From his Lower East Side studio, artist Steve Marcus joins The Shmooze to talk about his early work as an Underground cartoonist - and his latest work which is currently on exhibit at the Yiddish Book Center. Through the Hat, weaves together Steve’s childhood memories of bagels and bialys, pickles and green tomatoes from the barrel, and paper-wrapped whitefish chubs with his personal journey and passion for his own roots and culture. Tales from the Golden Medina is a series of work that expands on the Through the Hat exhibit, inspired by underground comics and Jewish wisdom from the shtetl.

Episode 0299: Javier Sinay on Argentinian Journalist Pinie Katz and the Murders of Moises Ville by Yiddish Book Center

Aaron Bendich is the twenty-seven-year-old behind “Borscht Beat,” a new Yiddish music show on WJFF Radio Catskill, the public radio station for the Catskills and Northeast Pennsylvania. He tells us how his latest radio show was inspired by his grandfather Max Bendich, who was the son of Jewish immigrants from present-day Ukraine and had a lifelong interest in Yiddish and American folk music. Aaron also talks about his growing collection of Yiddish and Jewish LPs and other media that he curates for his work.

Episode 0298

April 30, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Translator, actor, and producer Caraid O’Brien joins us from her editing room where she’s putting the finishing touches on her radio drama production of Sholem Asch's play "The Dead Man", which she translated from the Yiddish. The haunting WWI drama takes place in the rubble of a decimated synagogue in Poland directly after the war. Dealing with dislocation, madness, and death, the surviving Jewish community must decide how to rebuild their lives, maintaining hope for a prosperous, new future. The radio drama will air Sunday, April 25, at 7pm EDT, giving audiences the opportunity to hear this work in its first-ever complete English translation. The production is presented by the Yiddish Book Center as part of Carnegie Hall’s Voices of Hope Festival examining art created amidst times of crisis and human tragedy.

Episode 0297

April 23, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Motl Didner, associate art director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF), and NYTF literary manager Sabina Brukner talk with The Shmooze about their upcoming Yiddish Women Playwrights Festival, which gives women playwrights center stage at the NYTF. The festival kicks off with Chava Rosenfarb’s The Bird of the Ghetto, which chronicles the attempted Vilna Ghetto uprising and the tragic story of Jewish resistance leader Itsik Vitenberg, commander of the United Partisan Organization. The virtual reading is produced by Didner, who notes, "As we commemorate the 78th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising [on April 19, 1943], the true story behind The Bird of the Ghetto is a moving testament to the bravery and resilience of the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust."

Episode 0296

April 15, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Judy Batalion is the author of the recently released The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghettos, which illuminates the extraordinary history and accomplishments of brave Jewish women who became resistance fighters—a group of unknown heroes whose exploits have never been chronicled in full until now. She joins The Shmooze to talk about the amazing story behind the book, which began with the discovery of a Yiddish memoir.

Episode 0295

April 8, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

The Shmooze visits with the multitalented Eleanor Reissa, a Tony-nominated director, Broadway actress, prize-winning playwright, soon-to-be published author, artistic director of the world’s oldest Yiddish theater company, and a singer who has performed in nearly every major venue around the world. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Eleanor is a captivating storyteller in both English and Yiddish. She chats with us about her work and latest projects.

Episode 0294

April 1, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

On the phone with "The Shmooze" this week, Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel talks with us about her work as a Yiddish singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist, and research librarian specializing in Yiddish language and culture at the New York Public Library. Among other things, Amanda tells us about how she came to Yiddish and about "Yidforsh," the Yiddish research Facebook group she launched to help promote research and scholarship on Yiddish topics and connect Yiddish researchers to resources and opportunities.

Episode 0293

March 19, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Rabbi Avram Mlotek joins "The Shmooze" to talk about the history of the Third Seder, a long-standing Yiddish cultural tradition. Avram lets us in on what's on the bill for this year's virtual Third Seder--from Yiddish day school students from Melbourne, Australia, who will sing the Four Questions to performances by Michael Alpert, Sarah Gordon, Daniel Kahn, Steve Skybell, and many more. The event, "The Third Seder: A Yiddish Celebration," co-sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center, will stream live on Facebook on March 21 at 2pm (EDT).

Episode 0292

March 13, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

This week's guest, Henry Sapoznik, is an award-winning producer, musicologist and performer, and writer in the fields of traditional and popular Yiddish and American music and culture. His latest project is the ongoing research about the so-called "shvartze khazonim," the African American cantors of the 1920s and '30s. We speak with Henry about Black Jewish cantor Thomas LaRue Jones, a much-beloved singer of traditional Yiddish songs and cantorial liturgy on the stage and radio and on record, and the recent effort to raise funds for a headstone for LaRue's unmarked grave.

Episode 0291

March 6, 2021

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts