March 2024: Handpicked
Each month we ask a member of our staff or a special friend to select favorite stories, books, interviews, or articles from our online collections. This month’s picks are by Elizabeth Cardaropoli.
Elizabeth Cardaropoli is the Yiddish Book Center’s Associate Director of Visitor Services and Public Programs Manager. Elizabeth holds BAs in theatre and arts management from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. She is currently pursuing graduate work in public history at Salem State University. Before joining the Yiddish Book Center, Elizabeth worked in arts and cultural institutions in New York City, Boston, and the Berkshires.
As a Star Trek fan with a personal history as a theatre artist, it seemed most appropriate to make mention of our moving oral history interview with the late, great Leonard Nimoy. I enjoy his rendition of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be,” but what I find most poignant was his description of the Boston West End neighborhood of his youth (now lost to urban renewal projects) and his relationship to his parents and grandparents within that community that defined his connection to his Jewish heritage, the Yiddish language, and ultimately his life as an actor. Nimoy’s story is both specifically Jewish and ubiquitous to the American immigrant experience. There is overlap and relation in this experience just like there was overlap in the West End where Nimoy grew up, and he remembers that “Italians spoke Yiddish and Jews spoke Italian.” I am a descendent of Italian immigrants, and Nimoy’s interview inspires me to reflect on my own heritage and the communities and cultures that were shared between neighbors.
Watch an interview with Leonard Nimoy (in Yiddish and English)
The Glass Plates of Lublin Public Program
One of the first projects that captivated my imagination when I started at the Center was the collaboration with Grodzka Gate Theatre Centre in Lublin, Poland, on The Glass Plates of Lublin: a compendium of black and white photographs that were recovered from 3,000 glass-plate negatives found in a pile of rubble in an old apartment building. The photos were taken in the interwar period and feature a variety of facets of life in the Lublin Jewish community. As a public historian and a collector of old photography, the faces staring back at me inspired a myriad of questions. Who were these people? What were their names? What did they do for a living? What was the impetus behind their photograph being taken? A wedding? A family reunion? A religious or social gathering? What were they thinking when the camera captured their likeness? What ultimately happened to them? Unfortunately, many of these individuals may have been murdered in the Holocaust. These glass plates are a testament to their existence, remnants of a daily life that was forever changed and lost. That glass so fragile somehow survived the centuries illustrates the endurance and fragility of life and time. These photographs are also making new connections: a niece recently recognized her great aunt from one of the portraits. I wonder how many other stories are waiting to be rediscovered?
Watch The Glass Plates of Lublin Public Program (in English)
I am an animal lover, and it seems author and translator Sonye (Sonya/Sonia) Kantor was as well. She wrote and translated exclusively children’s animal stories in the 1920s. Her 1920 story Togbukh fun a veverke (Diary of a Squirrel) is a captivating tale that documents the seasonal changes in a year in the life of a squirrel in interwar Poland. Her work imagines the inner life of this little creature and how he relates to the world around him. I, too, wonder quite a bit about what my cat is thinking or about the lives of the squirrels in the tree outside my front door. I have named their home conifer the “bagel tree” because bagels are a common spoil that the squirrels pilfer from the local bakery dumpster. Their eyes and stomachs, however, are bigger than their upper body strength, and they tend to drop their prize on the way up the tree, leaving me to find a daily forlorn bagel or sometimes a wayward slice of pizza at the base of the trunk. Anthropomorphized animals are common in children’s literature, but Kantor’s vivid and intimate creatures are particularly endearing. It reminds me of a little story about squirrels my mother wrote for me as a child, and I couldn’t help but include the squirrel’s diary in my selection.
Read about Diary of a Squirrel (in English)
There have been several university studies and articles in the likes of the New York Times and The Guardian delving into why true crime is so popular, especially among women. Is it hope in informing oneself for personal preparedness’s sake? A desire to see justice served? A macabre curiosity in the darkness of human nature? There are several arguments into why women, who are normally centered as victims in true crime narratives, are also the main consumers of a genre that can arguably sometimes be exploitative and voyeuristic. Whatever the reasoning, podcasts, docu-series, and YouTube channels dedicated to true crime are increasingly popular and are being created and consumed by women. However, this is not a new phenomenon. Sarah B. Smith was a newspaper journalist and crime writer for Der tog (The Day), where she profiled the goings-on in New York City’s courtrooms through her series Ṿer iz shuldig? (Who Is Guilty?), which was compiled into a book in 1919. Over a hundred years later, I found myself producing a radiocast version of selections of this episodic series. Smith’s searing yet sympathetic voice distilled the hardships and hurdles of New Yorkers during the most desperate moments of their lives as they faced judgment and justice in the crowded courtrooms of the early 20th century. Ever present, raw, and realistic, her stories resonate with our curiosities in the chaos of the human experience.
Listen to Who Is Guilty? Radiocast (in English)
Before my career shifted into history and museum work, I was trained as a classical performer. From a young age, I adored performing Shakespeare: his poetry is kinetic, and his characters are at once so human and larger than life. Shakespeare means many different things for many different people: from “prolific” to “problematic,” from an eyeroll-inducing checkpoint on their reading syllabus to the greatest of English poets. However, the Bard of Avon has endured for over 400 years, and he found his way into the world of Yiddish theater. Ilan Stavans’ intriguing and informative talk reflects on how Shakespeare was used a “litmus test” in Yiddish theater for performers and translators cutting their teeth in show business and how Shakespeare was translated for the Yiddish stage.
Q&A
Tell us about your selections and what they say about your relationship with Yiddish language and culture.
My selections were inspired by my study of public history, my own history in the theatre world, and things I just enjoyed or found interesting. (Public history, if anyone is curious, is the study of history outside a traditional academic setting.) I think that my selections illustrate how culture is shared through connection and our shared human experience, no matter one’s personal heritage. These selections feature common themes that most people can relate to: family, friendships, entertainment, community, and appreciation for the natural world.
One does not need to be from a culture to have a desire to value and preserve it and celebrate its contributions to art and artistry. As a museum professional it is my job to facilitate memory work and storytelling. My selections feature stories that I believe are worth retelling.
What are you working on next?
Each spring, my main focus turns to planning Yidstock, our annual music festival, happening July 11–14 at the Center in Amherst, MA. This year will feature an excellent lineup of concerts, workshops, and talks—I hope to see you in July!