Tune in! The Yiddish Book Center's Podcast

This week on The Shmooze we visit with Nicholas Lemann. A veteran New Yorker correspondent, Lemann grew up in New Orleans, the son of German Jews in a world of gilded privilege. Yet in contrast to his parents’ generation, which always sought to downplay their religious background, Lemann was intrigued by his roots, thinking he wanted to be like Jack Burden, the ever-curious reporter in Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. In conversation he talks about his recently released book, Returning, which tells both a personal family history and reveals much about Jewish life in the twenty-first century. Episode 409 April 22, 2026 Amherst, MA

Author Gil Ribak visited with "The Shmooze" to discuss his latest book, "Crude Creatures." The book draws on a mixture of previously unexplored Yiddish press, theater, and literature from Eastern Europe and the United States to examine how Black Africans and African Americans were depicted by Jews from the late nineteenth century through 1929. Episode 408 April 1, 2026 Amherst, MA

Author Judy Batalion visited with "The Shmooze" to talk about her latest book, "The Last Women of Warsaw." The historical novel follows two very different Jewish women in vibrant, stylish late-1930s Warsaw—the “Paris of the North”—as they grapple with the gathering storm clouds of war and unexpectedly come together in their search for love, meaning, and a sense of home. In conversation we discuss how the book shines a light on this rarely explored world, a city filled with theaters, cabaret, and nightclubs with revolving dancefloors Episode 407 March 23, 2026 Amherst, MA

Writer and artist Molly Crabapple visited with "The Shmooze" to speak about her forthcoming book, "Here Where We Live Is Our Country", the first popular history of the Bund. Molly re-creates the Bundists’ extraordinary world through dramatic portraits of insurgent poets and antireligious rebels, clandestine revolutionaries and lovers on the barricades. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Sam Rothbort created “memory paintings” with the hope of resurrecting the vanished world of his shtetl childhood. Decades later, his great-granddaughter Molly discovered these paintings, and one stood out: a girl, her dress the color of sky, hurling a rock through a cottage window. It was this painting—"Itka the Bundist, Breaking Windows"—that introduced Molly to the Jewish Labor Bund. Episode 406 March 5, 2026 Amherst, MA

Librettist and playwright Stephanie Fleishman and composer and playwright Alex Weiser sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about their collaboration on "Tevye’s Daughters." Their opera is based on Sholem Aleichem’s iconic Yiddish stories, exploring the tragic death of Tevye’s lesser-known daughter, Shprintse. The opera also traces the lasting impact of Shprintse’s fate on her sisters as elderly immigrants living in New York. The opera will be performed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on March 19, 2026. Episode 405 February 24, 2026 Amherst, MA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 "

"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

Scholar and translator Anita Norich talks to "The Shmooze" about her work translating the work of Yiddish women writers. Anita is the translator of Celia Dropkin’s "Desires," Kadya Molodovsky’s "A Jewish Refugee in America," and Chana Blankshteyn’s "Fear and Other Stories." She co-translated with Ellen Cassedy the forthcoming release of Rashel Veprinski’s "Hand in Hand." Anita reflects on the field of translation, the challenges Yiddish women writers faced, and the current work being done to bring these works to translation. Episode 396 August 31, 2025 Amherst, MA

Sarah Biskowitz and Ruby Zuckerman joined "The Shmooze" to talk about the Great Jewish Books Summer Program. Sarah and Ruby, alums of the program, are back at the Yiddish Book Center as RAs for this year’s program. In conversation we talk about their experiences as participants and as RAs and learn about how Great Jewish Books lead them in new directions, personal and professional. And we hear what’s on the reading list for this summer’s students. Episode 395 August 7, 2025 Amherst, MA

Andrew Jacobs, president of the board of the Borscht Belt Museum, joins us on "The Shmooze" to talk about the Borscht Belt Museum and the annual Borscht Belt Fest. The museum is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Catskills resort era and celebrating its history as a refuge from bigotry, the cradle of stand-up comedy, and a cultural catalyst that changed America. The annual festival includes everything from stand-up comedians and art workshops to live music and Jewish food. This year’s festival will take place July 26 & 27, 2025. Episode 394 July 20, 2025 Amherst, MA

Editors Altie Karper and Todd Portnowitz sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about Chaim Grade’s novel "Sons & Daughters" (Knopf)—newly translated into English by Rose Waldman. Originally serialized in the 1960s and 1970s in New York–based Yiddish newspapers, Grade’s "Sons and Daughters" tells the story of a way of life that is no longer. In conversation Altie and Todd tell the incredible backstory of how the work came to publication and why the newly translated novel has been lauded as the “last great Yiddish novel.” Episode 393 June 30, 2025 Amherst, MA

Co-authors Sheila Baslaw and Karen Levine joined "The Shmooze" to talk about "The Light Keeper," their illustrated children’s book that tells the story of ten-year-old Shmuel Saslovsky’s life in an early-twentieth-century shtetl. At 92, this is Sheila’s first published children’s book. In collaboration with Karen Levine, she worked to tell the story of how Sheila’s father Shmuel helped when electricity first came to his shtetl in Russia. Epsiode 392 May 18, 2025 Amherst, MA

When Albert Chasan (1930–2024) retired from the marketing communications firm he founded, “It hit me: I had to do something with the stories my parents told.” He took up painting and commemorated the formative years of his parents’ lives through a series of expressionistic, boldly hued acrylics. A selection of color prints of many of these historically poignant works are on exhibit at the Yiddish Book Center. On the occasion of the exhibit opening, before a live audience at the Yiddish Book Center, Albert’s daughter Betty and his son Robert sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about their father’s work as a painter and stories behind his narrative painting. Episode 391 May 5, 2025 Amherst, MA

This week on "The Shmooze," writer, translator, and literary scholar David Stromberg. In a wide-ranging conversation, David talks about his recently released translation of "Isaac Bashevis Singer: Writings on Yiddish and Yiddishkayt: A Spiritual Reappraisal, 1946–1955" (White Goat Press) and sheds light on Bashevis’s lesser-known nonfiction, which he has translated and edited for this collection of Singer’s writings. Episode 390 April 23, 2025 Amherst, MA