Podcasts about shmooze

On this edition of Shmooze Radio (originally aired 4/16/13) Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky talks about what it means to be a Jew.

2025 marks 120 years for United Way of Greater Atlanta. Milton J. Little, Jr., president and CEO of UWGA, discusses their long-standing mission, their resiliency, and their ongoing efforts to improve economic mobility across 13 metro counties by providing access to services and resources. Plus, Grant Wallace, known for his lawncare and glass recycling businesses featured on “Closer Look,” returns to the program to share his latest venture: The Southern Shmooze. The serial entrepreneur talks with Rose about his new business directory that was born from a Facebook group. He also shares how it’s helping Atlanta area residents connect with business owners.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

On this edition of Shmooze Radio (originally aired 4/17/12) Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky welcomes author Rabbi Pinchus Presworsky to talk about what makes an animal kosher and so much more.

Hankus Netsky joined "The Shmooze" to talk about his upcoming Morris Hollender 100th birthday concert. In conversation we spoke about how interest in Eastern European Jewish musical traditions has experienced an unprecedented resurgence in recent years and how the melodies that Morris Hollender brought over from his birthplace in a small farming village in the Carpathian Mountains have become a major pillar of that resurgence. An Auschwitz concentration camp survivor, Hollender came to the Boston area from Czechoslovakia in 1967. The program will include little-known melodies that Hollender learned as a child in the Munkacs region of Eastern Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) and shared generously with Temple Beth Israel members and others during his years in the United States. The concert will take at Temple Beth Israel located at 25 Harvard St, Waltham, MA 02453. Tickets and more information are available at https://tbiwaltham.org/concert/. Episode 389 April 14, 2025 Amherst, MA

Deb Kirvoy, director of the annual Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival, joined "The Shmooze" to talk about this year's lineup. Now in its nineteenth year, the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival continues its tradition of showcasing award-winning films from around the globe. This year's festival kicks off at the Yiddish Book Center on April 3 with the screening of "Midas Man." Episode 388 March 26, 2025 Amherst, MA

Translator Mel Konner and Professor Justin Cammy sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about the release of "Elephants by Night," a collection of newly translated poems by Abraham Sutzkever. The poems, a result of Sutzkever's travels to South Africa, are meditations on place, memory, and renewal. Episode 387 January 16, 2025 Amherst, MA

Allen Lewis Rickman and fellow actor Yelena Shmulenson, better known as the shtetl couple from the Coen brothers' Oscar-nominated "A Serious Man," sat down with "The Shmooze" to chat about their work in Yiddish theater and their staging of their fast-paced comedy "THE ESSENCE: A YIDDISH THEATRE DIM SUM," which is onstage at the New York's Theater 154 January 7 to 12, 2025. Episode 386 January 7, 2025 Amherst, MA

Direct from engagements in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, Shane Baker and Miryem-Khaye Seigel sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about their latest collaboration, "BASHEVIS'S DEMONS." The performance includes three short stories by legendary Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer. It makes its official Off-Broadway bow at Theatre 154, 154 Christopher Street (between Greenwich and Washington Streets), with performances beginning December 18, 2024, through January 5, 2025. "BASHEVIS'S DEMONS" will be presented by the Congress for Jewish Culture in association with Out of the Box Theatrics and ChaShaMa. Tickets are available at https://congressforjewishculture.org/bashevisdemons. Episode 385 December 11, 2024 Amherst, MA

Frank London visited with "The Shmooze" to chat about his latest LP, "In the City of God," and other releases. In a far-flung conversation, Frank spoke about how he became a musician, his influences past and present, and the release of the new LP. Episode 384 December 5, 2024 Amherst, MA

Ilan Stavans sits down with "The Shmooze" to talk about his recently released cookbook, "Sabor Judío." Co-authored with Margaret Boyle, the collection of over 100 recipes celebrates the fusion of two culinary traditions, Jewish and Mexican, and tells the story of how cooking and eating connects Jewish Mexicans across places and generations. Episode 383 November 30, 2024 Amherst, MA

Ezra Glinter sat down with "The Shmooze" to talk about his recently released biography of Menachem Mendel Schneerson. This is the first biography of Schneerson to combine a nonpartisan view of his life, work, and impact with an insider's understanding of the ideology that drove him and that continues to inspire the Chabad-Lubavitch movement today. Episode 382 November 21, 2024 Amherst, MA"

In a live conversation at the Yiddish Book Center, award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and author Harvey Wang visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about his work and his recently opened exhibit, "Harvey Wang's New York."In the early years of his career, in the 1980s, Harvey's photographic beat was the New York City nightlife scene. Yet a very different facet of the downtown landscape fascinated him. Cycling through the Lower East Side, he'd notice old businesses clearly not long for this world—venerable holdouts from when the neighborhood was an epicenter of Jewish immigration. Episode 381 October 9, 2024 Amherst, MA"

David Mazower, chief-curator and writer of "Yiddish: A Global Culture," and Caleb Sher, the Yiddish Book Center's Richard S. Herman Endowed Senior Fellow, join "The Shmooze" to share the news that the Center's groundbreaking exhibition, "Yiddish: A Global Culture," is now live on the Bloomberg Connects app. The free, downloadable app allows users to explore expert-curated guides from some 550 selected cultural institutions across the globe in the palm of their hand. David and Caleb share some of what can be found on the app—from featured artifacts, videos, and audio to how to plan your visit or learn about related exhibits and public programs. Episode 380 September 26, 2024 Amherst, MA

