The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast Yiddish Book Center

"The Shmooze" visits with Sebastian Schulman for a chat about Yiddish culture in America as we celebrate American Jewish Heritage Month. In conversation he shares some of what he’s found on the Yiddish Book Center’s website related to the Jewish American experience—Yiddish writers in America, Jewish food, Yiddish film, immigration, activism, and more.

Episode 369
April 28, 2024
Amherst, MA

Alex Weiser visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about his latest work, "in a dark blue night," consisting of two connected song cycles. The first, “in a dark blue night,” sets to music modernist Yiddish poetry about New York City at night, all written by Jewish immigrant poets at the turn of the 20th century. The second, “Coney Island Days,” transforms an oral history with his late grandmother, Irene Weiser, into a musical exploration of the time when Jews became Americans and the way that humble, individual stories can capture the sweeping breadth of history.

Episode 368
March 14, 2024
Amherst, MA

Sonia Bloom and Judith Liskin-Gasparro speak to "The Shmooze" about Yiddish-language learning, their work in the field, and their participation at the Yiddish Book Center’s upcoming Bossie Dubowick YiddishSchool.

Episode 367
March 11, 2024
Amherst, MA

Ross Perlin, the co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about his new book, "Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York." The book provides a portrait of contemporary New York City through six speakers of little-known and overlooked languages, diving into the incredible history of the most linguistically diverse place ever to have existed on the planet.

Episode 366
March 7, 2024
Amherst, MA

Author Ruth Behar speaks with "The Shmooze" about "Across So Many Seas." Her latest book was inspired by Behar’s paternal grandmother’s side of the family of Sephardic Jews living in Spain up until the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. Behar used her background as an anthropology professor to make a thoroughly researched and powerful novel about religious persecution and how refugees have been treated throughout history.

Episode 365
February 4, 2024
Amherst, MA

Marvin Zuckerman and Ruby Elliot Zuckerman join "The Shmooze" to talk about their family’s story, which is featured in the Yiddish Book Center’s new core exhibition, "Yiddish: A Global Culture." As Marvin shares, “In our one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx we had world literature—Georg Brandes, Maupassant, Marx, Darwin, Jack London, Tolstoy—all in Yiddish.” Marvin and his granddaughter Ruby share the experience of traveling together from the West Coast to be part of the exhibition’s opening and to see their family’s “Worker’s Library” on view.

Episode 364
January 22, 2023
Amherst, MA