This week, greetings for Rosh Hashona from friends, participants, and sponsors of The Yiddish Voice / דאָס ייִדישע קול, combined with an exciting new interviews with Rabbi Moshe Waldoks and Holocaust survivor Henry Slucki.

אַ גוט, געבענטשט יאָר אַלע אונדזערע צוהערער לשנה טובֿה

Highlights:

• Interview with Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, whose biographical one-man show "You Can Live If They Let You" recently debuted in Boston, amid much acclaim (including a Boston Globe feature article) to sold-out audiences. Recorded Sept. 18, 2024, by phone. Info on Moshe Waldoks on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Waldoks
• Interview with Henry Slucki, a Holocaust survivor, professor of psychology at USC, cultural and political activist. Recorded Sept. 18, 2024, via Zoom.
• Greetings on behalf of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants of Greater Boston, featuring members Tania Lefman (Treasurer), Mary Ehrlich, Rosalie Reszelbach, and Miriam Modricamin.
• Greetings from Eli Dovek ז״ל, late proprietor of our sponsor Israel Bookshop, Brookline, MA.
• Greeting from Sholem Beinfeld, co-host. Recorded Sept. 18, 2024, by phone.
• Greetings on behalf of the League for Yiddish / די ייִדיש-ליגע by Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, Board Chair. Recorded Sept. 18, 2024.
• Greetings on behalf of the Hebrew Actors Foundation and CYCO Yiddish Book Center by Hy Wolfe. Recorded via Zoom Sept. 18, 2024.

Music:

• Cantor Simcha Koussevitzky: Zochreinu L'Chayim
• Pesachke Burstein: Men ken leben nor men lozt nit (Composer: Joseph Rumshinsky)
• Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air date: September 18, 2024

This week, interviews with Perl Teitelbaum and Hy Wolfe. We spoke with them in person at 2024 Yugntruf Yidish-Vokh in Copake, NY, on Aug. 21, 2024.

• Paula (Perl) Teitelbaum is a Yiddish language at Arbeter Ring, Yivo Institute, and elsewhere. She talked about a new technique she's been using for teaching Yiddish by watching films. A Yiddish singer who has performed on several album, she also shared memories of creating the popular song Vaserl along with co-writer Rukhl Schaechter.

• Hy Wolfe is a Yiddish singer and actor, as well as an activist involved in managing several important Yiddish organizations: Hebrew Actors Foundation, Sholem Aleichem Culture Center, and CYCO Yiddish Book Center. He talked about those organizations, and also shared some personal memories from his career on the Yiddish stage.

• Music:

  • Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz
  • Philip (Fayvl) Yucht, Shifee Lovitt: Vaserl וואַסערל (Arrangement by Andy Statman and his ensemble)
  • Meilech Kohn: Mein Held מײַן העלד

Air Date: August 21, 2024

This week, an interview with Dovid Braun, talking about the Yivo Bard Zumer-Program and a few related matters. Dovid serves as Academic Director for the summer program, which recently concluded, and year-round as Yivo's Academic Director for Yiddish. And we hear from our archive (1995) Miriam Libenson on Tisha B'Ov , which falls this year on the night of Monday, Aug. 12.

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

Air Date: August 7, 2024

This week, Arieh Hecht, a patient advocate in Los Angeles, talks about his life as a child of Holocaust survivors originally from Transylvania (Hungary during WWII) and his work as a patient advocate. We spoke with Arieh in person in Los Angeles on July 4, 2024. We begin with a report from the Yivo-Bard Zumer-Program by Nokhem Lerner, who's been a Yiddish teacher there the past two years. We reached Nokhem by phone in the New York area on July 29, 2024.

• Music:
  • Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz
  • Outro instrumental music: Itzhak Perlman, Dov Seltzer, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra: Afn Veg Shteyt A Boym

Air Date: July 31, 2024

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