Books on Lower East Side Crime

Read two stories about the history of Jewish crime on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The saga of efforts to reform the prostitution scene in the early 20th Century is a mind-blowing history by Dan Slater in The Incorruptibles. Margalit Fox takes us back to the 19th Century in her account of the nice Jewish mother who perfected the art of fencing in The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum.

Yitz Twersky’s latest book on his family’s rabbinical dynasty

Read about the exhaustive history of the Twersky rabbinical dynasty published in a coffee table book.

Poet Jerome Rothenberg

Read an obit for the poet Jerome Rothenberg written for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Rothenberg had a deep connection to the indigenous world, which he shared with his longtime collaborator Charlie Morrow. Read about these two Jews and their ties to Native Americans.

IV Drips for Purim Hangovers

Read about IV drips of fluids used to help people who imbibed too much on the holiday of Purim. The reputed hangover treatment is also big on St. Patrick’s Day and Mardis Gras

Lower East Side Shtiebel Struggles to Survive

Read about a tiny synagogue, or shtiebel, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that is struggling to maintain a minyan, the quorum of 10 men needed to recite certain prayers. There were once scores of shtiebels on one of East Broadway known as Shtiebel Row.

The Twersky Family Tree

Listen to a 9-minute podcast in which Yitz Twersky, keeper of the Twersky family tree, runs down the history of the rabbinical dynasty that originated in Chernobyl.

The Gospel According to Chaim

Read a story about a Yiddish play based on the life of a Baltimore man who tried to convert Jews to Christianity during the Holocaust. Radio version is here.

Trauma Therapist Lisa Fliegel

Read about the Boston trauma therapist who went to Israel to care for the survivors of the October 7th Hamas attach. The radio version of this story is here.

Harrty Smith & Lionel Ziprin

Read about the relationship the late Harry Smith had with the late Lower East Side mystic Lionel Ziprin.

Luzer Twersky

Read about Luzer Twersky, who plays the founder of Hasidic Judaism in a film about the Ukrainian Robin Hood. The radio version of this story is here.

The Web Site Shtetl Covers Haredi Jewry

Listen to a radio story about the web site Shtetl, which covers the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world in Brooklyn and the suburbs north of New York City. Pictured above is its founder and editor-in-chief Naftuli Moster.

A Loudmouth New York Quaker Jew

Read a story about Leslie Sussan, who wrote a memoir about her father’s involvement in a military unit that filmed the aftermath of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She went to live in Hiroshima with her young daughter. A radio version of the story is here.

Kleztronica

Read a story about electronic Jewish dance music and the woman who’s making it spread. Radio version as well.

Larry “Ratso” Sloman

Read a story about the writer and cultural Zelig known as Ratso.

The Klezmer Shtetl of Midwood

Read about the concentration of klezmer musicians in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, which include Andy Statman and Yoshie Fruchter, pictured above.

Auto Writers’ Seder At Katz’s Deli

Read about a group of Jewish auto writers who gather for a very short seder at the iconic Lower East Side delicatessen.

Michael Winograd and Tanz

Brooklyn clarinetist Michael Winograd performs the 1956 LP Tanz before a live audience. The album featured the legendary Dave Tarras and his son-in-law Sam Musiker. Read about the project in NY Jewish Week.

Yiddishist Mikhl Yashinsky

Mikhl Yashinsky is a Yiddish actory, translator and teacher. Read about his career in this Story for NY Jewish Week.

A Bronx Family’s Ties to Jewish Gangsters

Read about the Geik family and its ties to the Jewish mob.

Bread & Puppet Embraces the Palestinian Cause

Read a story in The Forward about Bread and Puppet Theater’s demonization of the Israeli military and over simplification of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

A Holocaust Drama Worthy of the Silver Screen

In 2012 I wrote about the playwright Michaelanne Forster, an American who has lived in New Zealand since the early 1970’s. She wrote a play about her grandmother pursuing the great Hollywood director Michael Curtis for child support, the child being her father Michael Forster. He escaped Germany as a 12 year-old boy who wasn’t told that he was Jewish until he was a refugee with his Uncle Ludwig hightailing it to France and a boat that would bring him to the Los Angeles area. Michael Forster passed away in 2021 at the age of 100 and his daughter Michaelanne has published his memoir posthumously. My story on the memoir, which includes a recap of his dreams, has been published in The Forward.

The memoir, which is not being sold, is published here in its entirety.

Jews & Cannabis

Read about the Jews and Cannabis exhibit at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, curated by the great Eddy Portnoy.

Yippie Pie Man Aron Kay in a Nursing Home

Read about the legendary pie man Aron Kay, the son of Holocaust survivors and a proud Jew himself. He’s been living in a Brooklyn nursing home but still gets out to attend the marijuana marches. His InstaGram account features photos of his grandson and photoshopped barbs aimed at Donald Trump.

Russian Music Festival in Catskills

Read about a Moscow Jew who came to America because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He performed in late June 2022 at the JetLAG Music Festival in the Catskills.

Nina Meyerhof’s Peace Center at Auschwitz

A long-time Vermont peace activist wants to turn historic structure’s at the former Nazi death camp into a peace center. Here’s a radio story for Vermont Public Radio and a print piece for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Yiddish Fiddler

Listen to a story about the off-Broadway production of Fiddler On the Roof in Yiddish. Pictured above is the actor and Yiddishist Mikhl Yashinsky, who performs in the musical. Here’s a radio story about his talented Michigan family.

