The 'Yiddish Voice' Podcast

Mindl Cohen : part two of our interview with the Editor-in-Chief of In Geveb , the online journal of Yiddish studies (ingeveb.org), as well as Harvard University’s new Yiddish teacher. Part 1 aired last week. Special thanks to Sholem Beinfeld , Wash. Univ. professor emeritus of history and co-chief editor of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English dictionary, for help conducting the interview. Rav...

Part one our interview with Mindl Cohen, Editor-in-Chief of In Geveb, the online journal of Yiddish studies (ingeveb.org), as well as Harvard University’s new Yiddish teacher. Part 2 will air next week. Special guests Leye Leavitt, Sholem Beinfeld, and with a cameo appearance by Rivke David, joining regular host Meyer David live in studio! Henceforth Leye/Sholem/Rivke/Meyer…. Greeting...

Khaye Torenberg: interview with the former director of Mexico City’s Colegio Israelita de Mexico, the first Jewish day school in Mexico Binyumin Schaechter – well-known musician, composer, arranger, songwriter – gives a report on his recent appearance at a Yiddish conference in Stockholm Hy Wolfe – actor, singer, co-president of the Hebrew Actors’ Foundation – t...

Khane-Faygl Turtletaub reads her own story that appeared in a recent issue of the Yiddish Forward. See http://yiddish.forward.com/articles/204545/i-needed-this-dog-like-a-hole-in-the-head/?p=all Fanya Brantsovsky talks about the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, which just ended its 17th summer session, and a bit about herself. Joel Wollman, a collector of antiques, was interviewed about rare photographs...

Sholem Beinfeld is special guest host live in studio, discusses various topics, including the song “Rokhl mevako al boneho”, which we audition through the Yiddish Song of the Week ( https://yiddishsong.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/rokhl-mevako-al-boneho-performed-by-esther-korshin/ ) Excerpts of Max Kohn’s 2012 interview with the late Eli Wiesel in recognition of his first yortsayt E...

An excerpt of our 2006 interview with Simcha Simchovitch in recognition of his recent passing and of the upcoming 65th anniversary of the 12th of August 1952, also known as the Night of the Murdered Poets. Excerpts of our 2016 interview with Fishl Goldig, which we aired without his music. This time we have a lot less of his talk, but a bit more of his music. Interview with Danny Finkelman, executi...

Menashe Lustig is the both the star of the new film “Menashe” but the story is also based partially on his real life. We interviewed him this past May 2017 when the film had its opening at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA. Now that it’s starting a national run on Los Angeles and New York, we are reairing the interview once again. Related links: Menashe (Film) on IMDB Menashe...

Various topics discussed with interesting guests. Sholem Beinfeld was live in studio. He is the co-chief editor of the recently published Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary , Professor Emeritus of History from Washington University in St. Louis, and serves on the Yiddish Committee of the Boston Workmen’s Circle. Joining on the phone were Boris Sandler , the acclaimed Yiddish author and...

A special “Shloyshim” program in memory of Iosif Lakhman, beloved co-host of our program, who also extremely active and involved “retirement” life since coming to Boston from the former Soviet Union in 1991. Participants in the show included Sholem Beinfeld, Dovid Braun, Misha Khazin, Lillian (Leye) Shporer-Leavitt, Dina (Dobe) Ressler, and Mark David. We heard excerpts of...

Jeanette Friedman is a writer, a publishing services consultant, a Holocaust education expert – author of Why Should I Care?: Lessons From the Holocaust – and a 2G and social activist who speaks her mind. She’s proud of her yikhes and of the many religious gedoylim in her family, although she herself is off the derekh . We reached her for a wide-ranging interview at her home in P...

A special “Shloyshim” program in memory of Gella Schweid Fishman, master Yiddish teacher and archivist of the secular Yiddish school movement in the USA. Participants in the show include Dovid Fishman, Dov-Ber Kerler, Rukhl Schaechter, Dovid Braun, and Mark David. Fishman, who is Gella Fishman’s son, is Professor of Jewish History at Jewish Theological Seminary. Kerler is Profess...

Daniel Galay wrote about the sorry recent demise of the daily Yiddish-language broadcast in Israel in his recent article in the Yiddish Forward (Forverts), titled (in translation) “Troubling Fate For Israeli Yiddish Radio”. The article is here: http://yiddish.forward.com/articles/204522/troubling-fate-for-israeli-yiddish-radio/ We reached Daniel Galay by phone in Israel. Daniel Galay i...

Iosif Lakhman, co-host of this Yiddish Voice radio show and podcast, died yesterday (June 6, 2017). Dovid Braun gives a short announcement of his death, which was sudden, and no funeral details were available. A Shloyshim (memorial) program is planned and will be announced in the coming weeks. The featured interview on this show is with Avremi Zak , who worked for the Yiddish service of Kol Israel...

