The Cockney Yiddish Podcast explores the unknown Yiddish popular culture of London's East End through an array of newly discovered stories and songs from the 1880s to the 1950s. Historians Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs share their passion for the tunes and words of Jewish Londoners encountering the Cockney culture of music halls, street markets and rhyming slang. They discover a rich landscape of music and interviews from the archives and chat about hidden histories, family stories, lost connections and real and imagined places with special guests and readers including Michael Rosen, Miriam Margolyes, Alan Dein and David Schneider. Join Nadia and Vivi on their journey and hear East London’s long forgotten songs and stories brought to new life by contemporary musicians and actors.
Episodes released every Monday.
Go to our website for more information about the music and texts we discuss.
The Cockney Yiddish Podcast is written and presented by Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs
Produced by Natalie Steed at Rhubarb Rhubarb for Queen Mary University of London Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Grant reference AH/Z505614/1.
Big thanks to: Adam Corsini at the Jewish Museum London; Tamsin Bookey and Sanjida Alam at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives; Ru Dannreuther, Silke Boettcher, Kaptan Miah and Olivia Warren at Queen Mary University of London; Ashraf Al-Hawrani, the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre, London, the Yiddish Sof-Vokh.
Podcast image: © Jeremy Richardson.
Featured music: Klezmer Klub and Katsha’nes.
Translations: Vivi Lachs and Barry Smerin.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Cockney Yiddish Podcast explores the unknown Yiddish popular culture of London's East End through an array of newly discovered stories and songs from the 1880s to the 1950s. Historians Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs share their passion for the tunes and words of Jewish Londoners encountering the Cockney culture of music halls, street markets and rhyming slang. They discover a rich landscape of music and interviews from the archives and chat about hidden histories, family stories, lost connections and real and imagined places with special guests and readers including Michael Rosen, Miriam Margolyes, Alan Dein and David Schneider. Join Nadia and Vivi on their journey and hear East London’s long forgotten songs and stories brought to new life by contemporary musicians and actors.
Episodes released every Monday.
Go to our website for more information about the music and texts we discuss.
The Cockney Yiddish Podcast is written and presented by Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs
Produced by Natalie Steed at Rhubarb Rhubarb for Queen Mary University of London Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Grant reference AH/Z505614/1.
Big thanks to: Adam Corsini at the Jewish Museum London; Tamsin Bookey and Sanjida Alam at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives; Ru Dannreuther, Silke Boettcher, Kaptan Miah and Olivia Warren at Queen Mary University of London; Ashraf Al-Hawrani, the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre, London, the Yiddish Sof-Vokh.
Podcast image: © Jeremy Richardson.
Featured music: Klezmer Klub and Katsha’nes.
Translations: Vivi Lachs and Barry Smerin.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Pack your picnic, practise your heckles and come with us to the Yiddish theatre. This episode looks at Yiddish theatre and music hall from its early days in the late nineteenth century, from the popular theatre with its cheap songs and audience misbehaviour to highbrow performances of Shakespeare and opera in Yiddish. Nadia and Vivi bring you a short story about audience antics, and ‘Gevalt polis!’ (Help Police!), a comic song about East End crime. We are joined by the actor and writer David Schneider whose family had a leading role in London’s Yiddish theatre. David performs his grandfather’s translation of Shylock’s ‘Hath not a Jew’ speech in Yiddish, and historian David Mazower describes the doomed attempt to set up a London Yiddish art theatre.
The Cockney Yiddish Podcast is written and presented by Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs
Produced by Natalie Steed at Rhubarb Rhubarb for Queen Mary University of London
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
Guests: David Schneider and David Mazower
Reader: David Schneider
Featured story: A. M. Kaizer ‘When You Go to a Yiddish Theatre’, translated by Vivi Lachs. From London Yiddishtown: East End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story, 1930-1950 (Wayne State University Press, 2021)
Featured song: Katsha’nes, ‘Gevalt Police’ (Lyrics and music: Anon). From the CD Don’t Ask Silly Questions (Katshanes, 2017)
Theme music: Klezmer Klub, ‘Vaytshepl mayn vaytshepl’ (trad) and ‘Yiddisher Honga’ (trad). From the CD Whitechapel mayn Vaytshepl (Klub Records, 2009)
Podcast image: © Jeremy Richardson
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.