5/12/10 -- LA Jewish Film Festival - Klezmatics: On Holy Ground

Wednesday, May 12th at 7:30pm at the Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills, CA

For over 20 years, The Klezmatics have been at the vanguard of the international Klezmer revival movement. The Grammy award-winning group has redefined the boundaries of contemporary Jewish music, through nine albums and collaborations with such diverse artists as Chava Alberstein, Arlo Guthrie, Itzhak Perlman and Joshua Nelson.

Following the group through tours in the US, Germany and Poland, this strikingly honest documentary portrait reveals the challenges faced by the Klezmatics as they strive to continue making joyous, boundary-breaking music while balancing the demands of family, career and their own individual lives.

Yiddishkayt is proud to have been a supporter of The Klezmatics for over a decade. We were there as a sponsor for their sold out Los Angeles mainstream debut at UCLA Live in 1997, at two shows at the Ford Amphitheater in 2000 and for their return performance to UCLA Live in 2009. This special screening is being held as a tribute to Libby Sklamberg, oley ha'shalom, a long-time friend of Yiddishkayt and the mother of The Klezmatics' Lorin Sklamberg.

4/24-4/25/10 -- Los Angeles Times Festival of Boooks

On the UCLA Campus - Free Admission - $10 Parking
Sat, 4/24: 10am to 6pm | Sun, 4/25: 10am to 5pm

Now in our fourth year at the Festival of Books, Yiddishkayt helps you fill your shelves with plays, novels, history and humor from the BIGGEST Yiddish bookstore in L.A. (well, at least in April). Visit the Yiddishkayt Booth (#603) for books in Yiddish, books about Yiddish and books for kinderlekh, for kids.

4/18/10 -- Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration

Join us as we co-sponsor this annual event paying tribute to our martyrs and heroes. Dr. Arieh Saposnik, Gilbert Chair in Israel Studies at UCLA, will speak on "Power, Powerlessness, and Ethics of the Use of Force in Contemporary Life." The event also includes candlelighting, readings and music by Mit Gezang Yiddish Chorus.

The event is FREE and begins at 2:00pm
The Institute of Jewish Education [MAP]
8339 West 3rd Street, Los Angeles

Co-sponsored by Arbeter Ring, Sholem Community, Jewish Labor Committee, Yiddishkayt, LA Yiddish Culture Club, California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language, Secular Jewish Humanists of Los Angeles, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Meretz USA, and underwritten in part by the Lilke & Szlama Majzner Memorial Fund for Yiddish Culture.

For more information call 310.552.2007 or see circlesocal.org.

12/13 - Come and Celebrate Khanike in Santa Monica with music, pickles and egg creams!

Tickets on sale now!

Sunday, December 13, 2009
2:00pm Matinee & 7:00pm Evening

At the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica
1130 Lincoln Blvd, Santa Monica, CA, 90403 (map)

Tickets $20; children under 12, $10
Buy your tickets online through BrownPaperTickets.com or order by phone at 1-800-838-3006.
Tickets will also be available for purchase at the theater on Sunday.

--> Parking information is below.

Come celebrate Khanike in Santa Monica!  Yiddishkayt is proud to present Mitch Smolkin in Rexite on the Radio: Live from the Golden Age of NY’s Yiddish Broadcasts, for two performances on Sunday, December 13^th, direct from its production at the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene in New York.

In New York in the 1930s, there were over 23 radio stations broadcasting Yiddish programs but by the 1940s, one entertainer had become the King of Yiddish radio – the heartthrob crooner Seymour Rexite.  At the height of his popularity, the smooth-as-scotch tenor starred on 18 radio shows a week.

This unique world and repertoire is brought to life by the exciting and gifted singer, actor and cultural innovator Mitch Smolkin (at left), accompanied by renowned pianist and composer Nina Shapilsky.  The Forward declared that “Mitch Smolkin is Yiddish’s next wave,” and The Jewish Standard gushed “Mitch Smolkin makes a fine romantic figure, and sings sexy love songs very well.”

