SHOW NOTESYou may not know who Sholem Aleichem is. Or you may just assume he’s a fusty old Yiddish author. But if you’ve ever laughed at an episode of Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, you should know about Sholem Aleichem. If you’ve ever enjoyed a movie by Mel Brooks or Woody Allen, you should know about Sholem Aleichem. If you’ve ever appreciated a book by Philip Roth or Jonathan Safran Foer, you should know about Sholem Aleichem. If you’ve ever chuckled at a self-deprecating joke told by Rodney Dangerfield or Joan Rivers or Jon Stewart, you should know about Sholem Aleichem.For this second episode in our informal series leading up to an episode about Fiddler on the Roof, we’ll learn about Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem, whose tragicoming writing has been called the “anchoring work of the modern Jewish canon.” SOURCESAlisa Solomon, Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (https://a.co/d/f9zpnBO)https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/1142https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2020/05/sholem-aleichem-the-yiddish-mark-twain/https://tikvah.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Tikvah_StudyGuide_Wisse_v3.pdfhttps://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/discover/yiddish-literature/sholem-aleichem-conversation-ruth-wisse-and-davidhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VouWU91olAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMhLaVUb4oc
--------
17:22
Episode 009 - Documenting Survivors (with Dana Arschin and Brian Marcus)
Today, January 27, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Episode 9 of the Recognizably Jewish podcast is a deeply meaningful discussion with two people who have devoted their talents to documenting Holocaust survivors.
Dana Arschin is an award-winning journalist and the official Storyteller for the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County. She is also the proud granddaughter of an Auschwitz Concentration Camp survivor, her Poppy.
Brian Marcus is a renowned event photographer and the third-generation leadership of Fred Marcus Photography. He’s the co-author, with June Hersh, of the book Still Here: Inspiration From Survivors & Liberators of the Holocaust. Fred Marcus, Brian’s grandfather and the eponymous founder of the studio, was a survivor of Buchenwald.
I talked to Dana and Brian about their work and about how Holocaust survivorship, and narratives of survivorship more generally, fit within the broader Jewish cultural rubric. Self-identification as a chosen but oppressed people is nothing new to Jewishness. But in the 20th century, the specific idea of “never forget” became an ingrained part of Jewish cultural identity. It’s a uniting feature that applies regardless of your religious practices or political or world views. To make “never forget” a reality requires dedicated work from documentarians of all kinds. Dana and Brian are two such documentarians, recording and celebrating the stories of the survivors themselves.
--------
27:47
Episode 008 - Klezmer
When you hear klezmer music, you know it’s Jewish. You can feel it. But why? It’s not like klezmer melodies, instrumentation, or styles are prescribed by the Torah. The answer, of course, is culture. Klezmer has been a part of Jewish culture for hundreds of years.
Listen to today’s episode of Recognizably Jewish to learn all about the history and characteristics of klezmer and how it became so deeply enmeshed in Jewish culture.
My primary source for this episode/post is Yale Strom’s The Book of Klezmer: The History, the Music, the Folklore Paperback. If you want to learn even more deeply about klezmer, you should definitely read it.
--------
25:25
Episode 007 - Semite, Hebrew, Israelite, Jew
For this first Recognizably Jewish episode of 2025, we’re going to talk about four words that everyone understands refer to Jewish people – Semite, Hebrew, Israelite, and Jew. The words, and derivations of the words, are used all the time. For many, the words are themselves part of one’s identity in the world. But have you ever stopped to think about where the words came from, and how they came to have the meanings they have today? Listen to today’s episode to find out.
Please subscribe to the Recognizably Jewish Substack:
recognizablyjewish.substack.com
For all of our links, check out our Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/recognizably.jewish
Selected sources:
This is the map I refer to in the episode: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:12_Tribes_of_Israel_Map.svg
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-are-the-semites/
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-beginnings-of-the-hebrew-language/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9aB3fLPssI
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinkramer/files/why_israel_is_called_israel_and_not_judea_mosaicmosaic.pdf
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCZG9Rvy8Od/
--------
17:57
Episode 006 - Bagels
Episode 6 of Recognizably Jewish is all about the best-known and best-loved of Jewish foods - the humble but mighty bagel. You’ll learn when and how the bagel developed as a Jewish food in medieval Poland, as well as about the bagel’s arrival in, and impact on, America in the 20th century. And we’ll talk about the current bagel renaissance.
This episode includes excerpts of a phenomenal conversation I had with Joshua Pollack, the founder of Bridge and Tunnel Restaurant Group and the “Bagel Man” at Rosenberg’s Bagels (https://rosenbergsbagels.com/), my personal favorite bagel shop in Denver.
You can find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.
The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread, by Maria Balinska (https://a.co/d/7fsWyBS)
This is the Eater video I mention in the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSuAcDiwkk4&t=276s
Here are some other videos worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_sPSrSwP40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO6AUtpquVM&t=28s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WuOZM9shZ0&t=10s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQowwnvWzos
New Zealand