Alumni Current Projects—An Ever-Expanding Document

The projects featured below represent just a small sampling of the recent and current projects of our many alum. We'd love to expand this list to include more works.

Do you have a project you're currently working on, or have recently worked on, that you'd like to share with the Yiddish Book Center alumni community? If so, email us at [email protected] so we can feature your project!

Web Projects

Henry Sapoznik (Translation Fellowship '15) just launched a new website that features digitally remastered, curated, annotated, and translated selections from his collection of Yiddish radio programs housed at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.

Raphi Halff (Steiner Summer Yiddish Program '14, Yiddish Book Center Fellowship 2017–18) has been working on a website for Yiddish poetry.

Gabe Miner (Yiddish Pedagogy Fellow '18) has put together a “Virtual Seder,” featuring contributions from more than 50 clergy, scholars, and educators from around the world.

Molly Yeh's (TENT: Food '14) popular blog My Name is Yeh, with cookbook links and more (catch her show Girl Meets Farm on the Food Network). 

Sarah Bunin Benor's (Yiddish Book Center Internship, now Steiner Summer Yiddish Program, '94) website, Jewish Languages, offers resources on Jewish languages, from more well known languages, such as Yiddish, to lesser known languages such as Jewish Malayalam. 

Book Projects

Rachel Mines' (Translation Fellowship '16) translation of a selection of Jonah Rosenfeld’s Yiddish short fiction, titled The Rivals and Other Stories, was published by Syracuse University Press (March 2020). You can watch the book trailer here. An excerpt from the book is also now available in Jewish Currents.

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach's (TENT: Creative Writing '14) second collection of poetry, Don't Touch the Bones, about cultural loss and remembrance, was published in March 2020. 

Emily Nemens (TENT: Creative Writing '14) published The Cactus League (February 2020), a novel set in the desert, in the world of professional baseball. 

Jessica Kirzane's (Yiddish Book Center Internship, now Steiner Summer Yiddish Program '07; Translation Fellowship '17; Yiddish Pedagogy Program '18) translation of Miriam Karpilove's Diary of a Lonely Girl, or the Battle Against Free Love was published in December 2019. 

Daniel Kennedy's (Translation Fellowship '15 and '16) translation of Hersh Dovid Normberg's Warsaw Stories was published by the Yiddish Book Center's White Goat Press in fall 2019.

Miriam Udel’s (Translation Fellowship '13 and '19, TENT: Children's Literature faculty '18) translated anthology of Yiddish children’s literature, Honey on the Page, will be published in October, and the beautiful cover is now up on the NYU press website. The anthology is currently available for pre-order. Miriam began work on this project when she was a Translation Fellow in 2013!

Articles, Reviews, Short Stories

J. E. Reich (TENT: Creative Writing '13) published an essay titled "The Boy Who Bled" on Hey Alma (June 2020).

Cady Vishniac (Translation Fellowship '18, TENT: Creative Writing '17) published a short story, "On Privacy" in Tikkun magazine (May 2020).

Diane Clark (Yiddish Book Center Internship, now Steiner Summer Yiddish Program, '10; TENT: Creative Writing '14; Yiddish Book Center Fellow 2014–15; Translation Fellowship '18) published a review titled "Reading Against the Line: Translation, Facism, Erasure" (April 2020). 

Mindl Cohen's (Yiddish Book Center Internship, now Steiner Summer Yiddish Program, '06; Translation Fellowship '15) LA Review of Books essay on Yiddish women writers and their growing accessibility in English translation (April 2020).

2019 Translation Fellow Maia Evrona (Translation Fellowship '19) wrote a piece for LA Review of Books on her recent experience of having her Fulbright scholarship cancelled due to the coronavirus (March 2020).

Daina Beth Solomon's (TENT: Journalism '14) article on Mexican women's protests against femicides (March 2020).

Julia Fermentto-Tzaisler (Translation Fellow '19), a published novelist in Hebrew, published a story in Tablet—she says it was another Translation Fellow, Caraid O’Brien, who introduced her to the editor! (December 2019)

Raphael Halff's (Steiner Summer Yiddish Program '14, Yiddish Book Center Fellowship 2017–18) short story "An Ode to the Post Office" won Israel's National Authority Yiddish short story prize (November 2019).

Eli Bromberg (Steiner Summer Yiddish Program '13) wrote an article for In geveb about the history of Shmuel Charney pen name titled "We Need to Talk about Shmuel Charney" (October 2019). 

Daniel Holtzman ((TENT: Creative Writing '18, Wexler Oral History Project Field Fellow '20) published an editorial in New Voices, "On Shutting Down ICE as a Trans Jew" (July 2019). 

Music, Art, Theater

Adah Hetko (Steiner Summer Yiddish Program '17, Yiddish Book Center Fellowship 2018–19) and her band Burikes released a music video featuring Abraham Sutzkever’s Yiddish poem, “Sylvan”, which Hetko set to music.

Jessie Kahnweiler (TENT: Comedy '13) premiered her short film He's the One, which she wrote, directed, and stars in, at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020.

Yael Shavitt (TENT: Theater '13) is the creator/writer and lead actress of the award-winning 2020 series SPLIT on Amazon Prime Video.

Mikhl Yashinsky (TENT: Creative Writing '13, TENT: Theater NYC '13, TENT: Fashion Montreal '14, Steiner Summer Yiddish Program '14, Yiddish Book Center Fellow 2015–16, Yiddish Book Center's 2016–2017 Applebaum Fellow) was named to 2019's Forward 50, the Forward's annual list of "influential, intriguing, and inspiring" American Jews. Mikhl appeared, in 2019, in the Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof and in the title role of Bobe Yakhne in the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene production of The Sorceress

Curtis Raye (TENT: Comedy '13) created "FOIA Love: A Comedy Show About Public Records," a regular live show featuring actual documents from the halls of government, and currently produces field pieces for "Night Late," a monthly late night talk show at Upright Citizens Brigade. 

Other Alumni News

Meggie Kwait (Great Jewish Books Teacher Summer Seminar '19) was a winner in a recent "Jeopardy!" Teachers Tournament. She talks about her experience in an interview with the Forward (June 2020).