The Outback Quest of Yiddish Poet Melekh Ravitsh

Author Anna Epstein visits with us from her home in Australia to talk about her recently published book about Yiddish poet Melekh Ravitsh. The book tells the story of Ravitsh's 1933 trek across the Australian outback in search of a homeland for the threatened Jews of Europe. Along the way, he took photographs, which inspired his son, Yosl Bergner, to create a series of paintings. Inspired by this wildly imaginative pair and their prescient recognition of the common fate of Indigenous Australians and persecuted European Jews, curator and writer Anna Epstein has threaded together their stories and images into a brilliant and moving book.