This week on "The Shmooze," Ellen Cassedy, author of "Working 9 to 5: A Women’s Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie," newly published by Chicago Review Press with a foreword by Jane Fonda. Ellen was a founder of the 9 to 5 movement in the early 1970s. In conversation we talk about how the Yiddish-speaking women activists of a hundred years ago inspired the women of the 9 to 5 movement. And we learn about Ellen’s work as a Yiddish translator and an alum of the Yiddish Book Center’s Translation Fellowship.

Episode 336

October 4, 2022

Amherst, MA

On the "The Shmooze" this week, Piotr Nazaruk. Piotr is a researcher, educator, curator, and Yiddish translator at the Grodzka Gate–NN Theatre Center in Lublin, Poland. Piotr tells the story of the vanished Library of Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin, or Academy of the Sages of Lublin—one of the greatest mysteries from the postwar history of Lublin, if not from the history of Jewish heritage in Poland. The Yeshiva book collection—consisting of tens of thousands of volumes, including priceless and extremely rare old Hebrew prints—disappeared almost without a trace. For years historians and journalists have been searching for it in vain, trying to unravel some of the many threads of this convoluted mystery. Piotr shares news of two books that were part of the Yeshiva Library that are being returned to Lublin from Germany. After more than 80 years of tragic journeys they will finally reach home and once again will be held in the building of the former Yeshiva.

Episode 335

September 25, 2022

Amherst, MA

Dorothée Rozenberg, daughter of Lena Jedwab Rozenberg, joins "The Shmooze" to talk about her mother’s wartime diary, "Girl with Two Landscapes: The Wartime Diary of Lena Jedwab." Lena wrote her diary in Yiddish not only because it was her mother tongue but also as a conscious effort to maintain her Jewish identity. Her writing has left us a moving testimony to some of history’s darkest days. The book was translated by Solon Beinfeld.

Episode 334

September 19, 2022

Amherst, MA

"Sasha Senderovich, author of the recently published How the Soviet Jew Was Made, sits down with The Shmooze to talk about his latest work, which has been described as “a close reading of postrevolutionary Russian and Yiddish literature and film [that] recasts the Soviet Jew as a novel cultural figure: not just a minority but an ambivalent character navigating between the Jewish past and Bolshevik modernity.”

Episode 333

August 17. 2022

Amherst, MA"

This week on The Shmooze, we talk to Asaf Galay, award-winning director of films that examine modern Jewish culture and creativity. He has explored the magical literature and complex life of Isaac Bashevis Singer, celebrated ultra-Orthodox and queer Swedish pop music, and traced the development of comics and cartoons in the United States and Israel. His documentary "The Adventures of Saul Bellow" will be screened at the Yiddish Book Center and as part of the PBS American Masters series in December 2022. In conversation we talk about how Asaf’s documentary brings the viewer into the world that informed Bellow, the writer and the person.

Episode 332

August 8, 2022

Amherst, MA

"The Shmooze" visited with Jake Krakovsky, an Atlanta-based puppeteer, writer, actor, director, teaching artist, and as of late Yiddishist. In conversation, Jake recounted how he successfully turned the Yiddish story "Labzik" into a puppet film and how in the process he discovered the richness of Yiddish language, literature, and culture.

Episode 331

August 4, 2022

Amherst, MA

Irving Massey, son of Yiddish writer Ida Maze, joins "The Shmooze" to talk about his mother, her writing, and the newly published "Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel" by Ida Maze, translated by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub (White Goat Press 2022). Irving shares a personal portrait of the writer, her role in Montreal’s Yiddish literary circles, and the story behind the posthumously published "Dineh."

Episode 330

July 17, 2022

Amherst, MA

"In conversation with Chuck Fishman we learn about his 45-year career as a freelance photographer whose work focuses on social and political issues with a strong humanistic concern. In 1975 he traveled to Poland to photograph the “dwindling remnant of a once-vibrant Jewish community on the brink of extinction,” and he has returned several times, most recently to photograph the Jewish community’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis occurring there now.

Chuck Fishman’s visiting exhibit "Roots, Resilience and Renewal—A Portrait of Polish Jews, 1975–2016" is on view at the Yiddish Book Center through fall 2022.

Episode 329

June 13, 2022

Amherst, MA

In conversation with Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, we hear about his latest work of translation. "Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel," posthumously published, is a Yiddish-language novel by Ida Maze, a pastorale laced with beauty and sorrow and a bildungsroman told from the point of view of a young girl. Living in what is now Belarus, Maze’s heroine is fueled by her hunger for learning, connection to family and community, and love of the natural world.

Episode 328

May 19, 2022

Amherst, MA

On "The Shmooze" this week, we talk with Misha Schaffner-Kargman, a sophomore at Bard College studying Yiddish who hosts a spot on the school’s student-run radio station, WXBC. Every Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. Misha streams two hours of Yiddish music and hosts beginner Yiddish lessons on WXBC’s Mixlr page.

Episode 327

May 5, 2022

Amherst, MA