Daniel Ronfeld dropped by The Shmooze recording studio to chat about the Great Jewish Books Book Club. Over the course of a lively discussion, we learn what drew him to join the Book Club, some of his favorite selections, and how he came to create a monthly gathering of fellow Book Club members in his home state of Idaho.

Episode 0236

November 7, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Recorded live at the Yiddish Book Center's Community Open House in October 2019, Lisa Newman, director of communications, and Mindl Cohen, director of translation and collections initiatives, discuss all things Yiddish translation.

Episode 0235

October 31, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

This week we visit with Christa Whitney, director of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, to talk about the oral history interview she recorded with Harold Bloom shortly before his death. In his oral history interview the late, legendary, literary scholar--and native Yiddish speaker--Harold Bloom explores his connection with Yiddish language and literature. He also recalls his first experience seeing Shakespeare as a child and watching the towering Maurice Schwartz as Shylock in a Yiddish production of "The Merchant of Venice" on 2nd Avenue in 1938. Christa shares some of the highlights and insights from her interview with Harold Bloom.

Episode 0234

October 24, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

This week we visit with Ann Toback, executive director of The Workmen's Circle in New York City, to hear about their program that brings owners and their trusty dog companions together in Central Park, where they learn some basic commands in Yiddish. By all accounts, both dogs and owners have a great time, and, yes, we learn that you can teach an old dog new tricks--in this case, Yiddish.

Episode 0233

October 17, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Sarah Abrevaya Stein, professor of history and Jewish studies at UCLA, talks with The Shmooze about her new book "Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century" and the process of writing history through personal stories. Along the way, she discusses the challenges of reading historical documents against the grain, how her time in the Yiddish Book Center's summer internship (now Steiner Summer Yiddish Program) influenced her professional path, and the diversity of the modern Jewish cultural experience.

Episode 0232

October 10, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Bob Schor chats with The Shmooze about his remarkable aunt Cipe Pineles. Born in Vienna in 1908 to an Orthodox Jewish family, Cipe immigrated to New York in 1923, where she studied art at Pratt Institute and went on to have an amazing career as the first female art director at Condé Nast and the first woman asked to join the legendary Art Directors Club. Her work and illustration continue to influence modern design.

Episode 0231

September 19, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

This week, The Shmooze visits with editor and author Stephen Shepard to talk about his literary memoir "A Literary Journey to Jewish Identity: Re-Reading Bellow, Roth, Malamud, Ozick, and Other Great Jewish Writers." Over the course of our conversation, we consider his encounters with a few writers who influenced his sense of Jewish identity, the idea of the Jewish-American writer, and what it's like to re-read some of these authors.

Episode 0230

September 12, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Allen Lewis Rickman, producer, director, and performer of Yiddish theater, joins The Shmooze to talk about his work translating Yiddish for the stage and screen--from his work on the Cohen Brothers' "A Serious Man" to his recent translations and performances of two little-known Yiddish plays, "Breach of Promise" and "One of Those," to his production "Tevye Served Raw."

Episode 0229

August 25, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

Alexander Dickow visited with The Shmooze to talk about "Asymptote's" recently published Yiddish poetry in translation feature that he co-edited with Asymptote's Editor-In-Chief Lee Yew Leong. Alexander is a bilingual poet and translator who works in French and English and is a scholar of modern and contemporary French and Francophone literature and film. His poetic works include "Appetites," "Trial Balloons," "Rhapsodie curieuse," and "Caramboles."

Episode 0228

August 18, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts

This week on The Shmooze we visit with Anita Norich to talk about the recently published "A Jewish Refugee in New York" by Kadia Molodovsky, translated by Anita Norich. Anita is Professor Emerita of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, where, in addition to translating Yiddish literature, she teaches, lectures, and publishes on a range of topics concerning modern Jewish cultures, Yiddish language and literature, Jewish American literature, and Holocaust literature.

Episode 0227

August 9, 2019

Yiddish Book Center

Amherst, Massachusetts