Marisa Scheinfeld was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1980, and raised in the Catskills. She received a B.A. from the State University at Albany in 2002, and a MFA from San Diego State University in 2011. Her work is highly motivated by her interest in the ruin, or site and the histories embedded within them. Marisa’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is among the collections of The Center for Jewish History, The National Yiddish Book Center, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life, The Simon Wiesenthal Center, The Dorot Jewish Division at the New York Public Library and The Edmund and Nancy K. Dubois Library at the Museum of Photographic Arts. On October 4th, 2016 Cornell University Press released her first book entitled The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland.

Her book is available here.

Eddy Portnoy is a specialist on Yiddish popular culture. He currently serves as academic advisor for the Max Weinreich Center and exhibition curator at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The exhibitions he has created for YIVO have won plaudits from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, VICE, The Forward, and others. He is the author of Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press (Stanford University Press 2017).

Jessica Chaffin is a writer/performer, Emmy-Nominated Consulting Producer on HBO’s Hacks, and host of the popular podcast ASK RONNA.

Dan Crane is a journalist, musician, Jew (lax, loves lox) and retired professional air-guitarist. He writes about culture and travel for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, California Sunday, Slate, and numerous other publications. He’s the author of “To Air is Human” and stars in the documentary, Air Guitar Nation.