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 co-authored 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