Tune in! The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

This week, we visit with Christa Whitney, director of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, to talk about the new enhanced features to the oral history collection made possible through the 2017–2020 National Endowment for the Humanities grant that was completed in September 2020. The Project's growing collection includes over 1,000 in-depth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture offer a rich and complex chronicle of Jewish identity. We learn in conversation with Christa how these new, enhanced features will allow for greater access to the collection. Episode 0279 November 13, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Yiddish translator Zackary Sholem Berger visits with The Shmooze to talk about the forthcoming release of his translation of Avrom Sutzkever's prose writing. As noted in the book's introduction, Sutzkever the storyteller is inseparable from Sutzkever the poet. The publication of this volume, containing almost all of Sutzkever's prose in English translation, is a vital contribution and essential to our understanding of Sutzkever's work. Episode 0278 November 6, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

The Shmooze asked Becca Kantor, editorial director of the Jewish Book Council, to share a few recommended reads. Her selections include a mix of genres and new releases—and she makes a compelling case for adding each of these books to your nightstand. Episode 0277 October 30, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

On call from her home in Vienna, Isabel Frey talks about her work as a Yiddish singer and social justice activist. She specializes in Yiddish revolutionary and resistance songs and reviving the tradition of left-wing Jewish activism by connecting it to contemporary political issues. Episode 0276 October 23, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Caraid O'Brien chats with us about the launch of the Yiddish Book Center's new radiocast series, "The Last Maximalist." Caraid is both the translator and the voice behind this twelve-part series, which takes the form of a weekly serialized reading of Klara Klebanova's memoir, telling the story of Klebanova's journey from a middle-class Jewish teenager to a Maximalist revolutionary fighting for the rights of peasants and factory workers during the first Russian Revolution of 1905. "The Last Maximalist" is available through the Yiddish Book Center's website at yiddishbookcenter.org/maximalist. Episode 0275 October 16, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

In her new book, "On the Roof," actor and author Samantha Hahn, the youngest cast member of "Fiddler on the Roof" in Yiddish, tells the story of how this ground-breaking, award-winning musical came to be. Hahn talks to The Shmooze about the book, for which she interviewed the cast, crew, and creative team--each offering a unique take on the show and the impact it has had on their lives--in order to construct a behind-the-scenes look at what makes "Yiddish Fiddler" resonate with audiences. Episode 0274 October 8, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

This week The Shmooze visits with Yiddish professor and translator Miriam Udel to talk about her translation of a newly released collection of Yiddish children's stories and poems. "Honey on the Page" features work written by both prominent and lesser-known Yiddish authors, and the anthology spans the Yiddish-speaking globe--drawing from materials published in Eastern Europe, New York, and Latin America from the 1910s, during the interwar period, and up through the 1970s. Episode 0273 October 2, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

This week we caught up with Heather O'Donnell of Honey & Wax Booksellers and Yiddish book collector Miriam Borden. Miriam Borden is the winner of the 2020 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize. In announcing the prize, Honey & Wax noted, "Borden's collection represents an impressive effort of historical preservation and an inspiring example of how a collection that began as something personal becomes a collective resource." Episode 0272 September 25, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

On a call with "The Shmooze" all the way from Scotland, Morgan Holleb and Joe Isaac talk about how they came to co-found Glasgow's new Pink Peacock Café--a queer, Yiddish-speaking kosher café operated by Jewish self-described anarchists where customers will "pay what they can." Morgan and Joe talk about the idea behind the café, which they plan to open later this year, as well as the roots of Jewish community and their interest in providing a space for Yiddish. Episode 0271 September 11, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator. As a 2018 Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellow, he translated three memoirs by Yiddish writer Rachmil Bryks (1912–1974): "Di vos zaynen nisht geblibn" ("Those Who Didn't Survive"), "Di antloyfers" ("The Fugitives"), and "Fun gsise tsum lebn" ("From Agony to Life"). The resulting book, "May God Avenge Their Blood: A Holocaust Memoir Triptych," was released by Lexington Books in April 2020. In conversation, we learn about the writer, and Yermiyahu reads two selections from the book. Episode 0270 August 13, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Asya Vaisman Schulman, director of the Yiddish Book Center's Yiddish Language Institute, visits with The Shmooze to talk about the forthcoming release of "In eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook" (White Goat Press, 2020). In conversation with Asya, we learn about the communicative approach to language learning, the role of the illustrated characters that are central to the book, and the companion website and multimedia resources that are part of the two-volume textbook. Due out in mid-August 2020, the textbook will be a boon to Yiddish-language teachers and learners alike—including those learning independently or in a classroom or community group setting. Episode 0269 August 6, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

