Neal Karlen is a for­mer Newsweek and Rolling Stone staff writer, and a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to The New York Times. He is the author of eight books, includ­ing The Sto­ry of Yid­dish: How a Mish-Mosh of Lan­guages Saved the Jews, and Shan­da: The Break­ing of a Self-Loathing Jew. He lec­tures nation­al­ly on top­ics rang­ing from Yid­dish to Jew­ish base­ball players.