Person Place Thing with Jonathan Brent

Discussion Co-sponsored by Person Place Thing In Person: Admission: $15 YIVO members & students: $10 Zoom Livestream: Admission: Free

Join YIVO for a recording of the public radio show, Person Place Thing, with YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent. Hosted by humorist Randy Cohen, Person Place Thing is an interview show based on the idea that people are especially engaging when they speak, not directly about themselves, but something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing with particular meaning to them.

The conversation will consist of Brent and Cohen discussing three different objects from the YIVO Archives and Library. YIVO’s collections contain 24 million items and 400,000 books, offering insight into centuries of Jewish history. Brent and Cohen will cover topics such as the Holocaust, American antisemitism during the interwar period, and more. Jardena Gertler-Jaffe and Bethany Pietroniro will play selections of music found in YIVO’s collections throughout the event.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

About the Participants

Jonathan Brent is the Executive Director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. From 1991 to 2009 he was Editorial Director and Associate Director of Yale Press. He is the founder of the world acclaimed Annals of Communism series, which he established at Yale Press in 1991. Brent is the co-author of Stalin’s Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953 (Harper-Collins, 2003) and Inside the Stalin Archives (Atlas Books, 2008). He is now working on a biography of the Soviet-Jewish writer Isaac Babel. Brent teaches history and literature at Bard College.

Randy Cohen’s first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for newspapers and magazines (The New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic, Young Love Comics). His first television work was writing for "Late Night With David Letterman" for which he won three Emmy awards. His fourth Emmy was for his work on Michael Moore’s "TV Nation." He received a fifth Emmy as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it. For twelve years he wrote "The Ethicist," a weekly column for the New York Times Magazine. He is currently the creator and host of Person Place Thing, a public radio program.

A performer/scholar, Jardena Gertler-Jaffe is working on a PhD in Vocal Performance at New York University and also earned her M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Toronto and an M.M. in Voice Performance from the Bard College Conservatory. She seeks to incorporate her research interests concerning the construction of musical, artistic, and cultural identities in the face of oppression/oppressive systems into her artistic practice. An interpreter of Yiddish art song and Jewish liturgical works, she has worked as a cantorial soloist in synagogues in the United States and Canada and performed at Jewish Music conferences and festivals in Quebec and Ontario. Her scholarly work has appeared in the University of Toronto Journal of Jewish Thought and Musica Judaica Online. Highlights of her career so far have included performing the Canadian premiere of Alex Weiser’s Pulitzer-nominated set and all the days were purple and making the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Five Songs from Anna Berkowitz, works that also highlight her love of and interest in Yiddish language and culture. 

Hudson Valley-based pianist Bethany Pietroniro brings thoughtful, honed musicianship and a vibrant collaborative spirit to vocal and instrumental repertoire spanning from Baroque masterworks to world premieres. A devotee of song in many genres, Bethany frequently collaborates with classical vocalist colleagues, supporting the curation of distinctive programs that challenge and expand the traditional song recital experience. Dedicated also to propagating the work of living composers, Bethany has performed works such as the world premiere of Bebop Riddle II for cello and piano by American composer Augusta Read Thomas at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, and Martin Bresnick’s Caprichos Enfáticos for percussion quartet and piano with the Evolution Contemporary Music Series. Her ensemble experiences include appearances with the Tanglewood Music Center, the Bach Institute at Emmanuel Music, and The Orchestra Now. Alongside her musical work, Bethany has a passion for problem solving and daylights as a software engineer.