Audiences will hear the American Songbook and the great Broadway hits of the 20^th century as they were heard on thousands of radios across the country – in Yiddish! You’ll never listen to Oklahoma the same way again. In addition to mining the richness of Rexite’s era, Mitch will perform some classic Yiddish songs that are bound to send you home singing.  So put down your dreydl and join us as we journey back to the golden age of Yiddish radio.  New York delights like pickles, egg creams and Dr. Brown’s will be on sale!

• Meet Mitch Smolkin & Nina Shapilsky
  
• Who was Seymour Rexite?
  
• More Concert Information
  
• Parking & Directions

MITCH SMOLKIN

Mitch Smolkin is a Toronto based actor, singer, playwright and cultural innovator. He has been seen on the stage and in concert in dozens of cities internationally. 2009 has included concerts in Jerusalem, Chicago, New York, Argentina, Uruguay, and across Canada. Career highlights include performing with the Folksbiene Theatre at the legendary Town Hall on Broadway in a tribute to Carl Reiner, off-Broadway with the late Bruce Adler, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at the Mayor’s ball in Toronto and earlier this year at the Glenn Gould Studio at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2008, Mitch Smolkin released his debut album A Nign Iz Geboyrn (A Song Is Born).  He was the Artistic Director of the internationally renowned Ashkenaz Festival from 2001 – 2006 and is currently an artistic associate with Harbourfront Centre, Canada’s largest cultural presenting organization. Mitch Smolkin’s singing can be heard currently at the permanent sound installation in the Michael Lee Chin Crystal's Spirit House at the Royal Ontario Museum. He recently received a grant to complete his first full-length play entitled Polonium based on the life of Marie Curie and a Canada Council for the Arts international touring grant to tour the United States and South America. Learn more about Mitch on his website.

NINA SHAPILSKY

Nina Shapilsky is an award winning concert pianist based in Toronto. Originally from Russia where she was well-known, Nina traveled the world as both a pianist and musical director for a number of important musicals and musical ensembles. She received numerous awards across Europe as a pianist and arrived in Canada with the show “Russians On Broadway”. At present, she works with a variety of singers and organizations, including the National Ballet of Canada, as both a pianist, music consultant and curator.

SEYMOUR REXITE

Seymour Rexite (originally Rechtzeit) was a singing prodigy in his native Poland, known as “The Wonder-Boy.”  He, his Cantor father and older brother immigrated to America in 1920, but quotas prevented his mother and sisters from joining them.  Not yet a teen, a sympathetic congressman arranged for Seymour to sing before a congressional committee, and then in a command performance for President Calvin Coolidge.  His rendition of “Bring Me My Mother From the Other Side,” written by his brother, so moved President Coolidge that he relented to the plea on the spot.  Rexite went on to succeed in all venues of entertainment – Yiddish theater, recordings, Yiddish film (Mayn Yidishe Mama, Motl der Operator), and white tie and tails regular appearances at upscale New York nightclubs like Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe and the Casino de Paris.

But it was in radio that Rexite truly excelled.  The matinee idol’s smooth as scotch tenor won him Sinatra-like adoration from female fans.  And his repertoire expanded way beyond the classic canon of Yiddish theater and folk songs.  For the assimilating audiences of the 40s and 50s, Rexite and his wife, the singer and actress Miriam Kressyn, took to adapting whatever songs were popular on American radio into the beloved language of his listeners – lyrical and witty Yiddish renditions of Night and Day, Tea for Two, Oh What a Beautiful Morning, McNamara’s Band, Love and Marriage. (“…go together like a horse and carriage” became “geyt tzuzamen vi zup un knaydlakh” - go together like soup and matzo balls.)  And all of this interspersed with his renowned Yiddish advertising jingles for his sponsor’s products – Maxwell House, Barbasol, Ajax, Campbell’s Soup, Coca Cola, among many others. Learn more about Seymour at the Yiddish Radio Project.