Special guests and special themes: Shvues and Yom Yerusholayim: Rabbi Itzchak Kin of Los Angeles, originally from Israel, talks about the holiday Shvues, as well as his memories of Jerusalem and the Six-Day War Israel and Trump’s Visit: discussed by Ruth Shulman of Tel Aviv and Gitu (Giselle) Cycowicz of Jerusalem Air Date: May 24, 2017

Gella Schweid-Fishman died yesterday (May 16, 2017). Dovid Braun gives a short announcement of her death, including funeral details, as well as some details about the life of the beloved Yiddish activist. See also this article (in Yiddish) in Forverts : http://yiddish.forward.com/articles/204111/yiddish-teacher-and-archivist-gella-schweid-fishma/ The featured interview on this show is with Profess...

On the Yiddish Voice tonight we have a very interesting guest. He’s an actor and entertainer, but no ordinary one. He is a Chareidi Jew, specifically a Skverer Chossid. In his relatively short life he has suffered no small amount. He’s a widower. He not only lost his wife, but then they wanted to take his son away from him. All that and more make up the plot of a new movie named &ldquo...

For Yom HaShoah (Holocaust commemoration day), which occurs this year on Apr. 23, 2017, we present interviews conducted today with Holocaust survivors Yakob Basner and Judy Altmann. Basner was born and raised in Riga, Latvia. He survived the Riga ghetto, five concentration camps, and a death march. We reached Basner by phone at his home in Seal Beach, CA. Altmann was born and raised in Jasina, Cze...

Interview with the Sylvia Bialik, organizer of the “Yiddish Idol” (“Der Yidisher Idol”) in Mexico City, a Yiddish singing and songwriting competition whose submission deadline comes later this month (April 23, 2017). See also “Der Yidisher Idol” web site (in Spanish and English): http://deridisheridol.com Also on this week’s show: Pesach music and Pesach g...

Interview with the reporter known as Jake Turx, Whitehouse correspondent for Ami Magazine . His question about anti-semitism at the first press conference of President Donald Trump on Feb. 16 caused a stir because Trump became angry at him, cutting him off, telling him to sit down, and accusing him of dishonesty. “A Jewish Reporter Got to Ask Trump a Question.”, read a New York Times h...

Replays of some of our best Pesach presentations: Hasia Segal: Di Veltlekhe Hagode (highlights of the Arbeter Ring haggadah; from 1991) Rav Avrhohom Marmorstein: Passover Q&A (from 2015) Myer Loketch: Pesach, Chometz, and Chaim Brisker (from 2007) Pesach music by Bruce Adler, Richard Tucker, and Moyshe Oysher Pesach greetings by Dovid Braun, Iosif Lakhman, Misha Khazin, Shimshon Ehrenfeld, Eli...

Interview with Esti Shnek (maiden name: Jahr), born in Jasina, Czechoslovakia, in 1924, survivor of Auschwitz, and now a resident of Haifa, interviewed at her home in February 2017. News report by Avremi Zaks via Kol Yisrael in Jerusalem ( http://www.iba.org.il/world/ ) From the archives: Hasia Segal interviews Brukhe Kipnis, daughter of famed Yiddish writer Itzik Kipnis (from the 1990’s). (...

Interview with Myrna Rabinowitz and music from her new CD “Lullabies And Longings”. Further info: http://www.myrnarabinowitz.com/2.html News report by Avremi Zaks via Kol Yisrael in Jerusalem ( http://www.iba.org.il/world/ ) From the archives: Hasia Segal interviews Brukhe Kipnis, daughter of famed Yiddish writer Itzik Kipnis (from the 1990’s). Further info: http://www.yivoencycl...

Purim music and best of past presentations on Purim from our archive by Miriam Libenson, Hasia Segal, Iosif Lakhman, Michael Wex. News report by Avremi Zaks via Kol Yisrael in Jerusalem. From the archives: Hasia Segal: Purim and Jewish Humor (from 2008, same as last week, but longer: full 16 1/2 minutes) Air Date: Mar. 8, 2017

Holocaust survivor, educator, and author Moshe Avital discusses his book Not To Forget, Impossible to Forgive. (Part 2) For further information: www.mosheavital.com (originally aired on Nov. 2, 2016) From the archives: Hasia Segal: Purim and Jewish Humor (from 2008) Air Date: Mar. 1, 2017

Holocaust survivor, educator, and author Moshe Avital discusses his book Not To Forget, Impossible to Forgive. (Part 1) For further information: www.mosheavital.com (originally aired on Oct. 26, 2016) From the archives: Hasia Segal reads the Sholom Aleichem story “Nakhes fun Kinder” for Purim. Air Date: Feb. 22, 2017