KlezKanada was founded in 1996 to teach, nurture, and present to a broad public the best of Jewish traditional arts and Yiddish culture. Its goal is to foster Jewish cultural and artistic creativity worldwide as both an ethnic heritage and a constantly evolving contemporary culture and identity. The organization's executive director, Sebastian Schulman, visits with us to talk about the history of KlezKanada, which started as a small summer festival and has gone on to become one of the leading Jewish cultural organizations in the world; its community; and the plans for the 25th Anniversary edition of its annual summer festival, which will be presented virtually this year for the first time. Episode 0268 July 31, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Internationally renowned essayist and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans spent five years traveling across a dozen countries in Latin America in search of what defines the Jewish communities in the region, whose roots date back to Christopher Columbus' arrival, for his latest book, "The Seventh Heaven." Our conversation touches on the book, a recipient of the 2020 Natan Notable Book Award from the Jewish Book Council, as well as Ilan's writing, his ongoing quest to explore the personal and the historical, and the three books that he always has near at hand. Episode 0267 July 24, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Jack Berger has been working on the translation of Yizkor books since the early 1990s. Yizkor (memorial) books document the history of Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust. Written in Yiddish, Hebrew, or both, they are a crucial resource for research in East European Jewish history, Holocaust studies, and Jewish genealogy; often, they include necrologies (lists of those who died), making them especially valuable for genealogical research. Visually, many of these books are extremely rich, featuring detailed maps, photographs, and illustrations. Jack's landmark translations of "yizker-bikher" can be found in libraries all over the English-speaking world. Episode 0266 July 17, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Rachel Mines' translation of "The Rivals and Other Stories" introduces nineteen of Jonah Rosenfeld's Yiddish-language short stories--stories that explore the limits of loneliness, social anxiety, and people's frustrated longing for meaningful relationships--to an English-reading audience. Rachel, a Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellowship alum, joins The Shmooze to talk about this newly released collection of stories and what drew her to Rosenfeld's work. Episode 0265 July 10, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

Lubomyr Luciuk spoke with The Shmooze about the recent release of his edited volume "How People Live in Soviet Russia: Impressions from a Journey." Newly translated from the Yiddish, the book chronicles journalist Mendel Osherowitch's account of his visit to Soviet Ukraine in 1932 at a time when millions of Ukrainians were dying of starvation in what historians have come to see as a direct result of Soviet policy. The book has been described as "one of the most penetrating and moving accounts of daily life in Ukraine during the famine." Episode 0264 July 2, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

This week we decided to ask cultural critic, author, and music enthusiast Seth Rogovoy to share his recommendations on what to read, watch, and listen to--and the list surprised us! From a first review of Bob Dylan's new album to an obscure film and a classic novel, Seth makes the case for why these are his top picks. Episode 0263 June 26, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

"The Shmooze" visited with Adam Immerwahr, artistic director of Theater J, the nation's largest and most prominent Jewish theater, to talk about Theater J's Yiddish Theater Lab. In our conversation, we learn about an upcoming virtual performance from Yiddish Theater Lab--a reading of "One of Those," an epic, proto-feminist drama written by Paula Prilutski and originally presented in Warsaw in 1912, adapted and translated by Allen Lewis Rickman (June 18). Episode 0262 June 12, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts

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 translated works of Yiddish literature, there are very few rosy portrayals of 'di goldene medine,' the golden country of America. Instead, many of these works offer at best a silhouette of the American Dream, set in stark relief against the reality of the experience of immigration." Episode 0260 May 28, 2020 Yiddish Book Center Amherst, Massachusetts