Interview with Hershl Hartman, discussing his work as a Yiddish journalist, an educator in secular Yiddish-oriented schools, and a translator from Yiddish to English. Hershl Hartman was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929. He has been a leader at the Sholem Community in Los Angeles for more than fifty years, serving as Education Director/Vegvayzer since 1967. Between 1967 and 1985, he was also the school’s principal. Hartman holds degrees in Secular Jewish education and in Yiddish journalism. As a younger man, he became the first American-born Yiddish newspaper reporter, having written for the Morgen Freiheit when it was a New York City daily with a print run in the thousands. In recent years, he has worked as a professional translator from English to Yiddish, translating both literary works, including poetry, and personal documents and correspondence. His literary translation work has appeared in the online Yiddish studies journal In Geveb (https://ingeveb.org/people/hershl-hartman), and he contributed to the translation of the book The Jews of Felshtin (https://felshtin.org/). The interview was recorded via Zoom on July 9, 2021.

• Music:

• Lillian Lux: Vashtis Kloglid (with Mike Burstyn as narrator; lyrics by Itzik Manger)

Air Date: July 28, 2021

From our archive: The Yiddish Voice from July 24 2013, with Gitu Cycowitz (Jerusalem) and Rabbi Shmuel Posner (Boston).

Air Date: July 21 2021 (originally aired July 24 2013)

Interview with Irene Zisblatt, who was one of the participants in the film The Last Days, released in 1998, about the Holocaust in Hungary. The Yiddish Voice spoke to Irene recently (late June 2021) via Zoom. Irene was born in Polena, Czechoslovakia, which was in Hungary during WWII and is now in Ukraine. Irene survived the Holocaust, including Auschwitz, as she describes in the film and to some degree in the interview. The film The Last Days, was originally released on DVD in 1998. It was rereleased in 2021 in a restored print on Blu-Ray disk and also through Netflix. Info:

• The Last Days (1998) on Netflix

From our archive: 2015 interview with Dovid Mermelstein, who died the previous day (Tuesday, July 6, 2021). The Yiddish Voice spoke to Dovid in Miami, FL, in August 2015 and aired the interview shortly thereafter. Dovid was born in Kivjazd, Czechoslovakia, which was in Hungary during WWII and is now in Ukraine. He survived the Holocaust, including Auschwitz and Ebensee. In recent decades, he was a leader of the survivors in the Miami, FL, area and an internationally known activist on behalf of survivors in order to get restitution from the US government for property looted from Hungarian Jews during the war, as well as serving as a vocal critic of the Claims Conference on behalf of his fellow survivors. Info:

• Times of Israel article: David Mermelstein, Holocaust survivor and restitution champion, dies at 92

• Music:

• Cookie Segelstein (violin), Pete Sokolow (piano): Hora Serba (instrumental, excerpt)

Air Date: June 7, 2021

Most of this week's show was taken up with the second part of our interview with Rachel Rojanski, discussing her book Yiddish in Israel: A History, published in English by Indiana University Press in 2020. The discussion is in Yiddish. Last week's show (May 26 2021) presented the first part of the discussion. The second part aired this week on Wednesday, June 2, 2021. Rachel Rojanski is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University. She is author of Conflicting Identities: Labor Zionism in North America 1905-1931 (in Hebrew) as well as many articles on political and cultural history of East European Jewish immigrants in the U.S. and Israel. About the book (blurb):

Yiddish in Israel: A History challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities for ideological reasons, offering instead a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew cultures. Author Rachel Rojanski tells the compelling and yet unknown story of how Yiddish, the most widely used Jewish language in the pre-Holocaust world, fared in Zionist Israel, the land of Hebrew. (Additional publisher info here: https://iupress.org/9780253045140/yiddish-in-israel/)

The interview was led by Sholem Beinfeld, professor of history emeritus at Washington University, St. Louis, and co-chief editor of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary.

Also, from our archive we heard an excerpt of our 2016 interview with Gitl Shaechter-Viswanath and Hershl Glasser, editors of Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary. (Interviewed by Dovid Braun and Iosif Lakhman ז״ל) Additional info here: https://englishyiddishdictionary.com

To close, we aired a series of songs with words by the late poet Itzik Manger, whose 120th birthday was observed by lovers of Yiddish literature the world over this past Sunday, performed by various singers and musicians.

Music:

• Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air Date: June 3, 2021

Most of this week's show was taken up with the first part of our interview with Rachel Rojanski, discussing her book Yiddish in Israel: A History, published in English by Indiana University Press in 2020. The discussion is in Yiddish. This week's show (May 26 2021) presented the first part of the discussion, with the second part set to air the following Wednesday, June 2, 2021 (and later be made available via podcast). Rachel Rojanski is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University. She is author of Conflicting Identities: Labor Zionism in North America 1905-1931 (in Hebrew) as well as many articles on political and cultural history of East European Jewish immigrants in the U.S. and Israel. About the book (blurb):

Yiddish in Israel: A History challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities for ideological reasons, offering instead a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew cultures. Author Rachel Rojanski tells the compelling and yet unknown story of how Yiddish, the most widely used Jewish language in the pre-Holocaust world, fared in Zionist Israel, the land of Hebrew. (Additional publisher info here: https://iupress.org/9780253045140/yiddish-in-israel/)

The interview was led by Sholem Beinfeld, professor of history emeritus at Washington University, St. Louis, and co-chief editor of the Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary.

Also, we heard from Dovid Braun, Summer Program Academic Director at the Yivo Institute, giving an overview of the upcoming 2021 incarnation of the venerable Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture. Info online here: https://summerprogram.yivo.org/

Music:

• Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air Date: May 26, 2021

• Online Concert Announcement: May 15, 2021: Arbeter Ring's A

• Louis Danto: Shavuos Iz Gekumen

Air Date: May 12, 2021

Interview with developers of the Yiddish course on the language-learning app Duolingo: Meena Viswanath, brothers Isac Polasak and Israel Polasak; Sholem; and Yosi (@MudnerParshoyn on Twitter). The interview was recorded on April 11, 2021, over Zoom and is entirely in Yiddish. Participating in the interview are historian Prof. Sholem Beinfeld, along with regular host Mark David. For more info, here are several links:

• Home page of Duolingo

Miriam Libenson z"l: a talk on the Holiday Lag Ba'Omer by our dear late collaborator, from our archive, originally recorded and aired on May 24, 2000.

Music:

• Martele Friedman: Afn Pripetshik

Extended version of interview with Miriam Trinh, which was shortened due to time limitations on the original broadcast.

Extended version of interview with Avremi Zaks, which was shortened due to time limitations on the original broadcast.

We observe יום העצמאותּ Yom Haatsmaut with three guests who all currently reside in Jerusalem, Israel:

• Mrs. Gisel (Gitu) Cycowicz, Auschwitz survivor originally from Chust, Czechoslovakia, discussing her personal history and reflections on this year's Yom Hazikaron/Yom Haatsmaut.

• Dovid Eshet: Yerusholayim Shtot fun Gold (lyrics and music by Naomi Shemer)

Air date: April 14 2021