The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

Oct 09 2024 381 ep. 23 mins 957

The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast artwork

The Yiddish Book Center's podcast includes conversations with Jewish culture makers, plus news and stories related to Yiddish literature, language, and culture.

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Episode 381: Harvey Wang’s New York

Oct 09 2024 29 mins

In a live conversation at the Yiddish Book Center, award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and author Harvey Wang visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about his work and his recently opened exhibit, "Harvey Wang’s New York."In the early years of his career, in the 1980s, Harvey’s photographic beat was the New York City nightlife scene. Yet a very different facet of the downtown lan

Episode 380: Yiddish: A Global Culture live on Bloomberg Connects

Sep 25 2024 23 mins

David Mazower, chief-curator and writer of "Yiddish: A Global Culture," and Caleb Sher, the Yiddish Book Center’s Richard S. Herman Endowed Senior Fellow, join "The Shmooze" to share the news that the Center’s groundbreaking exhibition, "Yiddish: A Global Culture," is now live on the Bloomberg Connects app. The free, downloadable app allows users to explore expert-curated guide

Episode 379: The Book of Izzy

Aug 26 2024 24 mins

Novelist Ben Gonshor joins "The Shmooze" to talk about his debut novel, "The Book of Izzy." The book’s main character, Izzy, is a writer at wit’s end in life and on the verge of a complete breakdown with his career in wedding planning. Following an encounter with a mysterious bird seemingly visible only to him, he agrees to take on the leading role in an amateur production of t

Episode 378: Displaced Persons: A Multilayered Collection of Stories

Aug 21 2024 23 mins

Writer Joan Leegant joined "The Shmooze" to talk about her latest book, "Displaced Persons," a collection of rich, multilayered short stories, half set in Israel, half among Jewish families in the States. The fictional stories explore exile, belonging, and what it means to call a place home. Episode 378 August 22, 2024 Amherst, MA

Episode 377: Ashkenazi Folk Magic at the Threshold

Aug 13 2024 26 mins

Rokhl Kafrissen—journalist, teacher, playwright, and 2022 winner of the prestigious Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish prize—sits down with "The Shmooze" this week to talk about her upcoming Yiddish Book Center online course “Sacred Time and Liminal Space: Ashkenazi Folk Magic at the Threshold.” Rokhl talks about the unique Eastern European women’s folk magic ritual know

Episode 0376: Adapted for a Staged Reading: Sholem Asch’s Shabbtai Tsvi

Aug 06 2024 21 mins

Translator and adapter Weaver sits down with "The Shmooze" to talk about the drama group Theater Between Addresses and its upcoming immersive, staged reading of Sholem Asch’s "Shabbtai Tsvi," which Weaver translated and adapted. Never before performed in its entirety, the play shows the meteoric rise and tragic fall of Shabbtai Tsvi, the 17th-century Ottoman Jewish mystic whose m

Episode 0375: The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen

Jul 30 2024 28 mins

This week on "The Shmooze" we visit with Rebecca (Rivke) Margolis, author of "The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen: Dybbuks, Demons and Haunted Jewish Pasts." In conversation we talk about how the book traces the transformation of the figure of the dybbuk—a soul of the dead possessing the living—from folklore to 1930s Polish Yiddish cinema to global contemporary media. We also ex

Episode 0374: Klezkanada’s Summer Retreat

Jul 24 2024 22 mins

Avia Moore and Sebastian Schulman join "The Shmooze" for a lively conversation about all things Klezakanda. As Avia shares, KlezKanada “fosters a community where the vibrant living tradition of Yiddish culture and Jewish music continues to thrive.” This year’s lineup includes workshops on Yiddish song, dance, and language learning as well as a translation workshop, a cabaret,

Episode 0373: Nathan-ism: The Story of Artist Nathan Hilu

Jun 10 2024 15 mins

Filmaker Elan Golod visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about his documentary "Nathan-ism." The film tells the story of Nathan Hilu, the son of Syrian Jewish immigrants to New York who received a life-changing assignment from the U.S. Army: to guard the top Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. This experience fueled a lifetime of artistic inspiration for Nathan, a virtually un

Episode 0372: The Yiddish Folksong Project

Jun 05 2024 16 mins

Kimberly Lazzeri joins "The Shmooze" to talk about the recently released "Yiddish Folksong Project Anthology." Kimberly shares the story behind this collection of Robert De Cormier’s folksong arrangements, which had been in a storage closet for over forty years. This is the first-ever publication of De Cormier’s arrangements of Yiddish folksongs and the first-ever large body of