Hear Rexite's Barbasol jingle:

Hear Rexite's Surrey mitn fringe afn top:

Hear Rexite's Ajax jingle:

MORE CONCERT INFORMATION

There will be two performances at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm.  Running time is approximately 80 minutes. 

General admission is $20, Children under 12, $10.  Tickets are being sold through BrownPaperTickets.com. There is a small service fee (smallest in the industry) and you may order online, by calling 1-800-838-3006, or purchase tickets at the theater on Sunday.

A ticket guarantees a seat. Seating is general admission and first-come, first-served. Doors will open no earlier than 30 minutes prior to the show.

Festive refreshments will be available to purchase (cash only).

Miles Memorial Playhouse is located at 1130 Lincoln Blvd. in Santa Monica. For more information about Miles Memorial Playhouse, visit www.milesplayhouse.org.

PARKING & DIRECTIONS

FREE parking is available for both concerts on Sunday.  Note the directions below.

The Miles Memorial Playhouse Parking lot is located diagonally across the corner from the theater.  The entrance to the parking lot is on Lincoln Boulevard, just 100 yards South of Wilshire Blvd. The ramp is on the East side of Lincoln, leading down into a subterranean garage, as pictured below:

If you take the 10 Freeway and exit Lincoln, you will head north on Lincoln Blvd and the entrance ramp to the parking garage will be on your right, just before you reach Wilshire Blvd, as shown in the map below.  There is also metered parking available around the park. 

11/8 - Sholem Aleichem at 150: Celebrating the Yiddish Comic Master

Sunday, November 8
Begins at 1:00pm
At 314 Royce Hall
On the UCLA Campus

Join us as the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies presents a Symposium on the 150th Anniversary of Sholem Aleichem.

Sponsored by the UCLA/Mellon Program on the Holocaust in American & World Culture.  Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies and Yiddishkayt.

Schedule

1:00pm · Introduction by Justin Cammy (UCLA)
1:15pm · Olga Litvak (Clark University)
Literature and Theft: Sholem Aleichem's "Penknife" as Mastertext of Modern Yiddish Fiction
1:45pm · Marcus Moseley (Northwestern University)
You Can Go Home Again: Sholem Aleichem and the Family Romance
2:15pm · Q & A Session
2:45pm · Performance by Caraid O'Brien and Aaron Beall
Narrate This: A World Premiere Extravaganza
3:45pm · Break
4:00pm · Roundtable Discussion with Justin Cammy, Olga Litvak, Marcus Moseley, and Caraid O'Brien

Pre-registration

While the event is free and open to the public, pre-registration is required. Please email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or call the RSVP line at (310) 267-5327.

8/23 - Celebrating the Memory of Lilke Majzner

Sunday, August 23, 2009
at 2:00pm

At the Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club
8339 W. 3rd St., 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90048 (map)

The Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club will hold a special program to honor the memory of Lilke Majzner — the beloved president of the club for two decades — with stories, poetry, and song. With guest Cantor Arianne Brown of Sinai Temple.

8/9 - Sorrowfully and Joyfully: Homage to Soviet Yiddish Creativity

Sunday, August 9, 2009
2:00pm to 4:00pm
Free admission
More info, call (310) 552-2007 or email circle@circlesocal.org.

At Arbeter Ring (Workmen's Circle)
1525 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035 (map)
Street parking available

Annual tribute to murdered Soviet Yiddish writers, featuring music and readings in Yiddish and English.

On the fateful date of August 12, 1952, the Soviet régime of Joseph Stalin executed fourteen prominent Yiddish writers and Jewish communal officials in an attempt to wipe out Jewish culture. 57 years later, we gather to celebrate Soviet Yiddish creativity through words and songs by great artists: Moyshe Kulbak, Shmuel Halkin, Dovid Hofshteyn, Leyb Kvitko, Perets Markish, Arin Kushnirov, Yosif Kerler, Itsik Fefer, Shmuel Polonski, and honored Los Angeles poet Moyshe Sklar.

