The Forgotten Civilians of Eglin Air Force Base

Here’s the first piece I did about the civilian workers who tested the herbicide Agent Orange at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida during the Vietnam War. This 25-minute documentary was produced for the environmental justice podcast series Living Downstream. Here’s the second piece. Pictured above is attorney Rusty Sanders.

Shelf Life

The 1993 movie Shelf Life was the final feature film directed by the late Paul Bartel, the independent film director best known for Eating Raoul. The L.A.-based film programmer Alex Mechanik managed to get a copy of the last remaining print of the motion picture and has joined the three actors who star in the film in their effort to re-launch it. Benefit screenings of Shelf Life are scheduled for May 11th in Seattle, June 5th in Los Angeles and July 27th in Baltimore. The film’s three co-stars will be on hand. For more information, go to the Shelf Life website.

Here’s a 17-minute podcast featuring Mechanik and actors O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein and Jim Turner.

A Good End

This is a six-part series on the Jewish tradition on death and dying produced by the great Lisa Gray. I had a small hand in the production and narrate the episodes.

Ben Zion Shenker

Listen to a podcast about the late Modzitzer composer Ben Zion Shenker who lived in Brooklyn. He was a huge influence on chasidic music.

The Mighty Atom

Listen to this 11-minute podcast about the Jewish strongman known as The Mighty Atom. Originally produced for the Vox Tablet podcast.

The Collector of Bedford Street

Listen to two podcasts produced for The Forward about the late Larry Selman, who was the subject of Alice Elliot’s Oscar-nominated documentary The Collector of Bedford Street.

Radio Drama Producer Tom Lopez

Listen to a 22-minute piece on the great radio drama producer/director Tom Lopez, who has been making stunning audio dramas for a half-century in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

Doonesbury Turns 50

Listen to a nearly 40-minute conversation with Garry Trudeau, the creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip Doonesbury.

At Food Warehouse With Chowhound Jim Leff

Listen to a short piece in which Alpha Hound Jim Leff goes shopping at Food Warehouse in New Jersey.

Orthodox Jewish Bluegrass Singer

Jerry Wicentowski

This 11-minute podcast for Tablet Magazine was one of three episodes Tablet submitted when it won the first National Magazine Award for podcasts.

Tuli Kupferberg

The late Tuli Kupferberg was another one of those Jewish troublemakers. I watched scores of his Daily Perverbs on YouTube for this Vox Tablet podcast.

A Great Day on Eldridge Street

On a windy fall morning in 2007 more than a hundred klezmorim gathered at the Eldridge Street shul on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to do a version of the famous jazz photo titled A Great Day in Harlem. Though a number of the klezmer musicians from abroad did not make the Eldridge Street photo shoot, many did, along with their North American counterparts. This half-hour podcast was produced for The Forward.

The Lampshade

This is a 20-minute conversation with the Brooklyn writer Mark Jacobson, who wrote a book about a lampshade that surfaced in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Jacobson spent thousands of dollars on testing, which concluded that the lampshade was made out of human skin.

Don’t Mention Casablanca

Michelanne Forster wrote a play about grandmother’s battle for child support with the famous Hollywood director who fathered her son. Forster is an American who has lived in New Zealand for close to 50 years. This a Holocaust drama that is non-fiction. This 23-minute podcast accompanied a print story about Forster in The Forward.

Helfgot & Perlman

Itzhak spoke to Yitzchok in Hebrew. Hankus spoke to Yitzchok in Yiddish. The conductor made puns in English with a heavy Australian-South African accent. And this all happened in the recording studio where Bruce Springsteen recorded “Born to Run” and Madonna laid down her vocal tracks for “Like A Virgin.”

In 2011 the great violinist Itzhak Perlman and cantor Yitzchok Meir Helfgot were joined by Hankus Netsky of Boston’s Klezmer Conservatory Band and conductor Russell Ger, Helfgot's musical director at the Park East Synagogue to record a new album. This 11-minute podcast was produced for The Forward.

Romeo and Juliet (in Yiddish)

This retelling of the Shakespearean saga from film director Eve Annenberg features chasidic first-time actors. My 2010 podcast for The Forward runs 17 minutes.

Ira Cohen

Ira Cohen’s most impressive work of art was himself. This 10-minute podcast was produced for The Forward in 2012.

Adrienne Cooper

The untimely passing of the Yiddish singer Adrienne Cooper in late 2011 triggered an outpouring of grief at a Manhattan synagogue. This 16-minute podcast produced for The Forward was done done mit kop, as they say in Yiddish, with head, and with heart.

Industrial Musicals

Listen to an hour-long special commissioned by PRX. This piece was done as a faux public radio show and features an original comedy piece created by the great Robert Kaplow, a.k.a. Moe Moscowitz. It was anchored by a really shitty human being.