The Shmooze, The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

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

  1. FEB 12

    Episode 404: Once There Was a Town: The Memory Books of a Lost Jewish World

    Author Jane Ziegelman joined "The Shmooze "to talk about her latest book, "Once There Was a Town." In conversation Jane talks about Yizkor (memorial) books and how she discovered the story of her family’s ancestral shtetl between the pages of the Luboml Yizkor book. Episode 404 February 12, 2026 Amherst, MA

    24 min

  2. JAN 15

    Episode 403: Polin: A One-Woman Play

    Juliette Carbonnier joins The Shmooze to talk about her one-woman play, Polin. Polin is both a travel story and a ghost story, taking the audience through the Warsaw cabaret scene of the 1920s, the Lodz Ghetto in the 1930s, the Terezin concentration camp in the 1940s, and the Catskills Borscht Belt of the 1950s. Polin is also a love letter to New York City as homeland, so that is where we begin and end the journey. Polin was developed through Princeton University’s Martin A. Dale ’53 Fellowship and will be presented on January 30, 2026, at the Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn, New York. Episode 403 January 15, 2026 Amherst, MA

    27 min

  3. 12/16/2025

    Episode 402: East Endings: Jewish East End writers, artists, and activists

    Film director, film producer, and screenwriter Mark Jay spoke with "The Shmooze" about his 1993 documentary film "East Endings". "East Endings" documents a night at Bloom’s in May 1993—then one of the last remaining kosher restaurants in Whitechapel. Harry Blacker, renowned cartoonist and satirist of British Jewry, arrives to celebrate his 83rd birthday. Greeted by a group of old friends including Anna Tzelniker, Barnet Litvinoff, Bill Fishman, Brian Sewell, Simon Blumenfeld, and Rabbi Lionel Blue, they spend the evening together reminiscing about the Jewish East End of the 1930s: its humor, history, and politics of solidarity. Episode 402 December 16, 2025 Amherst, MA

    25 min

  4. 12/15/2025

    Episode 401: A Tour of Global Jewish Languages with Sebastian Schulman

    Sebastian Schulman joined The Shmooze to talk about the Yiddish Book Center’s upcoming online course Speak the World! A Tour of Global Jewish Languages. Sebastian shared that the four-part online course will explore Jewish languages with scholars, activists, and artists who are working in the field today. Instructors will speak about the diversity, history, and the contemporary efforts to preserve, document, and continue speaking these languages. This course is presented in partnership with The Jewish Language Project. Episode 401 December 15, 2025 Amherst, MA

    14 min

  5. 12/09/2025

    Episode 400: The Life of A. N. Stencl: The Prince of Whitechapel

    Dr. Rachel Lichtenstein, one of the foremost chroniclers of Jewish East London, visited with The Shmooze to talk about A. N. Stencl, a native Yiddish speaker from Poland, who settled in London’s East End in 1936 and became an activist and campaigner for the continuation of Yiddish. His extraordinary life spanned the height and demise of contemporary Yiddish culture. Stencl’s literary journal, Loshn un lebn (Language and Life), featured his own memoirs, poems, and essays alongside an array of work by other Yiddish writers from around the globe that explored political and literary topics of the time. Rachel’s work on Stencl includes a forthcoming book, The Prince of Whitechapel, a website hosting the complete collection Loshn un lebn, and a digital archive on Stencl in collaboration with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Centre for Jewish History in New York, funded by Arcadia. Episode 400 December 9, 2025 Amherst, MA

    25 min

  6. 10/29/2025

    Episode 399: A Memoir of the Ghetto of Šiauliai, Lithuania

    Ellen Cassedy and Andrew Cassel joined The Shmooze to talk about their work translating So We Died: A Memoir of Life and Death in the Ghetto of Šiauliai, Lithuania, by Levi Shalit. Few accounts of the Šiauliai, or Shavl, Ghetto survived the war. Shalit’s work offers English-language readers a rare insight into a vital chapter of history. In conversation we learn about Levi Shalit the writer and how his literary and journalist style illuminates the Shavl Ghetto’s daily struggles, false hopes, and atrocities. Episode 399 October 30, 2025 Amherst, MA

    29 min

  7. 09/20/2025

    Episode 398: Shakespeare & Company’s Jewish Play Festival

    Shakespeare & Company’s Artistic Director Allyn Burrows and the co-chair of the upcoming Celebrating Jewish Plays program Greg Lipper sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about the weekend-long event. Celebrating Jewish Plays runs October 10–12, 2025, and will feature four staged readings—"The Price," by Arthur Miller; "The Sisters Rosensweig," by Wendy Wasserstein; "Here There Are Blueberries," by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich; and "Roz and Ray," by Karen Hartman, featuring Tony-nominated actor John Douglas Thompson ("The Gilded Age"). Established in the 1970s, Shakespeare & Company, in Lenox, Massachusetts, develops and performs Shakespeare’s works as well as other classic, contemporary, and socially and politically significant works. The company embraces the core values of Shakespearean ethos: collaboration, commitment to language, visceral experience, and classical ideals expressed with physical prowess and an embodied contemporary voice. Episode 397 September 21, 2025 Amherst, MA "

    17 min

  8. 09/06/2025

    Ep397: In geveb

    "In geveb"’s board president Mindl Cohen and the journal’s editor-in-chief Jessica Kirzane visit with "The Shmooze" to talk all things "In geveb." "In geveb" is a subscription-free digital forum that publishes peer-reviewed academic articles and translated and annotated Yiddish texts; it also serves as an exchange platform for pedagogical materials and as a blog of Yiddish cultural life. In conversation we talk about the history of "In geveb" and discuss the challenges, accomplishments, and future plans the journal faces as it marks its 10th year. Episode 397 September 7, 2025 Amherst, MA

    26 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.9
out of 5
13 Ratings

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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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