Songs will be performed by the Arbeter Ring Mit Gezang Yiddish Chorus, with the participation of prominent readers in both Yiddish and English. Narration and translations by Hershl Hartman (also known as Yiddishkayt's Vortsman).

Presented by Arbeter Ring (Workmen's Circle). Cosponsored by Yiddishkayt and a collection of secular and progressive Jewish groups.

8/1 - Book Party: Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You

Saturday, August 1, 2009
Begins at 8:00pm
$10 admission, $5 for members (refunded if you purchase the book)

At Arbeter Ring (Workmen's Circle)
1525 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035 (map)
Street parking available

Warning: If you are offended by earthy, coarse language, do not attend this event!

Join us on August 1st to celebrate the return of Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You by Marvin S. Zuckerman and Gershon Weltman. This important collection of Yiddish folk sayings has long been out of print — after thirty years it is now back in print!

"You don't get a broad behind from thin noodles."
Fun shmole lokshn bakumt men nit keyn breytn tokhes.

"You're upper class? Kiss my ass."
A meyukhes, kusht in tokhes.

"Words and farts can't be taken back."
A vort un a forts ken men nit tsriknemen.

In 1975 authors Zuckerman and Weltman translated, transliterated and reprinted the original Yiddish text of “coarse and vulgar” Yiddish sayings that had been privately published in 1908 by the famous collector of Yiddish folk sayings, Ignaz Bernstein (you can find him in the "Lexicon of Modern Yiddish Literature" and other sources). He called them, in Latin, “Erotica and Rustica.”

Isaac Bashevis Singer said about the collection: “a cute and charming addition to Yiddish folklore.” The famous writer Henry Miller called it: “juicy, savory, spicy.”

There are those among us who might be offended by these crude folk sayings.  But such expressions exist among all peoples and all languages. It is only natural. One is, after all, “no more than human.” The sayings are coarse, but they are also funny, waggish, and clever. You will find them translated and transliterated in no other place. They help us better appreciate the lusty, wry humor of the turn-of-the-century European shtetl, which gave rise to so much of American humor as well.

The book will be avilable for purchase and signing. Refreshments will be served.

Presented by Arbeter Ring (Workmen's Circle). Cosponsored by Yiddishkayt.

7/30 - Sunset Concert at the Skirball: Gadji-Gadjo

Thursday, July 30, 2009
Concert at 8:00pm, doors open at 7:00pm
Free admission; no reservations
Limited seating available on a first-come, first-served basis

At the Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049 (map)
Plentiful on-site parking: only $5 per car (cash only)
No street parking permitted

The Skirball Cultural Center presents the L.A. premiere of Gadji-Gadjo! Led by accordionist Mélanie Bergeron and also featuring violin, mandolin, clarinet, guitar, double bass, and percussion, this beloved Quebec-based band reinvigorates the Roma and klezmer traditions of Eastern Europe with diverse world influences. With its zesty, high-spirited live show, pairing original compositions and masterful improvisations, Gadji-Gadjo has become a young favorite on the world-music festival circuit. Check out their site and their music.

Co-presented by Yiddishkayt.

Part of the 2009 season of the Skirball’s free Sunset Concerts, celebrating musical traditions from around the globe, presented Thursday evenings, July 16–August 13. View the Exhibitions — All Skirball galleries except Noah’s Ark are free and open during Sunset Concerts until 10:00pm — and dine Al Fresco. More info here.

6/14 ZAYT GEZUNT! A FAREWELL CONCERT TO THE VCJCC

Sunday, June 14, 2009
from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm

$15 admission (for concert and full breakfast)

at the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center (VCJCC)
14701 Friar St, Van Nuys (map)

Join the Center for one last celebration in the best way we know how: with a Beygl Brunch Concert. Golden State Klezmer and Cindy Paley present a concert of Klezmer and Yiddish music, singing and playing classics and favorites. Don't miss this final commemoration of the life of a vibrant community center.

