The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City (Excelsior Editions)

The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City (Excelsior Editions)

A history of New York's Yiddish popular culture from 1880 to the present. 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 Peabody Award-winning coproducer of NPR's Yiddish Radio Project -tells the story in over a baker's dozen 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. Containing fifty images, many of which have never before been published, the book is complemented by an online interactive Google Map linked to over one hundred of the historic locations discussed in the book, with additional graphics and resource materials. 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. "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 "This you should read! From knishes to khazones, the Forvert to Cel-Ray, and forgotten cultural triumphs and nadirs, you couldn't find a better guide to New York's Yiddish heritage than The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City . Anyone interested in New York City needs a copy of this book!" ― Nancy Groce, Folklorist, American Folklife Center Henry H. Sapoznik is a five-time Grammy-nominated producer/performer of over fifty recordings and author of the award-winning book Klezmer! Jewish Music from Old World to Our World .