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Happy Bloomsday!

Celebrating all things Joycean—and Leopold Bloom, the hero of Ulysses

by
Elissa Goldstein
June 16, 2015
(Wikimedia Commons)
(Wikimedia Commons)

Today is Bloomsday, the day we honor all things James Joyce and his masterpiece Ulysses, including everyone’s favorite fictional Irish-Protestant-Catholic Jew (whew!), Leopold Bloom. To celebrate, I took Tablet’s way-way-back machine for a spin and unearthed a couple of Joycean gems for your delight:

Reb Bloom, Vos Makht Ir? by Tablet’s Editors

Actors from the the New Yiddish Repertory Theater perform a scene from Ulysses, translated into Yiddish by Irish-American performer/writer/Yiddishist Caraid O’Brien. (Filmed at Tablet’s bumper Bloomsday celebration in New York in 2010.)

How does an Irish-born, Massachusetts-raised performer find herself immersed in Yiddish culture and theater? In 2009, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry interviewed Caraid O’Brien about the parallels between Yiddish and Gaelic, and the similarities between Jewish and Irish culture. It’s a fascinating conversation and O’Brien is a terrific storyteller. Lend her your ears.

Elissa Goldstein is Tablet’s director of audience development. She also produces Unorthodox. Follow her on Twitter here.