Not every story has a happy ending. After 56 years of service to the community, the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center is officially closing their doors in June.

In its day, the Center was a vibrant home of Yiddish, with a shule (after school Yiddish-language program), Yiddish plays, music, and culture. The Center is, quite literally, the birthplace of our organization, Yiddishkayt, and hosted our first family festival in 1995.

Join us on June 14 and help us say zayt gezunt to a longtime friend.

Full breakfast includes beygls, lox shmirkez (shmear), veggie spread, cottage cheese, desserts, and drinks.

5/17/09 - Fiesta Shalom

Sunday, May 17
Festival in front of the Breed Street Shul

Fiesta Shalom, a unique festival celebrating the shared Jewish & Latino experience in Boyle Heights -- right in front of the Breed Street Shul.

View pictures from Yiddishkayt's booth, which we shared with the Jewish Historical Society, the Breed Street Shul Project and the Boyle Heights Historical Society.

In addition to selling Yiddish books, we had two mapping workshops for festival-goers to participate in: "Los Angeles Geography" and "The Boyle Heights Experience."

4/27/09 - At Home in Utopia

Film screening + Panel Discussion

Part of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival
Monday, April 27, 2009, at 7:30 pm
at Laemmle's Music Hall
9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, 90211 (map)

$12 Adults, $9 Seniors and Students
To purchase tickets, click here

A home of one’s own: that’s the American dream. But what happens when the dreamers are immigrants, factory workers, and Communists?

In the mid-1920s, thousands of Jewish immigrant garment workers managed to catapult themselves out of urban slums and ghettos by pooling their resources and building four cooperatively owned and run apartment complexes in the Bronx. They believed that owning one’s home went a long way toward controlling one’s fate.

At Home in Utopia focuses on the United Workers Cooperative Colony – aka the Coops – the most grass-roots and member-driven of the Jewish labor housing cooperatives, where life was lived in Yiddish. Beginning as a stalwartly secular East European Jewish working class enclave, they were part of an international movement the power of which blows minds today.

In the 1930s they opted to bring their passion for racial justice home, by racially integrating their own cooperative house, with unexpected consequences. An epic tale of the struggle for equity and justice across two generations, the film tracks the rise and fall of one community from the 1920s into the 1950s, paying close attention to the passions that bound them together and those that tore them apart. Along the way, At Home in Utopia bears witness to lives lived with courage across the barriers of race, nation, language, convention, and sometimes even common sense.

--> After the screening join the filmmaker, children of the Coops and public housing gurus in exploring the experience — and present-day lessons — of the Coops.  With Michal Goldman, the filmmaker; Elissa Barrett, Executive Director of PJA; Hershl Hartman, child of the Coops, Education Director of the Sholem Community and Yiddishkayt's Vortsman; and Irv Goldstein, child of the Coops.  Moderated by Peter Dreier, Professor of Politics and Chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College.

Part of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival (April 23-30, 2009).  Presented by Yiddishkayt with our friends at the Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle, Progressive Jewish Alliance, and the Sholem Community.

4/25-4/26/09 - L.A. Times Festival of Books

Saturday, April 25, 10 am to 6 pm
& Sunday, April 26, 10 am to 5 pm

On the UCLA Campus (map)
Booth #603
Free Admission, $9 Parking

Yiddishkayt is excited to return for our third year at the L.A. Times Festival of Books.  Visit our booth (#603) for an amazing assortment of books covering the rich world of Yiddish.  We're bringing books in Yiddish, books about Yiddish, and books for kinderlekh, for kids.  Fill your shelves at home with plays, novels, history and humor from the biggest Yiddish bookstore in L.A. (well, at least in April).

4/19/09 - Annual Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Commemoration
& The Future of Shoah Memory

Sunday, April 19 at 2 pm
Institute of Jewish Education (Yiddish Culture Club)
8339 W. Third Street, LA (map)
Free Admission

For more information call (310) 552-2007
or visit www.circlesocal.org

Please join us this Sunday as we mark Yom Hashoah v'Hagevurah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and pay tribute to our martyrs with a candle-lighting ceremony.

