Author Matthew Goodman talks about his latest book, Paris Undercover, which tells the story of two women’s remarkable courage. Etta Shiber and Kate Bonnefous are the unlikeliest of heroines: two seemingly ordinary women, an American widow and an English divorcée, living quietly together in Paris. Yet during the Nazi occupation, these two friends find themselves unexpectedly plunged into the whirlwind of history. In researching this story, Matthew Goodman uncovered military records and personal testimonies that reveal, for the first time, the shocking truth behind Etta’s memoir and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences of its publication. More than just a story of two women’s remarkable courage, Paris Undercover is a vivid, gripping account of deceit, betrayal, and personal redemption. Episode 413

Yiddish Book Center

August 16, 2026

Amherst, MA

Yiddish Book Center fellows Noah Bromberg, Joshua (Yoshke) Horowitz, and Tyler Kliem visited with The Shmooze to talk about their fellowship work. In conversation we spoke about the range of their work and their many contributions in the areas of bibliography, exhibitions, and language learning, as well as their work with the Center’s Yiddish type collection and printing press.

Episode 412

July 30, 2026

Amherst, MA

Author Julie Brill joined "The Shmooze" to speak about her recently released "Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia". As a child, Julie held two conflicting beliefs. She knew Germans had murdered her Jewish grandfather in occupied Yugoslavia, yet she somehow believed the Holocaust had never come to his hometown of Belgrade. The family anecdotes her father passed down—a blend of his early memories and what his mother told him—didn’t match what Julie had heard about Germany, Poland, and Anne Frank in Holland during World War II.

Episode 411

June 12, 2026

Amherst, MA

Adi Mahalel visited with "The Shmooze" to speak about his translation of Hanan Ayalti’s "Boom and Chains". The novel provides a rare glimpse of the Jewish political left before the creation of the State of Israel and vividly illustrates the physical and mental toll of making a life in Mandatory Palestine. In conversation we discuss how author Hanan Ayalti’s own journey resembles that of Zalmen, the novel’s main character, and reflects his disillusionment with early Labor Zionism.

Episode 410

April 30, 2026

Amherst, MA

This week on The Shmooze we visit with Nicholas Lemann. A veteran New Yorker correspondent, Lemann grew up in New Orleans, the son of German Jews in a world of gilded privilege. Yet in contrast to his parents’ generation, which always sought to downplay their religious background, Lemann was intrigued by his roots, thinking he wanted to be like Jack Burden, the ever-curious reporter in Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. In conversation he talks about his recently released book, Returning, which tells both a personal family history and reveals much about Jewish life in the twenty-first century.

Episode 409

April 22, 2026

Amherst, MA

Author Gil Ribak visited with "The Shmooze" to discuss his latest book, "Crude Creatures." The book draws on a mixture of previously unexplored Yiddish press, theater, and literature from Eastern Europe and the United States to examine how Black Africans and African Americans were depicted by Jews from the late nineteenth century through 1929.

Episode 408

April 1, 2026

Amherst, MA

Author Judy Batalion visited with "The Shmooze" to talk about her latest book, "The Last Women of Warsaw." The historical novel follows two very different Jewish women in vibrant, stylish late-1930s Warsaw—the “Paris of the North”—as they grapple with the gathering storm clouds of war and unexpectedly come together in their search for love, meaning, and a sense of home.

In conversation we discuss how the book shines a light on this rarely explored world, a city filled with theaters, cabaret, and nightclubs with revolving dancefloors

Episode 407

March 23, 2026

Amherst, MA

Writer and artist Molly Crabapple visited with "The Shmooze" to speak about her forthcoming book, "Here Where We Live Is Our Country", the first popular history of the Bund. Molly re-creates the Bundists’ extraordinary world through dramatic portraits of insurgent poets and antireligious rebels, clandestine revolutionaries and lovers on the barricades. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Sam Rothbort created “memory paintings” with the hope of resurrecting the vanished world of his shtetl childhood. Decades later, his great-granddaughter Molly discovered these paintings, and one stood out: a girl, her dress the color of sky, hurling a rock through a cottage window. It was this painting—"Itka the Bundist, Breaking Windows"—that introduced Molly to the Jewish Labor Bund.

Episode 406

March 5, 2026

Amherst, MA

Librettist and playwright Stephanie Fleischmann and composer and playwright Alex Weiser sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about their collaboration on "Tevye’s Daughters." Their opera is based on Sholem Aleichem’s iconic Yiddish stories, exploring the tragic death of Tevye’s lesser-known daughter, Shprintse. The opera also traces the lasting impact of Shprintse’s fate on her sisters as elderly immigrants living in New York. The opera will be performed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on March 19, 2026.

Episode 405

February 24, 2026

Amherst, MA

Author Jane Ziegelman joined "The Shmooze "to talk about her latest book, "Once There Was a Town." In conversation Jane talks about Yizkor (memorial) books and how she discovered the story of her family’s ancestral shtetl between the pages of the Luboml Yizkor book.

Episode 404

February 12, 2026

Amherst, MA