Lakhn iz Gezunt! Keep Laughing! with Barry Schechter

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Sholem Aleichem said: LAKHN IZ GEZUNT, DOKTOIRIM HEYSSN LAKHN, “Laughter is healthy, Doctors prescribe laughter.” Never has this prescription been more necessary than now, after two years of Pandemification, Zoomification, and Meshuggefication. Rabbi Schechter will lift spirits with the most potent mixture known for spirit-lifting: Yiddish and Laughter.

Barry Schechter is Rabbi of Congregation Kol Emeth in Skokie. He was born and raised in London, England. Following his Yeshiva studies at Etz Chaim in London and Gateshead Talmudical Academy, he studied Economics at Cambridge and Essex Universities, and did graduate work at Northwestern University. After Northwestern University, he worked as an economist in Washington DC, where he also taught Yiddish and Hebrew classes, and conducted High Holiday services. 

Rabbi Schechter grew up in a trilingual household: he and his sister spoke English, his mother spoke German and his father spoke Yiddish, and Yiddish is the language that gives him the greatest joy. He has lectured on Yiddish language and dialects at the Linguistics Department of the University of Chicago. He has also given talks on a variety of subjects, including the History of Eastern European Jews,  Austrian & German Jewish Refugees in Britain and the Holocaust, at the University of Hartford, Connecticut, the University of Reading in England, the Jewish organization Gesher in Berlin, Germany, the JCC in Krakow, Poland, and synagogues in Chicago, Milwaukee & New York, and, of course, for YIVO. Rabbi Schechter has appeared on WBBM, WBEZ and WGN radio in Chicago, WAMU radio in Washington, D.C., and CBC radio in Canada. His TV credits include WMAQ TV, TCI Cable and Group W Cable TV. He has published articles in scholarly journals as well as the National Jewish Post and Opinion and the Washington Post.