Sholem Aleichem, Friend of Yiddish Culture, |
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The yuntif of Purim begins Monday evening, March 6. We commemorate the saving of the Jewish people from Haman (Homen, in Yiddish), who planned to have all of Persia's Jews killed, as recounted in the Book of Esther. Haman was the royal vizier to Persian king, Ahasuerus.
A freylekhn purim ale! A joyous Purim to all!
Once you've registered for some March programs, check out April's as well:
Below: Purim Celebration, painted by Shoshana Eden, who wrote, "Dressing up consisted mainly of masks and no more, due to poverty."
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If someone has forwarded this newsletter to you,
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TASTES OF YIDDISH CULTURE SERIES
Presented by KlezCalifornia
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Sunday, March 5, 11am - 12:45pm PT (calculate your local time HERE)
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Naomi Seidman will explore the translation of Freud into Yiddish and how that translation was received. We will focus in particular on Max Weinreich, Freud's authorized Yiddish translator and popularizer, who described Yiddish as the unconscious of assimilated Jews and believed that Yiddish had the power to raise the buried Jewish past to consciousness. We will analyze (in English) the unique character of psychoanalysis in Yiddish, the language of Freud's immediate ancestors and one that influenced his own thought and writing. |
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Co-presented by Jewish Community Library.
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TASTES OF YIDDISH CULTURE SERIES
Presented by KlezCalifornia
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Sunday, March 19, 11am-12:45pm PT (calculate your local time HERE)
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Live From Israel: KlezCalifornia presents two of the top bands playing klezmer in Israel: The Kalimutke Philharmonia and Di Gasn Trio. The former fuses 20th century jazz from Paris (“Gypsy swing”) with klezmer, while the latter blends klezmer with Balkan, jazz, Arabic, and classical music. Don’t miss this online presentation! Get your tickets now: $18 or $36!
Can't attend in real time? A video will be available after for two weeks.
The Kalimutke Philharmonia is led by Daniel Hoffman, an American-Israeli klezmer violinist, composer, and documentary film producer. As founder of the klezmer-jazz fusion ensemble, the Klez-X, and co-founder of Davka and Trio Carpione, he was a mainstay of the San Francisco Bay Area klezmer scene (including countless weddings, b’nai mitsve parties, and concerts) until he moved to Tel Aviv in 2005.
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Mondays, March 13 - April 3, 7-8:30pm PT (calculate your local time HERE)
In partnership with KlezCalifornia
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Josh Horowitz will teach about little-known themes of Jewish music via the music of Jewish weddings, the synthesis of “Gypsy” and Jewish music, the case of a 19th-century traveling Hasidic musician, an analysis of the only surviving pre-war Yiddish opera, the story of Lilith, and the case of an instrument that previously defined klezmer music but has since been forgotten. |
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Presented by New Lehrhaus.
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Co-presented by KlezCalifornia
Sunday, March 19, 2-3pm PT (calculate your local time HERE)
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Presented by the Jewish Community Library. No charge. |
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Named a finalist for the 2022 National Jewish Book Award, Irena Klepfisz’s book, "Her Birth and Later Years: New and Collected Poems 1971-2021," is the first complete collection of Klepfisz’s work covering the past five decades. It includes her innovative bilingual Yiddish/English poems as well as poems about relatives murdered during the war, immigration, office work, a lost Yiddish writer, a Palestinian boy in Gaza, and various people in her life. In her introduction to Klepfisz’s "A Few Words in the Mother Tongue," Adrienne Rich wrote: “[Klepfisz’s] sense of phrase, of line, of the shift of tone, is almost flawless.” |
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Co-presented by KlezCalifornia
Sunday, March 26, 2-3pm PT (calculate your local time HERE)
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Presented by the Jewish Community Library. No charge. |
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Women have participated in the Yiddish theater from its first days, yet the majority of Yiddish theater scholarship neither addresses gender nor adequately represents women’s achievements in the field. Women on the Yiddish Stage is a series of publications that amplifies the voices of women who served as creative leaders in the historical Yiddish theater. Amanda (Miryem Khaye) Seigel will present from primary sources by Yiddish women actors, translated and published in English for the first time, and articles by scholars reflecting on those incredible women and stories that shaped Yiddish theater’s development. |
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TASTES OF YIDDISH CULTURE SERIES
Presented by KlezCalifornia
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Sunday, March 19, 2-3pm PT (calculate your local time HERE).
