Marvin Zuckerman: Yiddish Language and Culture and Bundism

This week we have a new interview with Marvin Zuckerman, who grew up in the Yiddish-speaking milieu of Jewish Labor Bund in Bronx, New York. He became a professor of English at a Los Angeles college and created the well-regarded Yiddish primer Learning Yiddish in Easy Stages and several other books in the field of Yiddish. He translated from the Yiddish the memoir of the prominent Bundist Bernard Goldstein (Twenty Years with the Jewish Labor Bund: A Memoir of Interwar Poland, Perdue University Press, 2016). In the interview he talks about his childhood in his secular-socialist-Yiddishist milieu of the 1930's and 40's; about Bundism's history and place in Jewish history; the bundist perspective, past and present, and in contrast to Communism and Zionism; about his translation of Bernard Goldstein's Bundist memoir; about teaching Yiddish and his Yiddish-language primer; and about Yiddish language and culture generally. The interview was conducted at Zuckerman's home in Pacific Pallisades, CA, on February 22, 2024.

Music/recordings:

• Klepfisch Folkskhor: Di Shvue (anthem of the Jewish Labor Bund)
• Lazar Weiner and Workmen's Circle Chorus: Di Shvue
• Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air date: May 15, 2024