We visit with translator Helen Mintz to speak about how four stories from her translation of "Vilna My Vilna: Stories by Abraham Karpinowitz" (Syracuse University Press) have been adapted by Stephen Aberle and will be presented as a staged reading by Western Gold, a Vancouver theater company, November 28 to December 6, 2021.

Episode 313

November 18, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

This week we visit with cartoonist Ken Krimstein to talk about his new graphic novel, based on six of hundreds of newly discovered, never-before-published essays by Eastern European Jewish teens written on the brink of World War II, and found in 2017 hidden in a Lithuanian church cellar.

Episode 312

November 11, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

The Shmooze visits with curator Sam Sackeroff to talk about Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art, currently on exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York. The exhibit of paintings, drawings, and Judaica focuses on the seizure and movement of artworks as they traveled through distribution centers, sites of recovery, and networks of collectors before, during, and after World War II.

Episode 311

November 4, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

Alex Weiser and Ben Kaplan sit down with The Shmooze to talk about their forthcoming collaboration, "The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language." The new full-length opera is based on the true story of Yiddish linguist Yudel Mark, who in 1950s postwar New York City set out to write the world’s first fully comprehensive Yiddish dictionary—an effort of linguistic preservation, and a memorial to the dead. The opera invites audiences to consider the extent to which a language and a culture can be saved, the nature of grief, and the power of language itself to transform and shape us into who we are.

Episode 310

October 28, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

This week "The Shmooze" goes transatlantic for a conversation with London-based Vivi Lachs, a social and cultural historian, Yiddishist, and postdoc research fellow at Queen Mary University of London. The author of several books including "White Chapel Noise," Vivi translated the newly released "London Yiddishtown: East End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story, 1930–1950," a collection of previously untranslated short stories and sketches by Katie Brown, A. M. Kaizer, and I. A. Lisky.

Episode 309

October 21, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

Cameron Bernstein, a 2021/2022 Yiddish Book Center Fellow, joined The Shmooze to talk about her early interest in Yiddish and how she’s taken Yiddish language, culture, and history to platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

Episode 308

October 14, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

Ruth Zuckerbrod and Elliott Isban join The Shmooze to talk about their father Samuel Isban, a Yiddish writer and journalist and author of the newly translated “Illegal” Jews Part the Seas. Veteran newspaperman Samuel Isban accepts an assignment from the New York newspaper Der Morgn Zhurnal to report on Aliya Bet, the clandestine mission to smuggle Jewish refugees past the British blockade into Palestine. What follows is an eyewitness account from aboard a ramshackle vessel manned by a crew of young volunteers and packed with a human cargo of 1,500 Jewish refugees from the concentration camps.

Episode 307

October 7, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, MA

The Shmooze caught up with Rachelle Grossman, the Yiddish Book Center’s Bibliography and Collections Manager, to speak about her new role at the Center. Rachelle is a specialist in Yiddish print culture and is completing a doctorate in comparative literature at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Center, she lived in Warsaw, where she researched postwar Yiddish publishing. Rachelle shared some stories about the Center’s rare books and new discoveries, and she spoke about her interest in Yiddish print culture and publishing as it relates to her work.

Episode 306

September 15, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Translator and author Curt Leviant visits with The Shmooze to talk about this first English translation of Sholom Aleichem’s rediscovered novel "Moshkeleh the Thief". The novel has a riveting plot, an unusual love story, and a keenly observed portrayal of an underclass Jew, replete with characters never before seen in Yiddish literature.

Episode 305

August 19, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

"On The Shmooze this week: Sebastian Schulman, executive director of KlezKanada, previews what’s in store for KlezKanada 2021 (August 23–29). KlezKanada was founded in 1996 to teach, nurture, and present to a broad public the best of Jewish traditional arts and Yiddish culture. In our conversation, we talk about how KlezKanada’s programs foster Jewish cultural and artistic creativity worldwide as both an ethnic heritage and a constantly evolving contemporary culture and identity.

Episode 304

August 3, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts