The 'Yiddish Voice' Podcast

Feature interview: Hy Wolfe chats with host Meyer about various things, including Yidish-Vokh 2022, Meyer’s recent trip to Germany for a dedication of Stolpersteine for his father’s family, and Hy’s experience of 9/11 . Happy New Year! אַ גוט יאָר Greetings from our friends and sponsors Holocaust survivor Tania Lefman , on behalf of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Su...

Part 1: Last July 13 we aired a quick interview with Gitu Cycowics just hours after her meeting with President Biden at Yad Vashem to get her first impressions, and she made us promise to let her come back to look back when she was not so tired and had time to think about things. We reached her by phone at her home in Jerusalem on Aug. 25, 2022.. Gitu – a/k/a Giselle (Gita) Cycowicz (née Fri...

Interview with acclaimed performing artist Eleanor Reissa discussing her recently published memoir The Letters Project: A Daughter’s Journey . In 1986, after her mother’s death, Reissa discovered fifty-six letters written by her late father. She set them aside for forty years before finally having them translated, which led to set her on a journey to her father’s history during t...

We continue our summer rerun season with a panel discussion of the tragic events of August 12, 1952, in Moscow, with Gennady Estraikh , Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh , and Sholem Beinfeld , which was originally aired August 12, 2020. Air date: July 27, 2022 PS: you can still find the original podcast in our archive: https://podcast.yv.org/episodes/estraikh-mazurkiewicz-meisarosh-beinfeld-august-12-1...

Part 1: We took a temporary break from our summer rerun season to bring our dear listeners breaking news, of a sort, from the real world: we reached friend of the show Gitu Cycowics hours after her meeting with President Biden at Yad Vashem to get her first impressions. Gitu – a/k/a Giselle (Gita) Cycowicz (née Friedman) – who was born in 1927 in the town of Chust in the Carpathian Mou...

This week we listen back to our February 2018 interview with Zvi Gitelman, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, author and editor of numerous books, including A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present (2001) and The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel and Germ...

This week we listen back to our March 2020 interview with Elissa Bemporad , author of the book Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (Oxford University Press, 2019), interviewed by Sholem Beinfeld . Today we’re re-airing the entire interview. It was originally aired in two parts in amid the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and may have gotten a bit l...

This week, we’re listening back to a favorite Yiddish Voice interview from the past: our interview with famed American-Israeli actor and singer Mike Burstyn , discussing the streamed production Megillah Cycle as well as many aspects of Yiddish theater and his history with it, originally aired in February 2021. Air date: June 22, 2022 PS: you can still find the original podcast containing thi...

This week, we’re listening back to a favorite Yiddish Voice interview from the past: our interview with Rachel Rojanski , author of Yiddish in Israel: A History . This is part 1 of the interview, originally aired in May, 2021. This podcast includes a current (June 2022) announcement: Event announcement: Linda (Libe) Gritz announces the forthcoming Bostoner Arbeter Ring Chorus concert, featur...

Interview with Sheldon (Shulem) Londner, discussing growing up speaking Yiddish as the child of Holocaust survivors, and later joining and eventually leading the Los Angeles Yidish-Leyenkrayz (Yiddish reading circle), which started in the 1990’s and, under his leadership, has met on Zoom practically every week during the Covid Pandemic. Event announcement: Linda (Libe) Gritz announces the fo...

Dr. Sheva Zucker presents her new bilingual audio album The Golden Peacock: The Voice of the Yiddish Writer , which she edited and produced. It was originally published in 2001 in an all-Yiddish CD format. In 2021, it was released as a revised bilingual edition, making it available either as MP3 files or as two audio CDs. The set now includes the voices of twelve Yiddish writers and a 138-page boo...

Joseph Alexander , a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor now living in Los Angeles, originally from Kowal, Poland, talks about his Holocaust experiences. We recorded this interview with him via Zoom on May 17, 2022. Miriam Libenson ז״ל: Lag B’Omer (from our archive, originally recorded and aired in the 1990’s) Music: Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS , an instrumental track from...

Tonight’s show aired on the night after Yom HaZikaron and on the eve of Yom HaAtsmaut. We present a new interview with Yehuda Neufeld , an Israeli war veteran, now living in Los Angeles, who was wounded in Israel’s war with Egypt arising out of the Suez Crisis of October 1956. We also heard from our archives: Hasia Segal ז״ל on the Boston Zionist hero Dewey Stone . We also heard music...

