Tune in! The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

Rebecca Lepkoff (1916-2014) was one of the great twentieth century photographers. Her work particularly chronicled the life of New York City’s Jewish neighborhoods. Her husband Eugene and son Daniel dropped by our studio to talk about Rebecca’s life and work from their unique vantage point. Episode 0199 November 1, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

The Shmooze caught up with David Stromberg over dinner at an outdoor café in New York where we learned about his latest book, "In the Land of Happy Tears: Yiddish Tales for Modern Times," a collection of newly translated Yiddish stories for readers of all ages. David is a self-described Yiddish-activist who worked hard to bring these largely overlooked works to publication. In our conversation, he shared the backstory to these works, Yiddish publishing, and how he found his way to editing this collection. Episode 0198 October 19, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Professor Deborah Dash Moore, who will lead the Yiddish Book Center's upcoming weekend course (October 26-28, 2018), discusses the cluster of New York Jewish photographers who pictured the city, their home, in the middle decades of the 20th century. As young men and women, mostly the children of immigrants, they picked up cameras and walked the streets, capturing its human drama. Episode 0197 September 30, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

In a collection of stories newly translated from the Yiddish by Ellen Cassedy, prize-winning author Yenta Mash traces an arc across continents, upheavals and regime changes, and the phases of a woman’s life from girlhood to old age. Cassedy speaks with us about Yenta Mash – a master chronicler of exile, Mash’s work brings much to the literature of immigration and resilience. Episode 0196 September 12, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Steve Weintraub left the dance floor long enough to join us in studio to talk about Yiddish dance. Steve teaches dance workshops around the world, including at the annual Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music. In our conversation, we learn how Steve found his way to Yiddish dance, how he studied its roots, and how he documented its elements. Episode 0195 August 23, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Hankus Netsky, chair of New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Improvisation Department and founder and director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, dropped by the studio to chat about the roots of Yiddish music and his work as a musician, teacher, and ethnomusicologist. As always, our conversation with Hankus is expansive, insightful, informative, and peppered with some great anecdotes. Episode 0194 August 21, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

In a conversation with Shachar M. Pinsker we learn about the place of coffeehouses in the creation of modern Jewish culture from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Shachar’s newly published book, "A Rich Brew: How Cafes Created Modern Jewish Culture," tells the story of the role of the coffeehouse as central to the modern Jewish experience in a time of migration and urbanization, from Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, and Berlin to New York City and Tel Aviv, and why Jews became their most devoted habitues. Episode 0193 August 2, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

This week we visit with Yiddish vocalist Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell and pianist/accordionist Dmitri Gaskin. Together they explore diverse idioms and styles to create their signature contemporary and idiosyncratic new music - set to the works of some of the greatest poets in the Yiddish language. In a lively conversation, we learn about what drew them to Yiddish music and how they’ve been drawing from the roots of Yiddish literature and music to create their unique and amazing work. Episode 0192 July 20, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

Podcast Producer and Yiddish Book Center Fellow Zeke Levine caught-up with a few of the many performers at Yidstock 2018. Hankus Netsky, Steve Weintraub, and David Krakauer each stopped by our studio to talk all things Yiddish music related, from 78s to Yiddish dance moves. Episode 0191 July 13, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

Producer Zeke Levine and host Lisa Newman take The Shmooze on the road to Studley Press in Dalton, Massachusetts, where the summer issue of Pakn Treger, the Yiddish Book Center’s English-language magazine, is being printed. On the visit, Zeke asks the questions on many readers’ minds: How does the magazine come together from start to finish? Zeke and Lisa take us behind the scenes of the press, where Zeke poses questions about the printing and binding process, and the many machines he encounters at the printer. Episode 0190 June 22, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

Vivi Lachs joins us to talk about her newly published book, Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884–1914. Vivi is a social and cultural historian, Yiddishist, and associate research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Drawing from archival material from the London Yiddish press, songbooks, and satirical writing, Whitechapel Noise offers a fascinating window into the untold cultural life of the Yiddish East End, positioning London’s Yiddish popular culture in historical perspective within Anglo-Jewish history. Episode 0189 June 14, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

