The 'Yiddish Voice' Podcast Yiddish Voice ייִדיש קול

Highlights: Mark ("Marek") Gaysinskiy reports from the Yivo-Bard Zumer-Program; Pnina Sharf, a resident of Los Angeles and a Holocaust survivor from Poland, talks about her life experiences; from Boston's Yiddish past: a performance by the late Cantor Gregor Shelkan, performing a song about what will happen when Meshiekh (the Messiah) comes (recorded in 1999 at the Cantorial concert in honor of Cantor Simon Kandler).


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

Air Date: July 17, 2024

Highlights:



A report from the Yivo-Bard Yiddish Summer Program by student Tara Neuwirth, who has attended several times beginning in 1983. This year's Zumer-program kicked off last week and seems off to a good start. We spoke to Tara by phone on July 10, 2024. We hope to hear more from other students and teachers from this and other Yiddish summer courses around the world. Info on the Yivo-Bard Yiddish Summer program here: https://summerprogram.yivo.org



Prof. Sholem Beinfeld, professor emeritus of history at Washington University, St. Louis, gives a brief lecture on Dovid Sfard, Hersh Smolar, and the Yiddish-Communist Milieu in Poland after WWII, and then discusses the topic with Hershl Glasser and Reyze Turner, who translated the book A citizen of Yiddishland: Dovid Sfard and the Jewish Communist Milieu in Poland (Nalewajko-Kulikov, Joanna; Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, Bern, 2020) into English. Book info: https://www.peterlang.com/document/1114288 We recorded the lecture and discussion via Zoom on June 17, 2024. A book by Hersh Smolar, originally in Yiddish, is about to come out this August 2024, translated into Yiddish by Ruth Murphy. Info here: https://www.benyehudapress.com/books/jews-without-yellow-stars/



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



Air Date: July 10, 2024

Meet Itel Landau (maiden family name: Brettler), a Holocaust survivor originally from Vișeu de Sus (Felsővisó in Hungarian, אויבערווישעווע in Yiddish), a shtetl in Transylvania (prewar Romania, Hungary during WWII, now Romania), discussing her life — before, during, and after the Holocaust. Itel was born into a Hassidic family, the Brettlers, who sold manufacturing materials. In 1940, Transylvania was taken over by Hungary. Among other changes, her school days were ended. In the spring of 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary, and soon after she and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She, her mother, and two sisters were among the few survivors from her large extended family. After the war, she endured years of recovery from Tuberculosis in a sanitarium in France. She eventually married and moved to Bogota, Colombia, where she raised her family. After her children began to attend Yeshivas in New York, she and her family relocated there. She now lives in Manhattan.We reached Itel for this interview by phone on June 6, 2024. For more information, see also Itel's 1988 interview with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Thanks to Reb Yisrael Brettler, coproducer of this episode, who is also Itel's first cousin once removed.

Music:


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

Air Date: June 19, 2024

This week, Yiddish poetry lovers are in for a treat: an interview with Sarah Traister Moskowitz with her reading of poems in the collection „דאָס ליד איז געבליבן“ ("The Song Remains") along with her English translations. Sarah is the translator of the collection of poems Dos Lid is Geblibn, or The Song Remains, on the new website thesongremains.org, an anthology of Yiddish poems with English translations from the Nazi German occupation of Poland. The collection is taken from the book of the same name in Yiddish, edited by Binem Heller and originally published in Poland in 1951. In the interview Sarah talks about her life and her connections to Yiddish, the Holocaust, and this collection of poetry. She also reads three of the poems from the collection in Yiddish along with her English translation:


Kapital (Das Kapital) -Sh. Zhirman
Aktualie (Actually) -Misha Troyanov
Lodzh (Łódź) -M. Goldshteyn

Sarah worked for years with child-Holocaust-survivors in Los Angeles and helped produce the book How We Survived: 52 Personal Stories by Child Survivors of the Holocaust, including writing its forward, which she reads from in the Interview. Read more about Sarah Moskovitz at the new website: https://thesongremains.org/translator-sarah-traister-moskovitz/

Also on this week's show: Miriam Libenson ז״ל's presentation for Lag B'Oymer from our archive (originally recorded and aired in the 1990's). Miriam was a poet in her own right, whose poetry often graced our airwaves, as well as such publications as דער טאָג-מאָרגן-דשורנאָל and פּיאָנערן פֿרויען (Der Tog-Morgn-Dzhurnal and Pionern-Froyen).