Tonight’s show aired on the eve of Yom HaShoah. We present a new interview with Naftali (Tuli) Deutsch , an Auschwitz survivor, as well as recordings of three others from past years. They are Al (Zoli) Langer , Rokhl Zicherman , and Matele Friedman ז״ל. All of these survivors were born in Carpathian Ruthenia, then in Czechoslovakia, now known as Zakarpatska Oblast, in the western part of Ukr...

Happy Passover! ‫אַ זיסן און כּשרן פּסח און אַ גוטן מועד!‬ Happy Passover and thanks to friends, participants, and sponsors of this show: Israel Book Shop ( Eli Dovek recorded Mar 28 2007) The Butcherie ( Max Gelerman ז״ל recorded Mar 28 2007) Cheryl Ann’s Bakery , featuring kosher and pareve breads and pastries American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston ( Tania Lef...

Happy Passover! ‫אַ זיסן און כּשרן פּסח!‬ Happy Passover and thanks to friends, participants, and sponsors of this show: Israel Book Shop ( Eli Dovek recorded Mar 28 2007) The Butcherie ( Max Gelerman ז״ל recorded Mar 28 2007) Cheryl Ann’s Bakery , featuring kosher and pareve breads and pastries American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston ( Tania Lefman , Treasurer,...

Happy Passover! ‫אַ זיסן און כּשרן פּסח!‬ Happy Passover and thanks to friends, participants, and sponsors of this show: Israel Book Shop ( Eli Dovek recorded Mar 28 2007) The Butcherie ( Max Gelerman ז״ל recorded Mar 28 2007) Cheryl Ann’s Bakery , featuring kosher and pareve breads and pastries American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston ( Tania Lefman , Treasurer,...

Happy Passover! ‫אַ זיסן און כּשרן פּסח!‬ Happy Passover and thanks to friends, participants, and sponsors of this show: Israel Book Shop ( Eli Dovek recorded Mar 28 2007) The Butcherie ( Max Gelerman ז״ל recorded Mar 28 2007) Cheryl Ann’s Bakery , featuring kosher and pareve breads and pastries American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston ( Tania Lefman , Treasurer,...

Hear all about the upcoming 2022 YIVO Summer Program from Dovid Braun , the summer program’s academic director. There’s still time to register, for in person or online classes. For more info, check out their web site: https://summerprogram.yivo.org Hear an interview with Lilly Segelstein , an Auschwitz survivor who was born in Klitsherkes (קליטשערקעס), then in Czechoslovakia, and today...

Interview with Gennady Estraikh discussing the war in Ukraine. Estraikh, who was born in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, is a professor at NYU who specializes in Jewish intellectual history, Yiddish language and literature, and Soviet Jewish history. He has written numerous books, academic papers, and journal and newspaper articles in English, Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish, notably for the Yiddish Forver...

Diego Rotman , author of The Yiddish Stage as a Temporary Home: Dzigan and Shumacher’s Satirical Theater (1927-1980) , discusses the famed Yiddish comedy duo Shimon Dzigan and Yisroel Schumacher in an interview with Sholem Beinfeld , Professor Emeritus of the Department of History at Washington University in St. Louis, and a co-host of The Yiddish Voice . For further info: Home page for this book&...

The show presents an interview with Eddie (Avrum) Hoffman , who survived Auschwitz, slave labor at a Krupp factory in Breslau (Wrocław), a death march, and the last days at Ebensee, the brutal Mathausen subcamp. Eddie Hoffman was born in February, 1929, in Sevluš, Czechoslovakia, one of three brothers. The town was in the Subcarpathian Ruthenia part of Czechoslovakia and was also known in Yiddish...

This show features an interview with Efraim (Froyim) Kessler, who, at age 105, is the oldest person ever interviewed on The Yiddish Voice . In the interview Kessler, who was born in Bilgoray, Poland, in 1916, recalls various aspects of his youth, including encounters with the Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer and Rabbi Aharon Rokeach, the Belzer Rebbe. He also recalls surviving the...

This show is a special Shloyshim program in memory of Israel (Izzy) Arbeiter ז״ל, Holocaust survivor and founder and former long-time president of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston, who passed away Oct. 29, 2021, at the age of 96. This show is sponsored by The American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston and Descendants . The first par...

David Forman and Jordan Kutzik are interviewed about the recently published children’s book The Clever Little Tailor / דאָס קלוגע שנײַדערל . The book was written by Solomon ( Shloyme ) Simon and originally published in the 1930’s. This new edition of the book features a translation into English side by side with the Yiddish original. David Forman, the author’s grandson, did the E...