Noah Barrera has become a serious activist on the Yiddish scene in New York City, where he has been a writer for Yiddish publications, worked in three Yiddish theaters, taught Yiddish language classes, and given talks in Yiddish. Our interview took place last August at the Yidish-Vokh, the week-long Yiddish retreat held each summer and sponsored by Yugntruf - Youth for Yiddish (https://yugntruf.org). Barrera was able to attend the Yidish-Vokh thanks to his successful "gofundme" campaign (see: https://www.gofundme.com/Noyekh-YidishVokh), and there he taught a workshop on Yiddish sex vocabulary based on his research in the archives of the YIVO Institute.

From our archives: Miriam Libenson Z"L: a talk in honor of Hanukkah, first aired on the Yiddish Hour in 1993.

The show began with Adam Gruzman's "Israel Report", courtesy of the Forverts Sho on the web at yiddish.forward.com.

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

Outro music: CHANUKO OY CHANUKO, sung by Cantor Jacob Barkin with chorus directed by Sholom Secunda

Air Date: Novermber 29, 2017

• Daniel Galai wrote about the sorry recent demise of the daily Yiddish-language broadcast in Israel in his recent article in the Yiddish Forward (Forverts), titled (in translation) "Troubling Fate For Israeli Yiddish Radio". The article is here:

http://yiddish.forward.com/articles/204522/troubling-fate-for-israeli-yiddish-radio/

We reached Daniel Galay by phone in Israel. Daniel Galay is Chairman of Leyvik House (http://www.leyvik.org.il/), the Association of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Israel, as well as a composer and pianist. (This interview originally aired Jun 18, 2017.)

Hy Wolfe -- actor, singer, co-president of the Hebrew Actors' Foundation -- talks about recent developments with the organization and his vision for its future. (This interview originally aired on Aug 23, 2017.)

The show began with Adam Gruzman's "Israel Report", courtesy of the Forverts Sho on the web at yiddish.forward.com.

For Thanksgiving we played the historic "Interview with the Turkey", written and performed by the late great radio host, actor, and cantor Ben Gailing.

In honor of the 9 yortsayt of our friend, Mrs. Gertrude Brand, we played music by her late husband, the late great concert violinist Percy Brand, as heard on the Ben Gailing show some time in the late 1990's

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

Outro instrumental music: AFN VEG SHTEYT A BOYM performed by Itzhak Perlman, Dov Seltzer, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

Air Date: Novermber 22, 2017

• Eitan Kensky is Director of Collections at the Yiddish Book Center ((yiddishbookcenter.org)) as well as chairman of the board of In Geveb, the online journal of Yiddish studies ((ingeveb.org)), which he cofounded. Previously, he was the preceptor in Yiddish at Harvard University, where he received his PhD in Jewish studies. The interview was jointly conducted by Mark David and Sholem Beinfeld. We interviewed Eitan at Sholem's home in Cambridge, MA, in Oct 2017. Additional info: (https://ingeveb.org/people/eitan-kensky)

Air Date: Novermber 15, 2017

Alexander (Sender) Botwinik discussed the recently released CD of Yiddish art songs composed by his father, the Vilna-born Montreal composer David Botwinik, with lyrics by various Yiddish poets, and featuring vocal performances by internationally acclaimed opera singers Lisa Willson, John Packard, and Ian DeNolfo, as well as 2 bonus songs performed by the late world-renowned tenor Louis Danto.

The CD is called From Holocaust to Life, and is a companion to the book of the same name published by the League for Yiddish (www.leagueforyiddish.org) in 2010 containing 56 original musical compositions by David Botwinik, 15 of which are found on the new CD.

For further info:

• Botwinik Music web site: http://botwinikmusic.com

• Di Yunge Mame: Lisa Willson, soprano; lyrics: Avrom Sutzkever; music: David Botwinik

Air Date: Novermber 8, 2017

• Elissa Bemporad is the Jerry and William Ungar Associate Professor of East European Jewish History and the Holocaust at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of Becoming Soviet Jews: The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk (Indiana University Press, 2013), winner of the National Jewish Book Award and of the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. The Russian edition was recently published with ROSSPEN, in the History of Stalinism Series. She is currently finishing a book entitled Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets, which will be published with Oxford University Press. Elissa is the co-editor of Women and Genocide: Survivors and Perpetrators (forthcoming with Indiana University Press in 2018), a collection of studies on the multifaceted roles played by women in different genocidal contexts during the twentieth century. She has recently been a recipient of an NEH Fellowship and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. In Spring 2018, Elissa will be a Distinguished CUNY Fellow at the Advanced Research Collaborative at the Graduate Center.