The 'Yiddish Voice' Podcast

Happy Passover! א כשרן און געזונטן פסח! Happy Passover and thanks to friends, participants, and sponsors of this show: Israel Book Shop https://www.israelbookshop.com/ ( Eli Dovek recorded Mar 28 2007) The Butcherie https://www.butcherie.com/ ( Max Gelerman ז״ל recorded Mar 28 2007) Cheryl Ann’s Bakery http://cherylannsbakery.com/ AAJHS of Greater Boston http://www.generationsafterboston.org...

Interview (part 2) with Mike Burstyn , discussing the recently released stream of Megillah Cycle , which premiered February 21. The first part aired the previous Wednesday, February 24, 2021. Burstyn directed Megillah Cycle and performed three of its roles. The show is his adaptation of Itzik Manger’s famed Megile-Lider (Poems of the Megillah) , a book published in Warsaw in 1936 as a playfully an...

אַ פֿריילעכן פּורים! Interview (part 1) with Mike Burstyn , discussing the recently released stream of Megillah Cycle , which premiered February 21. The second part will be airing the following Wednesday, March 3, 2021. Burstyn directed Megillah Cycle and performed three of its roles. The show is his adaptation of Itzik Manger’s famed Megile-Lider (Poems of the Megillah) , a book published in Wars...

A discussion between Forverts editor Rukhl Schaechter and historian Prof. Sholem Beinfeld on the topic of the powerful role of the woman in the Eastern European shtetl. Schaechter argues women in Jewish traditional life are often stereotyped as passive and invisible particularly in the public sphere, while they were in fact highly respected and relied upon within the family, and, because they were...

Tonight’s show is an interview with Sasha Lurje and Zisl Slepovitch, who discuss the Songs From Testimonies project, which collects and records songs and poems discovered in the testimonies of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University . The songs are sung in a variety of languages, including Yiddish, Polish, and French, from both the prewar period as well as fr...

Professor Ellie (Elke) Kellman of Brandeis University discusses her research on the radical Yiddish press in the America of the late 19th and early 20th century. Ellie Kellman researches and writes about modern Yiddish literature and literary history, specializing in the history of the Yiddish periodical press and publishing industry. Her book-in-progress is entitled Reading the New Country: Abrah...

On this day of President Trump’s second impeachment (Jan 13 2021), following last week’s historic 2021 storming of the United States Capitol , we discussed DC Meshugas (Washington craziness), with Sholem Beinfeld , co-host of The Yiddish Voice , co-chief-editor of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary , and Professor Emeritus, Washington U. in St. Louis; Dr. Zackary (Sholem) Ber...

Roundtable discussion of current events, including the American and Israeli elections, COVID-19, and antisemetism in Eastern Europe. Participating in the discussion are Professor Dovid Katz , a Vilna-based Yiddish scholar and activist in the field of Holocaust history and human rights; Avremi Zaks , radio journalist and host of Israel’s weekly Yiddish radio show Kan Yiddish ; and Sholem Bein...

Roundtable discussion of current events, including the American and Israeli elections, COVID-19, and antisemetism in Eastern Europe. Participating in the discussion are Professor Dovid Katz , a Vilna-based Yiddish scholar and activist in the field of Holocaust history and human rights; Avremi Zaks , radio journalist and host of Israel’s weekly Yiddish radio show Kan Yiddish ; and Sholem Bein...

Interview with Miriam Udel , editor and translator of Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children’s Literature (NYU Press, October 2020). Additional info from publisher: https://nyupress.org/9781479874132/honey-on-the-page/ Miriam Udel is associate professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Emory University, where she studies the Jewish encounter with modernity. She hold...

Khanedank / Thanksgivukkah 2013! Special rebroadcast! We rebroadcast/restreamed our 2013 special live broadcast from Weds Nov 27 2013, which that year occurred on the eve of both the USA Thanksgiving holiday and the first day of Hanukkah. Here’s part of our press press release for that show: “Erev Thanksgivukkah” Live! Wednesday Night on the Yiddish Voice WUNR 1600-AM/Boston 11/2...

This week’s Yiddish Voice presents an interview with Eleanor Reissa , narrator of Those Who Were There , a new podcast from Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust are the subjects of the podcast, which just released its second season featuring witness interviews conducted by New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. Ele...

Luzer Twersky , actor in Yiddish and American Theatre and Film (on Twitter as @Twersky). Twersky grew up speaking Yiddish in a Chassidic home in Boro Park but left that life behind as a young adult, cutting most ties with his family and community. He now works as an actor in film, television, and theater, performing both in Yiddish- and English-speaking roles. Twersky appears as one of the three s...

