The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

Daniella Rabbani joined The Shmooze to talk about her debut album, Klezmerette. Daniella is a New York actor, filmmaker, and Yiddish singer who has been performing in Yiddish for more than twenty years, from NYC’s Town Hall to the State Jewish Theaters in Warsaw and Bucharest. Klezmerette features ten Yiddish standards and was produced by Grammy winner Joanie Leeds and klezmer clarinetist Michael Winograd. Episode 417

October 18, 2026 Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

This week on The Shmooze, Sarah Bunin Benor, Ph.D., joins us to talk about her latest project—a book built around the theme of heirlooms. In conversation she speaks about how she is seeking stories about family heirlooms, and she shares how these heirlooms provide a connection to place and language. These stories will be part of a forthcoming book. Sarah founded and directs Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Language Project, which runs the Jewish Language website and the Jewish Language Lexicon and hosts the Heritage Words podcast. All of these efforts intersect in this latest project. Episode 416

September 28, 2026

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

​​Elissa Bemporad joins The Shmooze to speak about the recently published translation of Rokhl Faygenberg’s The Destruction of Dubova Shtetl. In conversation, Elissa—who edited the work and wrote the book’s introduction—provides context for Faygenberg’s account of a Jewish shtetl’s elimination during the pogroms of the Russian Civil War, 1917–22. In chronicling the shtetl’s demise, Faygenberg provides a firsthand account of a largely forgotten era of history.

Episode 415

September 17, 2026

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

Steven Pressman joins The Shmooze to talk about his latest documentary, Dust Bowls Jewish Souls and Another Side of Woody Guthrie. In conversation, we talk about Guthrie’s journey from "the dusty soil of Oklahoma to the lox and bagels along Coney Island's Mermaid Avenue” Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls tells a rich and colorful story not only about Woody Guthrie, but about those who opened up a whole new Jewish world for him. What informed Woody Guthrie - one of America's most famous songwriters and cultural icons. ​​Episode 414

September 2, 2026

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

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