Live and Be Well: A Celebration of Yiddish Culture in America by Richard F. Shepard (hardcover)

Like a warm family album, this lively book heralds and documents the rich and vibrant traditions of Yiddish-speaking immigrants and their children in "the golden land," from the first arrivals to the Second World War.

Meet the famous, the infamous, and the unknown-from hotelier Jenny Grossinger to mobster Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik to Moses Solomon, the would-be "Jewish Babe Ruth"; from anarchist Emma Goldman to entertainer Eddie Cantor. Share the struggles and the triumphs of the labor unions, of Yiddish playwrights and poets. Enter the sweatshops of New York's Lower East Side and the first Jewish settlements in Los Angeles and Chicago. Taste pastrami from Canter's Deli in Los Angeles, knishes from Yonah Shimmel's in New York City, and the famous "smookmit" of the Montreal ghetto.

Lavishly illustrated with photos, cartoons, theater posters, and song sheets, here is a book to delight and inform. It is a joyous celebration of life.