Featuring Dr. Samuel Edelman, speaking on "The Book of the Shoah: Yitzhak Katzenelson and the Future of Shoah Memory." And a program of Yiddish song with Cantor Arianne Brown of Sinai Temple.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Commemoration is co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Yiddish Culture Club, Arbeter Ring (Workmen's Circle), Yiddishkayt, The Sholem Community, Ameinu, Jewish Labor Committee, California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language, Adat Chaverim, Progressive Jewish Alliance, and Secular Jewish Humanists of LA.

Dr. Edelman has been teaching and lecturing on the Shoah for 25 years. His major focus is on Cultural Resistance. He has produced five documentaries on the Shoah for public radio and is the winner of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting award for humanities documentaries. He is also written extensively and teaches on Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Genocide, Jewish rhetoric, Israeli Public Address, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

With her clear, crystalline voice, Arianne Brown is a well-loved leader of religious life at Sinai Temple. She is also a graduate of the Folkbiene Yiddish Theatre and an affecting presenter of Yiddish song, a treasure in our community.

4/2/09 - DOIKAYT:
L.A. is Egypt, L.A. is the Promised Land

DOIKAYT: A Community/Arts/Yiddish Seder

Thursday, April 2, 2009
at 7:30 pm

At the Westside Jewish Community Center
5870 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036 (map)

Doikayt (do-i-kite). From Yiddish. Literally “hereness.”
1) The quality of being present.
2) A Yiddish political philosophy premised upon the struggle for social justice in the place where one resides.

--> MORE INFO: Tickets/Story/Artists/Where

3/26/09 - Pharaoh's Daughter

Concert

Thursday, March 26, 2009
at 8:00 pm

$30 General; $25 Members; $20 Full-Time Students

At the Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Los Angeles, 90049 (map)

With a unique pan-Mediterranean sound stemming from her Hasidic music background and travels to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Kurdistan, Greece, and Central Africa, singer/songwriter Basya Schechter takes the stage with her innovative ensemble of young musicians, Pharaoh's Daughter. Hear the bands mesmerizing blend of Hasidic chants, electronica, and Mizrachi and Sephardic folk-rock, executed masterfully on percussion, flute, and strings.

Advance tickets: www.skirball.org or by phone at (877) SCC-4TIX or (877) 722-4849.

Co-presented by the Skirball Cultural Center.

3/12/09 - Der Purimspiler (The Jester)
L.A. Premiere!

Film Screening

Thursday, March 12, 2009
at 7:30 pm

$10 General; $8 Members; $6 Full-Time Students
Visit www.skirball.org for advance tickets.

At the Skirball Cultural Center
2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd. Los Angeles, 90049 (map)

L.A. premiere of new restoration! This musical drama tells of a lonely wanderer, a circus performer, and Esther, the shoemaker's daughter, whose family tries to marry her into a prominent family. At the center is a Purim shpil (Purim play) with its parade of costumes and songs. The film's lively circus and vaudeville music and set pieces offer a glimpse of Warsaw's then-thriving Yiddish revues. Furthermore, many of the film's Polish-Jewish crew and actors were killed during the Holocaust, giving the film's touches of melancholy an even more profound reading for today's audiences. Directed by Joseph Green (Yiddle with His Fiddle, Mamele) and Jan Nowina-Przybylski. Restored by The National Center for Jewish Film. (Poland, 1937, 90 min. In Yiddish with new English subtitles. No MPAA rating.)

"A wistful romance that's interspersed with songs but rooted in the wisecracks and banter of Yiddish culture." -J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

Co-presented by the Skirball Cultural Center.

3/5/09 - The Klezmatics at Royce Hall

Thursday, March 5
Begins at 8:00 pm
Royce Hall at UCLA

Tickets just went on sale, buy them today!