This week on The Shmooze, the second in our series of visits with Yiddish Book Center alumni to get an insider’s guide to Jewish and Yiddish culture in their hometown. Aga Ilwicka fills us in on the many Yiddish goings-on in San Francisco and shares a number of suggestions for those interested in contemporary Jewish culture, food, music, and more. Episode 0188 June 8, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

The Shmooze is launching the first in what will be a series of visits with Yiddish Book Center alumni to get an insider’s guide to Jewish and Yiddish culture in their hometowns. This week, we visit with Samuel Zerin, a musicologist, music theorist, composer, and pianist, who provides a guide to Jewish Rhode Island. A specialist in early-twentieth-century Jewish musical nationalism, Sam has broader analytical interests in twenty-first-century Yiddish pop songs and Disney music. He’s also an amateur polyglot, with particularly strong interests in Yiddish, Russian, and the Scandinavian languages. In our conversation, we learn about America’s oldest synagogue, kosher restaurants in and around Providence, and more. Episode 0187 June 1, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

This week we visit with Sarah Aroeste. Sarah, American-born and trained in classical opera at Westminster Choir College and Yale University, was inspired by her family's Sephardic roots in Greece and Macedonia. She’s spent the last 15 years bringing her contemporary style of original and traditional Ladino music to audiences around the world. On July 15, 2018 she’ll be taking the stage at Yidstock along with Anthony Russell. Episode 0186 May 23, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

Comic book creator and digital designer JT Waldman visited The Shmooze’s studio to answer our questions about his work, the intersection of comic books and Judaism, the graphic novel, and the roots of Jewishness in visual storytelling. JT also spoke with us about his landmark graphic novel Megillat Esther (an interpretation of the Book of Esther), as well as his collaboration with legendary comic book writer Harvey Pekar on the graphic novel Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me. Episode 0185 May 10, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

This week we visit with Miriam Udel, Associate Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture at Emory University. Miriam talks with us about her research and her teaching, which focus on Jewish encounters with modernity in literature, as well as her work translating Yiddish children’s literature. Episode 0184 May 4, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

This week we talk with Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture at Amherst College, publisher of Restless Books, and host of the NPR podcast “In Contrast.” A busy man, we caught up with him to chat about his upcoming three-part series of talks taking place at the Yiddish Book Center May 1, 8, and 15: “People of the Picture Book: The History of Jewish Children’s Literature.” In a lively exchange, we discuss everything from the Haggadah and the Book of Esther to the ways in which psychoanalysis and the comic-strip industry in the twentieth century informed Jewish children’s book classics such as Curious George, Where the Wild Things Are, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Episode 0183 April 26, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

Lisa Newman and podcast producer and Yiddish Book Center fellow Zeke Levine take The Shmooze on the road to Boston for a visit and tour of the Vilna Shul. Vilna’s Executive Director, Barnet Kessel, provides a private tour of this historic landmark—the last immigrant era synagogue building that exists in downtown Boston. Barnet talks about the Shuls’ history, the building’s unique architecture, shares plans for the restoration of the old-wall murals, and answers our many questions. Episode 0182 April 13, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

Brooklyn-based writer and director Rachel Fleit shares the story behind her latest film, Gefilte. Each year, the Hermelin family of Detroit comes together to celebrate Passover, and central to their seder meal is the family’s homemade gefilte fish. As Fleit notes, “While simple on the surface, Gefilte is filled with history and meaning—just like the recipe itself, which includes a stuffing of fish, salt, vegetables and egg.” Episode 0181 April 5, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA

Author Adrienne Sharp speaks with us about her latest novel, The Magnificent Esme Wells (April 2018). The story finds its voice in the perceptive and irrepressible Esme Wells—daughter of a two-bit gangster and a movie showgirl—as she grows up in the golden-age of pre–WWII Hollywood and postwar Las Vegas. Adrienne shares the Jewish roots of the story and the personal journey she took in writing this beautifully crafted novel. Episode 0180 March 28, 2018 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, MA