Novelist Ben Gonshor joins "The Shmooze" to talk about his debut novel, "The Book of Izzy." The book's main character, Izzy, is a writer at wit's end in life and on the verge of a complete breakdown with his career in wedding planning. Following an encounter with a mysterious bird seemingly visible only to him, he agrees to take on the leading role in an amateur production of the greatest play in all of the Yiddish theater: "The Dybbuk," a gothic tale of destiny, possession, and the triumph of love over all. In conversation with Ben we talk about the many layers of Izzy and the book's underlying narrative. Episode 379 August 27, 2024 Amherst, MA

Writer Joan Leegant joined "The Shmooze" to talk about her latest book, "Displaced Persons," a collection of rich, multilayered short stories, half set in Israel, half among Jewish families in the States. The fictional stories explore exile, belonging, and what it means to call a place home. Episode 378 August 22, 2024 Amherst, MA

Rokhl Kafrissen—journalist, teacher, playwright, and 2022 winner of the prestigious Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish prize—sits down with "The Shmooze" this week to talk about her upcoming Yiddish Book Center online course “Sacred Time and Liminal Space: Ashkenazi Folk Magic at the Threshold.” Rokhl talks about the unique Eastern European women's folk magic ritual known as "feldmestn:" measuring a cemetery (and its graves) to make special holiday candles. In conversation she shares other traditions and tells how the course will also place a special emphasis on learning about these customs through short stories, particularly the work of Sarah Hamer Jacklyn. Episode 377 August 14, 2024 Amherst, MA

Translator and adapter Weaver sits down with "The Shmooze" to talk about the drama group Theater Between Addresses and its upcoming immersive, staged reading of Sholem Asch's "Shabbtai Tsvi," which Weaver translated and adapted. Never before performed in its entirety, the play shows the meteoric rise and tragic fall of Shabbtai Tsvi, the 17th-century Ottoman Jewish mystic whose messianic aspirations attracted a following of thousands of Jews from every corner of the earth. The reading will take place outdoors on the grounds of the Yiddish Book Center. Episode 376 August 7, 2024 Amherst, MA

This week on "The Shmooze" we visit with Rebecca (Rivke) Margolis, author of "The Yiddish Supernatural on Screen: Dybbuks, Demons and Haunted Jewish Pasts." In conversation we talk about how the book traces the transformation of the figure of the dybbuk—a soul of the dead possessing the living—from folklore to 1930s Polish Yiddish cinema to global contemporary media. We also explore how translated and subtitled Yiddish dialogue reimagines Jewish lore and tells new stories, where the supernatural looms over the narrative. Episode 375 July 31, 2024 Amherst, MA

Avia Moore and Sebastian Schulman join "The Shmooze" for a lively conversation about all things Klezakanda. As Avia shares, KlezKanada “fosters a community where the vibrant living tradition of Yiddish culture and Jewish music continues to thrive.” This year's lineup includes workshops on Yiddish song, dance, and language learning as well as a translation workshop, a cabaret, and a three-part talk on Quebec in Yiddish and Yiddish in Quebec. The Yiddish Book Center is a co-sponsor of KlezKanada 2024. Episode 374 July 25, 2024 Amherst, MA

Filmaker Elan Golod visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about his documentary "Nathan-ism." The film tells the story of Nathan Hilu, the son of Syrian Jewish immigrants to New York who received a life-changing assignment from the U.S. Army: to guard the top Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. This experience fueled a lifetime of artistic inspiration for Nathan, a virtually unknown outsider artist who spent the next 70 years obsessively creating a visual narrative from his memories. Episode 373 June 11, 2024 Amherst, MA

Kimberly Lazzeri joins "The Shmooze" to talk about the recently released "Yiddish Folksong Project Anthology." Kimberly shares the story behind this collection of Robert De Cormier's folksong arrangements, which had been in a storage closet for over forty years. This is the first-ever publication of De Cormier's arrangements of Yiddish folksongs and the first-ever large body of Yiddish folksong repertoire arranged in the classical style for performance on the concert or recital stage. Episode 372 June 6, 2024 Amherst, MA

Piotr Nazaruk and Karla McCabe joined "The Shmooze" to tell the story of the thirty-six postcards that Karla recently hand-delivered to Pitor Nazaruk at a ceremony in Lublin, Poland. Karla explains how this collection of postcards were looted from the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in the war and now, eighty years later, have found their way back home. Episode 371 May 29, 2024 Amherst, MA

Writer Sivan Slapak visits with "The Shmooze" to talk about her debut collection, "Here Is Still Here." The stories provide a layered exploration of human connection and the complexities of identity. In conversation, Sivan shares how these stories—which take readers from Montreal to Jerusalem and back again as the main character navigates checkpoints and borders, home and exile, milestones and disappointment, and love and loss—are threaded together. Episode 370 May 13, 2024 Amherst, MA

"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

Host Justin Barnes, aka the @HITAdvisor, invites back a great guest of the show Brett Hunsaker, a pioneer in relationship building and the inspiration for the book, Mr. Shmooze to discuss networking events. How have networking events change from pre-COVID? Why are they still relevant and how do you make them memorable and successful? To stream our Station live 24/7 visit www.HealthcareNOWRadio.com or ask your Smart Device to “….Play Healthcare NOW Radio”. Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn more at www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen