Adventures of Max Spitzkopf: the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes

03/05/2026
58 mins
[video_views]

Meet Max Spitzkopf: legendary Viennese private eye, undefeated foe of villains, and passionate defender of the Jewish people. Isaac Bashevis Singer hailed Jonas Kreppel’s early 20th-century detective stories as “masterpieces.” Now Mikhl Yashinsky’s charming translations from the original Yiddish bring 15 of these mysteries, with their unique twist, to a new audience. The teacher, translator, and actor joins us online from New York to discuss writing that is also a vivid testament to Jewish life in all its richness during the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

About the speakers

Sarah Weinman

Sarah is the author of the nonfiction books The Real Lolita, Scoundrel, and Without Consent, as well as the editor of several anthologies, most recently Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning. She is the Crime & Mystery columnist for the New York Times Book Review and her work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Vanity […]

Mikhl Yashinsky

Mikhl Yashinsky is a translator, playwright-lyricist, singer-actor, and teacher in New York City. He was born in Detroit and graduated with a degree in European history and literature from Harvard. His translation of Ester-Rokhl Kaminska’ s memoirs, The Mother of Yiddish Theatre, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He has taught Yiddish at Columbia, the University of Michigan, […]

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Adventures of Max Spitzkopf: the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes

03/05/2026
|
58 mins

Speaker

Sarah Weinman

Sarah is the author of the nonfiction books The Real Lolita, Scoundrel, and Without Consent, as well as the editor of several anthologies, most...

Mikhl Yashinsky

Mikhl Yashinsky is a translator, playwright-lyricist, singer-actor, and teacher in New York City. He was born in Detroit and graduated with a degree in...