Marjorie Ingall discusses her new book, Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children, which turns the negative stereotype of the Jewish mother on its head to show the many positives of a Jewish style of parenting. Ingall is a columnist for Tablet and a contributor to the New York Times Book Review.

Episode 0120

October 6, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Henry Sapoznik speaks about his recent project, Attractive Hebrews: The Thomas Lambert Yiddish Recordings, 1901-1905. Some of the earliest known Yiddish recordings, they document the difficulties that many Jews faced in determining their place in America. Sapoznik, the director of the Mayrent Institute at the University of Wisconsin Madison and a Peabody Award winner, played a major role in the klezmer revival.

Episode 0119

September 26, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

As Josh Kogan-Zajdman wrapped up his seventh and final week in the 2016 Steiner Summer Yiddish Program, he talked about growing up with Yiddish-speaking grandparents in Mexico, who inspired his interest in the language and culture, and about his surprising personal connection to the Yiddish Book Center’s recent acquisition of books from a school in Mexico.

Episode 0118

September 13, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Boxing historian Mike Silver, author of "Stars in the Ring: Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing: A Photographic History," talks about the all-but-forgotten history of Jewish boxers from the 1890s to the 1950s. Silver reminds us that Jewish boxers and entrepreneurs dominated the sport in the 1920s and '30s, and he discusses the ways in which boxing helped Jews assimilate to life in the United States.

Episode 0117

July 28, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Hankus Netsky tells us about his recent book, "Klezmer: Music and Community in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia," a portrait of the folk music and traditions of the city’s Jewish community. A musical ethnographer and teacher, Netsky is a founder of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, which will play at Yidstock ’16.

Episode 0116

June 30, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

The queen of Yiddish cabaret, Eleanor Reissa, is a Brooklyn-born native Yiddish speaker whose work in theater as a director, actor, writer, and choreographer garnered her a Tony Award nomination and propelled her into the front ranks of Yiddish theater and music.

Episode 0115

June 9, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

The new website sholemaleichem.org considers the life and work of the great Yiddish writer on his hundredth "yortsayt." Sholem Aleichem biographer Jeremy Dauber and filmmaker Sam Ball, driving forces behind the site, talk about the project’s use of exciting multimedia and interactive resources, and about the writer’s formidable legacy and the sometimes surprising ways his work continues to influence contemporary culture. The Yiddish Book Center is a collaborator on the site.

Episode 0114

May 12, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Over his career, Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer worked with dozens of female translators, with whom he developed close—and often complicated—relationships. Filmmaker Asaf Galay talks about his documentary "The Muses of Bashevis Singer," which includes interviews with a number of those women, and about the writer’s particular approach to translating his work for an English-reading audience.

Episode 0113

April 18, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Author and scholar Ilan Stavans talks about his latest book, "The New World Haggadah," a contemporary take that focuses on the Jewish experience from Moses to the Americas, and discusses why a multicultural, multilingual "Haggadah" is so important for today’s seder.

Episode 0112

April 6, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

As journalists writing in the wartime Polish ghettos, Peretz Opoczynski and Josef Zelkowicz captured the anxiety and uncertainty of daily life for Jews with breathtaking immediacy. Professor Sam Kassow, coeditor of "In Those Nightmarish Days," a collection of their work recently published by the Yiddish Book Center’s New Yiddish Library, discusses the important contributions the two men’s reporting make to our understanding of this place and time.

Episode 0111

March 15, 2016

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts