Caraid O'Brien: Yiddish Translator, Actor, and Writer

Caraid O'Brien joined us in the studio this week. Caraid is a writer, Yiddish translator, and performer who first began learning Yiddish as a Yiddish Book Center intern in 1994. Early in her career she received three new play commissions from the Foundation for Jewish Culture for her translations of classic Yiddish plays. Most recently, she translated the memoirs of Klara Klebanova, a Russian-Jewish revolutionary maximalist. Over the course of our conversation, we learn that Caraid studied Yiddish theater and performance with Luba Kadison Buloff, the last surviving member of the Vilna Troupe, and we hear about her current work translating Sholem Asch: Plays of My People, a collection of four dramas that explore Jewish identity from the acclaimed playwright of God of Vengeance.