his debut album, "And All the Days Were Purple," and a new opera, "State of the Jews," a historical drama about Theodor Herzl. Episode 0240 December 12, 2019 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

This week on The Shmooze, we visit with Kirsten Fermaglich, author of "A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America," a groundbreaking history of the practice of Jewish name changing in the 20th century. Episode 0239 December 6, 2019 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

The Shmooze caught up with literary translator Daniel Kennedy at his home in France to chat about the recently published "Warsaw Stories," a collection of short stories by the Yiddish writer Hersh Dovid Nomberg, newly translated by Kennedy. Nomberg's stories explore modern Jewish life in the growing cosmopolitan city of Warsaw: young intellectuals in pursuit of truth, beauty, and love; working cla...

This week, Brett Sokol, journalist, arts editor, and co-founder and editor of the recently published "Shtetl in the Sun: Andy Sweet's South Beach 1977–1980," visits with The Shmooze. In our conversation, he discusses what drew photographer Andy Sweet to document South Beach's vibrant Jewish community in the late 1970s, capturing the community's daily rhythms in all their beach-strolling, cafeteria...