Real name:
Biography:
San Francisco-born, I grew up on Guam. After earning my BA in Anthropology, I worked for 19 years in a law office writing trial memoranda and appeal briefs, doing land title examinations, pursuing photography part-time, while hosting a Jazz & Blues program on various AM and FM stations for 9 years.
Self-taught in Yiddish, I went back to school when I came to the Washington metro area, earning an MA and PhD in American Studies studying the Yiddish press and acculturation of women immigrants. My book, Words to the Wives: The Yiddish Press, Immigrant Women and Jewish-American Identity,. was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2024. I served as the Associate Editor for Connecticut Public Records, Vols XXI-XXII; and am a Yiddish-to-English translator.
I served as editor for the newsletter and later the small magazine of Yiddish of Greater Washington for more than a decade, continue to serve on its Board, as well as that of Operation Understanding-DC.
Current research areas:
The Yiddish Press, Anarchism, radical movements, the IWW, Jewish labor movements, Jazz and Blues
Recent scholarly activity:
Associate Editor, Vol. XXI & XXII of the _Connecticut State Reports_.
Recent publications:
Forthcoming: Book review of Animals in the Third Reich, by Boria Sax. The Independent Scholar 2, 1 (2016).
Book review of Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli, by Ted Merwin. American Studies 55, 1 (Spring 2016): 164-165.
Book review of Constructing Ethnicity in an Age of Globalization, edited by Amanda J. Haste and James Block. The Independent Scholar 1 (2015): 51-52.
Book review of _The Call of Bilal: Islam in the African Diaspora_, by Edward E. Curtis IV. Journal of American Studies 54, 1 (2015): 160-161.
Book review of _Policing Sexuality: The Mann Act and the Making of the FBI_, by Jessica R. Pilely. Journal of American Studies 54,2 (2015): 37-38.
"Aaron (T-Bone) Walker" and "Johnny Otis" in _Music in American Life:: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture_, edited by Jacqueline Edmondson (Santa Barbara: Greenwood Press, ABNC-CLIO, 2013).
Book review of Catskill Culture: A Mountain Rat’s Memories of the Great Jewish Resort Area, by Phil Brown. Journal of American Ethnic History 24, 1 (Fall 2004): 135-136.
“Log Cabins.” In _Dictionary of American History_, Third edition, edited by Stanley I. Kutler, Vol. 5, revising original entry by Alvin F. Harlow, 145. NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003.
“Sheffield Scientific School.” In _Dictionary of American History_, Third edition, edited by Stanley I. Kutler, Vol. 7, revising original entry by Elizabeth H. Thomson, 340. NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003.
“Historishe shablonen oder historisher emes?” - “Clichéd History or Historical Truth?” - Part 1. In _AFN SHVEL_ 299 (July-Sept. 1995): 1-6 [Yiddish]. A polemic against historical distortions presented by Prof. Oscar Handlin, concerning American Jews, Anti-Semitism, and American Jewish reactions to the Hitler regime before Pearl Harbor.
“Historishe shablonen oder historisher emes?” - “Clichéd History or Historical Truth?” - Part 2. In _AFN SHVEL_ 300 (Oct.-Dec. 1995): 7-11. [Yiddish]
"Freie Arbeter Shtime," _Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review_ 5 (Scotland, 1978). Obituary of a newspaper. Now online at the Kate Sharpley Library, http:// www.katesharpleylibrary.net/7wm3tf.
"Introduction" to reprint of Albert Meltzer's Origins Of The Anarchist Movement In China, _Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review_ 4 (Scotland, 1977).