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This monthly online conversation Salon is for fluent (flisik) Yiddish speakers. No charge.
Di teme far marts vet zayn: Hot ir beser lib tsu voynen in forshtet (suburban) oder in shtet (urban) un far vos?
?האָט איר בעסער ליב צו װױנען אין פֿאָרשטעט אָדער אין שטעט און פֿאַר װאָס
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Klezmer & Yiddish Music Links |
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Medley from the Neukolln Klezmer Session in 2020: About 35 musicians (depending on how you count them), a trapeze dancer, and another four dancers (or more?), including one very small one, join together for almost eight minutes of klezmer beauty: a medley of “Dem Trisker Rebns Nign” from the repertoire of Harry Kandel, mixed with “Dos Bisele Shpayz,” from the repertoire of Efim Chorny (Kishinev, Moldova) and a fast sirba from the Kostakowsky collection.
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In this clip from the 1939 film "Tevye," Golda (played by Rebecca Weintraub) begs God for a good week, knowing that life will never be the same for her family, now that her daughter Chava is marrying a Christian man. In those days, priests refused to officiate at weddings unless both the bride and groom were Christian, meaning that Chava would be converting to Christianity in order to marry him — a crucial detail that is often lost on today’s viewers. Got fun Avrom is a prayer recited mostly by women at the conclusion of Shabes, in Yiddish rather than loshn-koydesh (the Hebrew and Aramaic “holy tongue”). Yiddish with English subtitles. From The Forverts.
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Other Yiddish Culture Links |
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"Shirley Feeney was no schlemiel," by Kevin Fisher-Paulson in "The San Francisco Chronicle." Fisher-Paulson remembers Feeney, who played Shirley in "Laverne and Shirley" and bemoans the lack of hearing Yiddish on San Francisco buses nowadays. KlezCalifornia of course wrote to him.
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In honor of Ellie Shapiro. Thank you Ellie for a spectacular presentation!–and for helping me to understand a bit more about my tribe—as you so rightly stated, we know more about how they died than how they lived!!!!
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In memory of Doris W. Cohen, my mother, who got a kick out of my being the first person in the family to speak Yiddish. |
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In memory of Scheindel and Joseph Markusfeld. Thank you, You left your home in Lemberg to come to America, and that's why I am alive today. |
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In memory of my mother, Esther Shapiro. |
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This is in gratitude to Ellie Shapiro, for her important and foot-tapping research, and to Judy Kunofsky, for putting everything together. Thank you both. |
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To honor my friend Gerry Tenney. We have been friends and music buddies since 1961!!, when I met you and was introduced to bluegrass and old timey music and began flat picking. By now we have a history of playing music together with Second Generation, CA Klezmer, our Kindershul/KinderShule years, and our recording of Lomir Zingn a Yiddish Lid. Whew! I love so many of the songs you've written, especially Kitchen Music, and of course, your children's songs, especially Haunted House, which should place you in the Children's Music Hall of Fame. And thank you, too, for all you've given to the world of Yidishkayt.
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In honor of the KlezCalifornia Board and all KlezCalifornia volunteers. I want to thank the Board and volunteers who work so hard and thoughtfully to bring all of these enlightening, inspiring, and entertaining workshops, jokes, resources, and information to us. |
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In loving memory of my parents, Joseph and Sara Kuperstein. They excelled at being the best parents I could have had. Very grateful. Thankful they spoke Yiddish exclusively in the home. It was my first language. I treasure all the memories. They are in my heart. |
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View KlezCalifornia's Honor Wall. Become a donor to post your tribute.
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Help us continue our mission to connect people and communities around the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond with Yiddish culture.
Or mail a check to the address below.
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A sheynem dank! Thank you very much!
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A bisl mer (a little bit more)
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