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The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Podcast

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Podcast

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 A podcast from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research featuring talks, lectures, and cultural programming on Jewish history, language, and culture. Learn more at www.yivo.org.New Books Network Art Literary History & Criticism Spirituality World
Episodes
  • The Lost World of African American Cantors 1915–1953

    The Lost World of African American Cantors 1915–1953
    Apr 28 2026
    Histories of Black-Jewish cultural interaction often focus on how Jews adopted and adapted Black vernacular music—ragtime, jazz, swing, R&B, blues—as performers, promoters, managers, club owners, and record labels. The phenomenon of African American musicians who performed Yiddish and cantorial music in and for the Jewish community in theaters, on record, on radio, and in concert between the World Wars deserves such scholarly inquiry. This talk will honor the memory of now forgotten Black cantors – Mendele der Shvartser Khazn, Reb Dovid Kalistrita, Abraham Ben Benjamin Franklin, Thomas LaRue Jones, and Goldye di Shvartse Khaznte, the first known Black woman cantor. This talk by award winning producer, author, and ethnomusicologist Henry Sapoznik will feature dozens of historic graphics, translations of period Yiddish newspaper previews, ads, and reviews, and the playing of the one known 1923 Yiddish and Hebrew recording of Thomas Jones LaRue. This lecture originally took place on June 15, 2021.
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Am Yisrael High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis

    Am Yisrael High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis
    Apr 20 2026
    Mentioned in the Bible and discussed in numerous traditional texts, cannabis has long been a part of Jewish life. For millennia, Jews have been buying, selling, and using cannabis for religious and medicinal purposes and as an intoxicant. The opening of YIVO’s latest exhibit, Am Yisrael High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis, will feature a panel discussion moderated by Eddy Portnoy, who will provide a brief overview of the relationship between Jews and cannabis. He’ll then moderate a discussion with Ed Rosenthal, Adriana Kertzer, Rabbi/Dr. Yosef Glassman, and Madison Margolin. Their discussion will consider the many connections of the Jews to cannabis – religious and spiritual, historical, scientific, and more. Find more information about the exhibit here: https://yivo.org/Cannabis This panel discussion originally took place on May 5, 2022.
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony

    From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony
    Apr 19 2026
    After escaping the Vilna Ghetto and surviving winter in the forest among partisan fighters, Avrom Sutzkever was airlifted to Moscow in 1944. The renowned Yiddish poet turned to memoir to detail his two years in the Vilna Ghetto. In his sobering account, Sutzkever details the Nazi occupation and establishment of the ghetto, daily life in the ghetto, and mass killings at Ponar. He also details armed Jewish resistance, how Jews organized collectively to retain their dignity, and demand for historical justice. The memoir, From the Vilna Ghetto to Nuremberg: Memoir and Testimony, was originally published in Yiddish in 1946, and has been translated into English for the first time by professor of Jewish studies and world literatures Justin Cammy. Join Justin Cammy and YIVO's Executive Director and CEO Jonathan Brent for a discussion of the great poet’s account of the Holocaust. Buy the book This book talk originally took place on January 27, 2022.
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    1 hr
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