Second interview with Gennady Estraikh discussing the war in Ukraine. (Our first interview aired in March, 2022.) Estraikh, who was born in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, is a professor at NYU who specializes in Jewish intellectual history, Yiddish language and literature, and Soviet Jewish history. He has written numerous books, academic papers, and journal and newspaper articles in English, Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish, notably for the Yiddish Forverts. He served as managing editor of the famed Yiddish literary journal Sovetish Heymland from 1988 to 1991. His books include Yiddish Culture in Ukraine (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2016, in Ukrainian) and Transatlantic Russian Jewishness: Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century (Academic Studies Press, 2020). The interview took place over Zoom on Wednesday, November 23, 2022.

In honor of our upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, we present Interview with the Turkey, a radio monologue recorded and first aired in the 1990's, by Boston's late, great Yiddish radio host Ben Gailing.

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Air date: November 23, 2022

Prof. Cecile (Tsirl) Kuznitz talks about the upcoming "Schaechter Conference", which she is chairing, sponsored by the League for Yiddish, JTS, and Columbia University. Info: League for Yiddish

Rokhl Zicherman, a survivor of Auschwitz who grew up in Tybava, a small village in the Carpathian Mountains which was in Czechoslovakia before WWII, part of Hungary during the war, and is now in Ukraine, discusses her early life as well as deportation and survival in Auschwitz. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, also a Holocaust survivor.

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Air Date: October 26, 2022

אַ גוטן מועד Happy Succos! For Chol Hamoed Succos, we present two very special guests:

We also share, for the last time this season, greetings from our friends and sponsors:

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Air date: October 12, 2022

Happy New Year! אַ גמר טובֿ! אַ גוט יאָר

Greetings from our friends and sponsors

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Air date: September 28, 2022

Happy New Year! אַ גוט יאָר

Greetings from our friends and sponsors

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Air date: September 21, 2022

Happy New Year! אַ גוט יאָר

Greetings from our friends and sponsors

From our archive: Rosh Hashona remarks by our late Yiddish Voice contributors:

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Air date: September 14, 2022

Part 1: Last July 13 we aired a quick interview with Gitu Cycowics just hours after her meeting with President Biden at Yad Vashem to get her first impressions, and she made us promise to let her come back to look back when she was not so tired and had time to think about things. We reached her by phone at her home in Jerusalem on Aug. 25, 2022.. Gitu -- a/k/a Giselle (Gita) Cycowicz (née Friedman) -- who was born in 1927 in the town of Chust in the Carpathian Mountains, then part of Czechoslovakia, survived Auschwitz and other camps, later starting a new life in the USA, and eventually getting her PhD in psychology. In her later years, she moved to Israel and then worked for decades for AMCHA (https://amcha.org), helping with the psychological needs of her fellow survivors. On Weds., Jul. 13, 2022, she was one of two Holocaust survivors invited to meet President Joseph Biden at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Here is a YouTube from the live stream of Gitu meeting Biden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q96DZT4qMXs&t=731s Here is Gitu's page at Yad Vashem: https://www.yadvashem.org/blog/i-have-to-tell-my-story-giselle-cycowicz.html

Part 2: Judy Altmann, born and raised in Jasina, Czechoslovakia, fondly recalls her home and family life in her town at the eastern edge of Karpatorus, which belonged to Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1939, Hungary during WWII, and now Ukraine. She worked in her family's general store, which served the lumber industry workers from the tiny surrounding villages. She recounts her mother's cooking talents and describes the dish known locally in Yiddish as ריפּינייִק Ripinyik, probably closest to Potatonik. (She sometimes refers to potatoes as ריבלעך (riblekh).) At the end, she summarizes her Holocaust experiences. In 1944, she and her parents and practically all Jews of the town were taken to Auschwitz. In her family's case, they were first made to stay for several days without shelter in the Jewish cemetery. From there they were taken to a ghetto in Mateszalca (Hungary ) for several weeks. Finally, they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She survived, but her parents and most of her family were killed. We reached Judy by phone at her home in Stamford, CT, on Aug. 31, 2022.

Air date: August 31, 2022

Happy New Year! אַ גוט געזונט יאָר

Please patronize our sponsors! Enjoy these vintage greetings from our sponsors:

The interview is conducted by Yiddish Voice co-host Lillian Shporer-Leavitt, a daughter of Shoah survivors who grew up speaking Yiddish and graduated from the Boston Workmen's Circle Yiddish Shule. A former computer business analyst and software trainer, she is an experienced Yiddish teacher and translator, having taught at the Workmen's Circle, Gann Academy of Greater Boston, Boston University Hillel, and Brandeis University. In addition, she has subtitled Yiddish films for the National Center for Jewish Film and translated Yizkor (memorial) books for the Jewish Genealogical Society.

Air date: August 17, 2022

We continue our summer rerun season with a panel discussion of the tragic events of August 12, 1952, in Moscow, with Gennady Estraikh, Jana Mazurkiewicz Meisarosh, and Sholem Beinfeld, which was originally aired August 12, 2020.

Air date: July 27, 2022

PS: you can still find the original podcast in our archive:

https://the-yiddish-voice-podcast.zencast.website/episodes/estraikh-mazurkiewicz-meisarosh-beinfeld-august-12-1952