Tickets are available for $60, $45 or $38 ($15 for UCLA students)
Purchase tickets on the UCLAlive website or by calling the UCLAlive box office at (310) 825-2102.

UCLAlive presents the Grammy Award-winning KLEZMATICS, live in concert at Royce Hall.

Help us sell out the show - your ticket will help raise money for Yiddishkayt!  Because Yiddishkayt made the shidekh, the match, that made this concert possible, we can benefit from a sold-out show. There has never been an easier way to help raise money for Yiddishkayt - all while seeing the Grammy-winning Klezmatics at the world-class Royce Hall.





Founded in 1986 as the result of a Village Voice ad, this freewheeling group of musicians from New York's East Village have become world-renowned klezmer superstars, perpetually reinventing and revitalizing this traditional genre to create exuberantly modern dance music. With their irresistibly eclectic mix of gospel, punk, Arab, African and Balkan rhythms steeped in Eastern European Jewish traditions, the ensemble has garnered numerous accolades, including a 2006 Grammy for Wonder Wheel (created from the never recorded lyrics of folk icon Woody Guthrie), and has collaborated with a diverse list of luminaries including Arlo Guthrie, Itzhak Perlman, Ben Folds Five, Chava Alberstein, and the late Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. "(They) aren't just the best band in the klezmer vanguard... they rank among the best bands on the planet. Jewish traditional music is just the starting point for songs that jump, rock and swing-sometimes all at the same time" [Time Out, New York].

2/28/09 - "In Search of Yiddish" - Film Screening

Documentary Film Screening
+ Live Poetry Reading by the filmmaker

Saturday, February 28, 2009
at 2:00 pm

$15 admission
RSVP and more info: contact Alla Feldman at (323) 761-8618 or afeldman@bjela.org.

Presented by the Bureau of Jewish Education, LA. Sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Cosponsored by Yiddishkayt.
at the Jewish Community Center at Milken Campus
22622 Vanowen St, West Hills, CA 91307 (map)

Filmed In Russian with English subtitles
Authors: Alexander Gorodnitsky, Natalia Kasperovich, Yuri Khashchevatsky, Semen Fridland
Produced in Russian, 2008 (90 minutes)

On the eve of his 75th birthday, the well-known Russian poet and scientist Alexander Gorodnitsky set out for Belarus, where his parents were born and raised and where, in the fall of 1941, the Nazis murdered his entire family. The film follows his travels throughout the country hoping to find his grandparents' grave and the remnants of the Yiddish language. His search eventually brings him to Israel where his son and granddaughters now live. Today, his grandchildren speak Yiddish.

The fates of several people are portrayed in the film, including Sholem Aleichem, Marc Chagall, Shmuel Galkin, Haim Soutine, and Solomon Mikhoels.

The film contains poems and songs written especially for this project. Excerpts from Gorodnitsky's new poem "In Search of Yiddish" and unique early twentieth-century archival footage are also included.

After the screening, Alexander Gorodnitsky will read from his poetry.

2/8/09 - Jewish Life in Buenos Aires: Past & Present

SOLD OUT!

Sunday, February 8, 2009
at 7:00 pm

Part of a UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Symposium-
Jewish Urban History in the Americas: A comparative look at Jewish Buenos Aires & Jewish Los Angeles

Yiddishkayt is proud to sponsor the free public session on Sunday evening, Jewish Life in Buenos Aires: Past & Present, fetauring a performance of Yiddish Tango Music by Klezmer Juice.

At the Turn of the 20th Century, Jews settled throughout the Americas, including in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and other Latin American countries. In Argentina, it was natural for Jewish musicians to write Yiddish tangos. Klezmer Juice bandleader and clarinet player Gustavo Bulgach was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

SOLD OUT!

Click here for more info on the Symposium.

1/18/09 - Zalmen Mlotek - Musical History of the Yiddish Theater

--> Watch a video clip from the presentation and ctach the photos.

Don't miss this special Bagel Brunch on Sunday, January 18!

Sunday, January 18, 2009
9:30am - 12:00pm

$8 Yiddishkayt/VCJCC/CIYCL members; $10 public

Valley Cities Jewish Community Center (VCJCC) (map)
14701 Friar St, Van Nuys, CA 91411

--> Click here to see a BBC interview with Zalmen Mlotek describing the Yiddish influence on American Jazz. A great tam, taste, of what's in store on January 18th.

Hailed as the "runaway hit" of the Berkeley Jewish Music Festival, this elegant piece by Zalmen Mlotek celebrates the Jewish musical accent in American theater. Spanning all genre of Yiddish theater, from the wine cellars of Romania, to Yiddish versions of operetta arias; from humorous vaudeville ballads to backstage renditions of Fiddler on the Roof; from the originals of klezmer music to a special Yiddish-English tribute to Gilbert and Sullivan.

HEAR Yiddish melodies transformed into Irving Berlin, Cab Calloway and George Gershwin jazz numbers.

LEARN how songs like "Vatch Your Step" (1911), "Fifty Fifty" (1912), and "Lebn Zol Kolumbus" (Long Live Columbus) helped immigrants adjust to Di Goldene Medine (The Golden Land).

HEAR how the vaudeville houses on the Lower East Side became the Golden Age of 2nd Avenue, where Yiddish theaters and shows entertained thousands of people all eager to have a connection with the lives they left behind in the old country.



Produced by Yiddishkayt, the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center (VCJCC) and the California Institute for Yiddish Culture & Language (CIYCL).

12/18/08 - A Celebration of Russian-Jewish Wedding Music

--> View photos from the evening.

Yiddishkayt cordially invites you to
a pre-Khanike celebration of

Russian-Jewish Wedding Music

a concert on the evening of

Thursday, December 18, 2008
at 7:00 pm

FREE Admission, general seating

Fiesta Hall, Plummer Park (map)
7377 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA
(Parking lot entrance off Santa Monica Blvd)

Join in the celebration. Yiddishkayt invites you to a concert exploring the many faces of Russian-Jewish wedding music. The unique trio of musicians shares an incredible, encyclopedic fluency in Jewish, Moldavian, Roumanian and Russian music, a rare and special talent.

Local treasures Isaac Sadigursky (Clarinet) and David Kasap (Accordion) have been playing music together for 50 years, meeting in their youth as Conservatory roommates. Isaac and David are both natives of what is now Moldova, located between Ukraine and Roumania. They are joined by world-renowned klezmer revivalist and music scholar, Michael Alpert (Creative Direction, Violin & Voice) of Brave Old World. Fluent in Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Spanish, German, Serbo-Croatian and conversant in a dozen more languages, Michael has drawn from his deep family heritage and extensive travels to become a pioneering figure in the current renaissance of East European Jewish klezmer music for over 25 years.

Produced by Yiddishkayt. Generously supported by the City of West Hollywood Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission.

Saturday, September 20, 2008
8:00 - 10:00 pm
hosted by Grand Performances at California Plaza
350 South Grand Avenue, Downtown Los Angeles

FREE ADMISSION

Experience the world premiere concert of The ¡Viva Yiddish! Project, a debut band celebrating the rich interplay of contemporary Yiddish and Latin American music. Don't miss this tradition-fusing, dynamic and ecstatic concert after sundown. Pack your dancing shoes, brush up on your Spanish and Yiddish, and groove the night away.

The ¡Viva Yiddish! Project is the new sound of Yiddish-LAtino music, a celebration of our ciudad, our shtetl. Los Angeles is a cultural capital of Latin America. But is L.A. also a capital of Yiddish culture? Certainly there was a time when you could read the paper, discuss politics, and buy a knish - all in Yiddish. In neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, Jewish and LAitno worlds met and cultures converged: imagine standing between Jewish and Latino nightclubs, hearing the souls of Yiddish and Latino music mix together.

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