Jake Turx, senior Whitehouse correspondent for Ami Magazine (on Twitter as @JakeTurx) A shorter version of this interview was originally aired on the Yiddish Voice radio show aired October 28 2020 and in episode 218 of The ‘Yiddish Voice’ Podcast with title “2020 Election Discussed by Holocaust Survivors et al”. The first 11 min. 17 sec. are the same as in the originally ai...

Holocaust survivors and several others discuss the 2020 United States presidential election. Guests include: Bronia Brandman , a survivor originally from Jaworzno, Poland, not far from Auschwitz (Oświęcim); David Lenga , a survivor originally from Lodz, Poland; Carol Stulberg , a child of survivors and Senior Advisor for Leadership Giving at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Jake Turx, seni...

In this time Chol Hamoed, between Succos and Shemini Atseres/Simchas Torah, we hear and remember three late great participants in the Yiddish Voice : Rav Myer Loketch z’l: on Succos, from our archive, originally recorded and aired in 2006 Hasia Segal z’l and Iosif Lakhman z’l: Rosh Hashonah greetings from our archives Lovely New Year’s greetings from friends, supporters, an...

Highlights: Israeli Yiddish radio host Avremi Zaks ’s interview with Sholem Beinfeld continues and concludes. From our archive, from the 1990’s, Miriam Libenson talks all about Succos and Simchas Torah, reads an article about Succos by Ben Gailing, sings the song A Sukele , and is briefly interviewed about Succos, sharing somewhat mixed feelings she’d had as a child. Lovely New Y...

Rosh Hashona, the Jewish new year, as well as COVID-19 are a constant theme throughout this show, which features two terrific interviews along with greetings and announcements by sponsors, friends, and participants in The Yiddish Voice . Highlights: Interview with Rabbi Simon Jacobson , founder of the Meaningful Life Center ( https://www.meaningfullife.com/ ) and publisher of Algemeiner Journal ,...

Rosh Hashona, the Jewish new year, as well as COVID-19 are a constant theme throughout this show, which features two terrific interviews along with greetings and announcements by sponsors, friends, and participants in The Yiddish Voice . Highlights: Interview with Rabbi Simon Jacobson , founder of the Meaningful Life Center ( https://www.meaningfullife.com/ ) and publisher of Algemeiner Journal ,...

Highlights: Interview with Leo (Leybl) Melamed , Chairman Emeritus of CME Group, better known by its former name The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, discussing the recent film Futures Past , made by his son, the film maker Jordan Melamed, partly documenting the end of an era in financial futures trading and partly documenting the relationship between a father and son. Further info: http://www.futures...

In the first part of our show, hear Dovid Braun talk about the amazing 2020 YIVO Yiddish Summer Program, interviewed by Sholem Beinfeld. And in the last part of the show, hear Sholem Beinfeld read and interpret selections from the book יידישע שפּריכווערטער און רעדענסארטען ( Yidishe Shprikhverter un Redensartn ), by Ignats Bernshteyn, originally published in Warsaw in 1908, likely the largest colle...

We wish you all the best for a healthy, happy New Year. לשנה טובֿה - אַ גוט געזונט יאָר Hear a roundtable discussion of three 2020 Yiddish summer programs and how they’ve managed with the COVID-19 circumstances. Our particpants: Hy Wolfe / חיים וואָלף - we’re delighted to welcome Hy on board as guest co-host of this week’s show! Hy Wolfe is an actor, head of the Hebrew Actors Uni...

This show recalls the tragic events in the USSR of August 12, 1952. Popularly known as “Night of the Murdered Poets”, the event itself, as well as associated themes – such as Yiddish language and culture in the Soviet Union, Soviet Bloc, and in leftist circles – is being remembered on this special broadcast by two distinguished guests, Gennady Estraikh and Jana Mazurkiewicz...

Meet Diana Cohen (a/k/a Dina Godiner). She is the first cousin of a famous journalist, the late Daniel Schorr. She’s also the first cousin of a not-so-famous violinist, the late Semyon Godiner. In 2008, Diana and Daniel had not met nor heard of their cousin, who grew up in the former Soviet Union and was now living in Israel. The Yiddish Voice got them together! How? Well, to find out, liste...

Rav Moshe Kesselman is the rabbi of Congregation Shaarei Tefila in Los Angeles. He talks about Tisha B’Ov, the Jewish day of fasting and communal mourning that begins the same evening (July 29) as this show goes out on the radio. He was interviewed via Zoom the day before the show from his home in Los Angeles. The late Anita Garlick was interviewed at her home in Brookline, MA, in September...