Picture a vast

stateroom with women dressed as famous ancient queens and goddesses and our masked narrator having fun dancing with them.

Bernstein writes, My gaze fell upon an Aphrodite.

She nodded her head yes, and I took her for the dance.

We danced a melodious, passionate tango, which dramatized free love and eroticism.

Fragrant perfume wafted around us in harmony with the music and general elegance of the environs.

The orchestra began a waltz and we moved in new forms of musical expression.

No, no.

See you guys.

What a great presentation and such lovely music.

Um, so thank you for the introduction, and it's, um, really great to be on a panel with, uh, with Ron and Josh.

So we'll start by, by continuing with this, this theme of tangos.

In 1948, a Polish-born American writer named Samuel Bershtyn wrote a short piece in Yiddish called Der Maskin Bal fun Fedorbenheit, or in English, The Masked Ball of Depravity.

Not surprisingly, given its title, this story describes the most decadent masquerade ball scene I've found in Yiddish literature.

And I say this as someone who has built a career on finding bonkers scenes of dance in literature.

No, no.

Picture a vast

stateroom with women dressed as famous ancient queens and goddesses and our masked narrator having fun dancing with them.

Bernstein writes, My gaze fell upon an Aphrodite.

She nodded her head yes, and I took her for the dance.

We danced a melodious, passionate tango, which dramatized free love and eroticism.

Fragrant perfume wafted around us in harmony with the music and general elegance of the environs.

The orchestra began a waltz and we moved in new forms of musical expression.

No, no.

Picture a vast

stateroom with women dressed as famous ancient queens and goddesses and our masked narrator having fun dancing with them.

Bernstein writes, My gaze fell upon an Aphrodite.

She nodded her head yes, and I took her for the dance.

We danced a melodious, passionate tango, which dramatized free love and eroticism.

Fragrant perfume wafted around us in harmony with the music and general elegance of the environs.

The orchestra began a waltz and we moved in new forms of musical expression.

No, no.

Like, like how, how did that start for you? Why did that become the focus of, of the work you do?

Well, thank you, and it's, it's really great to be having this conversation with you because as, as you mentioned, we've known each other for a while, and actually it's very fitting that we're speaking here at a, a YIVO Institute event because we actually met when we were both studying in the, the YIVO summer program, uh, years ago.

But, um, so I got started on this path because I wanted to learn Yiddish.

Um, I had just started high school, and I had, um, an older relative, the, uh, the, the younger brother of my great-grandfather, who had functionally been a great-grandfather for me, and he had been born in 1905 in, uh, what's now Belarus, and he told me I should learn Yiddish, which was the language that he grew up with.

Um, this was my Uncle Peter, and he's one of the two uncles that the book is dedicated to.

And so when I heard that, him say that I should learn Yiddish because it was a very expressive language, um, I was, I was already interested in, in genealogy and, um, you know, family history, and I thought, you know, I'm curious about learning all sorts of languages.

Um, why not add Yiddish to the list? And I just...

Can, like, d- does, is, is there an example that comes to mind, like, earlier in the process, that sort of made you understand that you could do this as a book?

How you got on the track to being a scholar of Yiddish and German literature, cultural history, how did that start for you? Why did that become the focus of the work you do?

Well, thank you.

And it's really great to be having this conversation with you because, as you mentioned, we've known each other for a while.

And actually, it's very fitting that we're speaking here at a YIVO Institute event because we actually met when we were both studying in the YIVO summer program years ago.

But so I got started on this path because I wanted to learn Yiddish.

I had just started high school and I had an older relative, the younger brother of my great-grandfather who had functionally been a great-grandfather for me.

And he had been born in 1905 in what's now Belarus.

Is there an example that comes to mind like earlier in the process that sort of made you understand that you could do this as a book?