The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City
“Henry Sapoznik has broken new ground again. He has a knack for endowing the ephemeral with longevity by treating each ticket, advertisement, poster, theater program, menu, photograph, or recording as a piece of a puzzle of a lost Yiddish New York that only he could envision. The result is a deeply researched, engaging, and richly illustrated account of a world lost and found. A fascinating book and must-read!”
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and University Professor Emerita at New York University
The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City offers a new look at over a century of New York's history of Yiddish popular culture. Henry H. Sapoznik-a five-time Grammy-nominated performer/producer and Peabody Award-winning co-producer of NPR's Yiddish Radio Project-tells the story in chapters on theater, music, architecture, crime, Blacks and Jews, restaurants, real estate, and journalism. Culled from over five thousand Yiddish and English newspaper articles of the period, and thanks to new research from previously inaccessible materials, the book reveals fresh insights into the impossible-to-overstate influence of Yiddish culture on New York City. The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City is a vivid, entertaining, and accessible compendium of both New York's lush Ashkenazic past and present, showcasing the culture's persistent resiliency.
Praise