Before tomorrow’s Sholom Aleichem lecture by Columbia University’s Jeremy Dauber, we thought we’d point out this essay on the links between Aleichem and Mark Twain:

About a hundred years ago, in New York, Sholom Aleichem was introduced to Mark Twain as “the Jewish Mark Twain,” already famous for his timeless stories of European life, by then considered classics. “I wanted to meet you,” Mark Twain said, “because I’m told that I’m the American Sholom Aleichem.”

Tonight, Makor is screening The Goebbels Experiment, a look into the life and mind of the Nazi regime’s master propagandist, a manic-depressive failed poet but brilliant PR whiz handicapped with a short leg and paralyzed foot. Shakespearean Kenneth Branagh hams it up as the voice of the second most powerful man in the Third Reich, reading from his diary in English. Rare archival footage, such as home movies of the eerily ‘perfect’ Goebbels family, included.

Looking to make your own presents this holiday season? If you’re not up for oddball projects like macquariums or vacuum-bag dust houses, craftmaster Genevieve Sterbenz offers a hands-on workshop on beautiful handmade gifts.

Not looking to get crafty? How about spiffying up the packaging at least? Sterbenz also offers a class on unique gift wrapping. It may not be wrapping a book in ziploc sunk in a jug of water dyed opaque (as one of us did), but it’s not the Sunday paper either.