the tourist's guide to lost yiddish New York City

Afte

Dear friends/blog subscribers,

I am very happy to announce, that my new book "The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City" has just been published by Excelsior Editions, an imprint of State University of New York Press.

The book, the result of five years of research and writing -- some of it here in my blog -- is culled from over five thousand Yiddish and English newspaper articles over 150 years offering fresh insights into the impossible-to-overstate influence of Yiddish culture on New York City with chapters on theater, music, architecture, crime, Blacks and Jews, food, magic, recording, real estate, and journalism.

The Forward has just run a chapter from the book. Read it here:

https://forward.com/culture/music/759271/shloime-solomon-smulewitz-history-of-yiddish-new-york/

If you are interested in obtaining the book, you can order it directly from the SUNY website and get a 30% discount when you enter the code SNWF25 upon checkout.

https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Tourist-s-Guide-to-Lost-Yiddish-New-York-City 

More exciting news: With the book out, I am now beginning work on an audio version which will give me a chance to draw on my many years in radio and record production and, to not only narrate it, but to also include many recorded examples of the music about which I wrote.

For more information about the forthcoming audiobook and how to help support the project:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/audiobook-for-the-tourists-guide-to-lost-yiddish-nyc

Finally, I would like to sincerely thank my hundreds of blog subscribers some of whom have been on board since my first entries on Black cantors back in 2020. It was thanks to the ongoing enthusiastic and supportive feedback of subscribers that I decided to transform the blogs I created here -- matched with new research and writing -- to realize my first book in 25 years.

Thank you for your previous -- and hopefully, forthcoming -- support.