A Holocaust Museum Made for Orthodox Jews

In Brooklyn the Amud Aish museum examines the Holocaust from the perspective of Orthodox Jews. This report aired on Here & Now.

R.I.P. Michael Kalish

27 December 2016 / 27 Kislev 5777

We buried Michael Kalish yesterday.

My brother died on Christmas Day in a hospital on Long Island. I have a very few pictures of him. He's wearing a Santa hat in two of them.

Michael was 60. He spent half his life in group homes for autistic adults. I saw him a week before he passed and for much of that last visit he asked me over and over again, “Take me to McDonald's?”

That was his big thrill. For close to 30 years now, I've been taking my bike once a month on the Long Island Rail Road and pedaling to his group home where he always greeted me with a warm smile, announcing, “Jonathan is here.” Which was always followed by, “Take me to McDonald's?” Then we'd get in one of the group home vans and a staffer would drive us to McDonald's. I'd order him the two cheeseburger meal-- hold the cheese-- and we'd go sit in our usual spot. In recent years, after Michael had lost all his teeth, I had to cut up his burgers like little pizzas and he'd eat them with his french fries and diet Coke. I'd open the foil top covering the little plastic container of half & half and pour it in his coffee along with a packet of artificial sweetener. Often, he'd pick up the empty half and half container and pull the foil top off completely. I assumed he did that because it needed to be done.

After McDonald's we went to a deli or supermarket for treats. I always held his hand as we walked across Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown, where he spent his final years. At the Stop 'n Shop there he got a KitKat bar, which he referred to as a KittyKat bar, and a pastry. He was partial to Yodels and RingDings. When he lived in a group home in Uniondale, we went to a deli to get a package of two RingDings. But at the Stop 'n Shop in Levittown they only sold RingDings by the box and in the van ride back to the group home after lunch, Michael begged for more RingDings. I did cave in on some occasions. Back at the house Michael asked me if I wanted to see his room. We'd sit on the floor for a few minutes. There was a stuffed animal on his dresser, a pussycat named Spikes. We'd sit for a short while and Michael would point at the fire alarm on the ceiling, which he loved to set off. Then he'd inevitably ask, “Ready to go home, Jonathan?” I'd walk my bike out of his room and he'd hold the front door to the house open for me and out I'd go to pedal back to the train.

Michael died during the Jewish holiday of Chanukah and under traditional Jewish law, we don't eulogize the deceased during Chanukah. The rabbi officiating at the funeral, wearing rubber rain boots to navigate the muddy terrain, said that Michael never hurt anyone. That observation stays with me still.

I brought a KittyKat bar to the funeral, hoping to place it in the coffin with my brother but the rabbi said it couldn't be done. It sits on a counter in our loft by a framed picture of Michael wearing a Santa hat, next to a candle that will burn for a week.

The rabbi told me that it was a mitzvah to bury my brother so soon after he passed. He died a little after 7 p.m. on December 25th. This time of year that's considered the beginning of the day in Judaism. Michael was buried before sundown on December 26th, which is that same day in Judaism.

There was a minyan, a quorum of ten Jewish men, at Michael's funeral. The minyan is required under traditional Jewish law to recite kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning. I wasn't expecting a minyan at the cemetery but a damn good saxophone player I know went to work and several Yeshiva students showed up in the chilly Staten Island afternoon.

Besides my wife Pam and my brother Chuck, a nurse from Michael's group home and her wife were there to help bury Michael Kalish. As we were waiting for the funeral to begin, nurse Meghan told us that she played some BeeGees songs for Michael the last time she visited him in the hospital. Michael loved the Bee Gees. Unbeknownst to the group, their hit song How Deep Is Your Love had a different title, as far as Michael Kalish was concerned. He called it Breaking Michelle.

Jews actually pick up a shovel and fill the grave when they bury their loved ones, which is what we did when we buried Michael Kalish.

One of the things that the Jewish tradition holds is that when you die, you are re-united with your loved ones in the world to come. This is the great comfort I take in the passing of my brother. He is now with his mother, who he lost at the age of six. And with his father, who he frequently asked about. “Who's Eddie?” he'd blurt out at McDonald's.

I have one question for you, Michael Kalish: Ready to go home?

The Brothers Nazaroff

Listen to a story on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday about the Brothers Nazaroff, a Klezmer super band inspired by the obscure 20th Century troubadour Prince Nazaroff.

Yiddish Fight Club

Danny Schechter

Read an appreciation of the late radio legend Danny Schechter, known in Boston as Danny Schechter the News Dissector. This was published in The Forward in March 2015.

Lionel Ziprin

Listen to a half-hour documentary about the late Lionel Zirpin and his grandfather's recordings.

Tuli Kupferberg

Listen to a podcast about the Jewish roots of the late Fug and poet Tuli Kupferberg. Read a story about NYU acquiring his archive.

Sarah Silverman

Read a story about Sarah Silverman, the Anti-Koufax.

Bill Adler

My neighbor Bill Adler, one of the great American Jews, sent his hiphop archive to Cornell University's rare books library. Listen to a radio story about this. Bill had a hand in that rap classic Christmas in Hollis.

Chofetz Chaim at Rokeby

Read a story about the WASP-y estate of Rokeby and the Astor descendant who became an observant Jew.

Listen to a story about the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA.

Michelanne Forster

Read a story and listen to a podcast about the New Zealand playwright Michelanne Forster.