The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language

Alex Weiser and Ben Kaplan sit down with The Shmooze to talk about their forthcoming collaboration, The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language. The new full-length opera is based on the true story of Yiddish linguist Yudel Mark, who in 1950s postwar New York City set out to write the world’s first fully comprehensive Yiddish dictionary—an effort of linguistic preservation, and a memorial to the dead. The opera invites audiences to consider the extent to which a language and a culture can be saved, the nature of grief, and the power of language itself to transform and shape us into who we are.