Music/recordings:


Sarah Gorby: Zog Nit Keynmol
Raasche: Arum Dem Fayer
Tova Ben-Zvi: Lag-B'Oimer
Wolf Krakowski: Yeder Ruft Mikh Ziamele
Wolf Krakowski: Varshe
Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air date: May 22, 2024

This week we have a new interview with Marvin Zuckerman, who grew up in the Yiddish-speaking milieu of Jewish Labor Bund in Bronx, New York. He became a professor of English at a Los Angeles college and created the well-regarded Yiddish primer Learning Yiddish in Easy Stages and several other books in the field of Yiddish. He translated from the Yiddish the memoir of the prominent Bundist Bernard Goldstein (Twenty Years with the Jewish Labor Bund: A Memoir of Interwar Poland, Perdue University Press, 2016). In the interview he talks about his childhood in his secular-socialist-Yiddishist milieu of the 1930's and 40's; about Bundism's history and place in Jewish history; the bundist perspective, past and present, and in contrast to Communism and Zionism; about his translation of Bernard Goldstein's Bundist memoir; about teaching Yiddish and his Yiddish-language primer; and about Yiddish language and culture generally. The interview was conducted at Zuckerman's home in Pacific Pallisades, CA, on February 22, 2024.

Music/recordings:


Klepfisch Folkskhor: Di Shvue (anthem of the Jewish Labor Bund)
Lazar Weiner and Workmen's Circle Chorus: Di Shvue
Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air date: May 15, 2024

This week we observe Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel Independence Day) talking with Mike Burstyn, Miriam Trinh, Eli Sharfstein and Avremi Zaks.

Mike Burstyn is a distinguished actor and singer known for his roles in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English theater and film across Israeli, American, and international stages. Recently, he starred in the German comedy drama The Zweiflers, awarded Best Series at the 7th annual Canneseries festival in April 2024. Burstyn first gained prominence in Israel as a child actor with his family's troupe, The Four Bursteins, and later through significant roles in The Megillah of Itzik Manger (1965) and Two Kuni Lemel (1966).

Miriam Trinh is the editor-in-chief of Afn Shvel, teaching Yiddish language and literature at Hebrew University and online platforms like Workers Circle and YIVO. She has written for the Yiddish Forward (Forverts), including the interview with Tzili Venkert described on our show and a recent article published post-show, "לכּבֿוד יום-הזכּרון זאָל דער געדענק־פּלאַקאַט פֿון קיבוץ בארי נישט לאָזן פֿאַרגעסן." Trinh moved to Israel after high school and resides in Jerusalem with her family.

Eli Sharfstein is a contemporary poet and writer living in the Israeli kibbutz Ma’agan Michael. Born in Vilna and moved to Israel in 1972, he is a veteran of the Yom Kippur war. He has published two books of Yiddish poems, פּלוצעם ייִדיש and מײַן ווילנער זאַוווּליק.

Avremi Zaks the host and producer of the weekly Israeli Yiddish radio program "Kan Yidish." He was born in Israel and lives in Jerusalem with his wife and children.

Links mentioned in this episode:


Beit HaLochem (Los Angeles): https://www.israeliwoundedveterans.org
The Zweiflers TV series starring Mke Burstyn, home page
League for Yiddish: https://leagueforyiddish.org
Afn Shvel Issue #400-401 at League for Yiddish
Yiddish Forward (Forverts): https://forward.com/yiddish/
Forverts Article on Interview with Tzili Venkert, grandmother of hostage Omar Venkert
Yiddish Branzhe: https://yiddishbranzhe.com
Kan Yiddish (כאן יידיש) archive (Avremi Zaks's Yiddish radio show)

Music/recordings:


Dovid Esheth: Yerusholayim Shtot fun Gold
M...