Dr. Rachel Lichtenstein, one of the foremost chroniclers of Jewish East London, visited with The Shmooze to talk about A. N. Stencl, a native Yiddish speaker from Poland, who settled in London’s East End in 1936 and became an activist and campaigner for the continuation of Yiddish. His extraordinary life spanned the height and demise of contemporary Yiddish culture. Stencl’s literary journal, Loshn un lebn (Language and Life), featured his own memoirs, poems, and essays alongside an array of work by other Yiddish writers from around the globe that explored political and literary topics of the time. Rachel’s work on Stencl includes a forthcoming book, The Prince of Whitechapel, a website hosting the complete collection Loshn un lebn, and a digital archive on Stencl in collaboration with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Centre for Jewish History in New York, funded by Arcadia.

Episode 400

December 9, 2025

Amherst, MA

Ellen Cassedy and Andrew Cassel joined The Shmooze to talk about their work translating So We Died: A Memoir of Life and Death in the Ghetto of Šiauliai, Lithuania, by Levi Shalit. Few accounts of the Šiauliai, or Shavl, Ghetto survived the war. Shalit’s work offers English-language readers a rare insight into a vital chapter of history. In conversation we learn about Levi Shalit the writer and how his literary and journalist style illuminates the Shavl Ghetto’s daily struggles, false hopes, and atrocities.

Episode 399

October 30, 2025

Amherst, MA

Yiddish: A Global Culture sound clip of "Women Behaving Badly"

Shakespeare & Company’s Artistic Director Allyn Burrows and the co-chair of the upcoming Celebrating Jewish Plays program Greg Lipper sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about the weekend-long event. Celebrating Jewish Plays runs October 10–12, 2025, and will feature four staged readings—"The Price," by Arthur Miller; "The Sisters Rosensweig," by Wendy Wasserstein; "Here There Are Blueberries," by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich; and "Roz and Ray," by Karen Hartman, featuring Tony-nominated actor John Douglas Thompson ("The Gilded Age"). Established in the 1970s, Shakespeare & Company, in Lenox, Massachusetts, develops and performs Shakespeare’s works as well as other classic, contemporary, and socially and politically significant works. The company embraces the core values of Shakespearean ethos: collaboration, commitment to language, visceral experience, and classical ideals expressed with physical prowess and an embodied contemporary voice.

Episode 397

September 21, 2025

Amherst, MA "

"In geveb"’s board president Mindl Cohen and the journal’s editor-in-chief Jessica Kirzane visit with "The Shmooze" to talk all things "In geveb." "In geveb" is a subscription-free digital forum that publishes peer-reviewed academic articles and translated and annotated Yiddish texts; it also serves as an exchange platform for pedagogical materials and as a blog of Yiddish cultural life. In conversation we talk about the history of "In geveb" and discuss the challenges, accomplishments, and future plans the journal faces as it marks its 10th year.

Episode 397

September 7, 2025

Amherst, MA

Scholar and translator Anita Norich talks to "The Shmooze" about her work translating the work of Yiddish women writers. Anita is the translator of Celia Dropkin’s "Desires," Kadya Molodovsky’s "A Jewish Refugee in America," and Chana Blankshteyn’s "Fear and Other Stories." She co-translated with Ellen Cassedy the forthcoming release of Rashel Veprinski’s "Hand in Hand." Anita reflects on the field of translation, the challenges Yiddish women writers faced, and the current work being done to bring these works to translation.

Episode 396

August 31, 2025

Amherst, MA

Sarah Biskowitz and Ruby Zuckerman joined "The Shmooze" to talk about the Great Jewish Books Summer Program. Sarah and Ruby, alums of the program, are back at the Yiddish Book Center as RAs for this year’s program. In conversation we talk about their experiences as participants and as RAs and learn about how Great Jewish Books lead them in new directions, personal and professional. And we hear what’s on the reading list for this summer’s students.

Episode 395

August 7, 2025

Amherst, MA

Andrew Jacobs, president of the board of the Borscht Belt Museum, joins us on "The Shmooze" to talk about the Borscht Belt Museum and the annual Borscht Belt Fest. The museum is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Catskills resort era and celebrating its history as a refuge from bigotry, the cradle of stand-up comedy, and a cultural catalyst that changed America. The annual festival includes everything from stand-up comedians and art workshops to live music and Jewish food. This year’s festival will take place July 26 & 27, 2025.

Episode 394

July 20, 2025

Amherst, MA

Editors Altie Karper and Todd Portnowitz sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about Chaim Grade’s novel "Sons & Daughters" (Knopf)—newly translated into English by Rose Waldman. Originally serialized in the 1960s and 1970s in New York–based Yiddish newspapers, Grade’s "Sons and Daughters" tells the story of a way of life that is no longer. In conversation Altie and Todd tell the incredible backstory of how the work came to publication and why the newly translated novel has been lauded as the “last great Yiddish novel.”

Episode 393

June 30, 2025

Amherst, MA

Co-authors Sheila Baslaw and Karen Levine joined "The Shmooze" to talk about "The Light Keeper," their illustrated children’s book that tells the story of ten-year-old Shmuel Saslovsky’s life in an early-twentieth-century shtetl. At 92, this is Sheila’s first published children’s book. In collaboration with Karen Levine, she worked to tell the story of how Sheila’s father Shmuel helped when electricity first came to his shtetl in Russia.

Epsiode 392

May 18, 2025

Amherst, MA