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Yiddishland

Christian Dawid - Berlin-based, world-renowned klezmer clarinet player - discusses the term "Yiddishland" and explains how it has become a reality.

Jewish Boyhood in Rural Wales: My Grandfather's Story

Merlin Shepherd, klezmer musician and instructor, discusses his grandfather's experiences growing up in a tiny Protestant farming village in rural Wales

"There Was Always a Flavor, Without Being Dogmatic": Growing Up in a Secular Jewish Home

Merlin Shepherd, klezmer musician and instructor, shares what it was like growing up in a non-religious, yet strongly Jewish-identified home.

Peter Sokolow

Peter Sokolow, a full-time professional musician active in Klezmer revival, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on December 5, 2013 in Brooklyn, New York.

2013-12-05

Learning Yiddish and Love of Words

Henri Oppenheim, klezmer musician based on Montreal, talks about how learning Yiddish felt - encountering something special, a world of words.

Peter Sokolow Remembers Humorously Bad Gigs

Peter Sokolow, a full-time professional musician active in Klezmer revival, recalls one of his worst, and most humorous, gigs at a landsmanschaft event.

Jewish Moldovan Gypsy music

Klezmer musician Assaf Talmudi talks about dicovering a great but unknown musician who was part of Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) collaboration in Moldova.

My Father's Piano

Peter Sokolow, a full-time professional musician active in Klezmer revival, talks about his beloved Steinway piano, left to him by his father.

Andy Statman

Andy Statman, acclaimed Bluegrass mandolinist and Klezmer clarinetist, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on July 17, 2017 at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.

2017-07-17

Activism and Jewish Music for Francophones

Henri Oppenheim, klezmer musician based in Montreal, discusses why he identifies as an activist. He reflects on his work with Jewish music, and the process of making it for Francophone listeners.

Connecting with Jewish folk music

musician Assaf Talmudi explains that he started playing Klezmer music because it felt unauthentic to play folk music from other cultures.

Sruli Dresdner

Sruli Dresdner, Jewish musician, scholar, and educator, was interviewed by Christa Whitney on August 25, 2011 at KlezKanada, in Montreal, Quebec. Sruli begins with a discussion of his family origins. Both of his parents fled Europe at the time of W...

2011-08-25

"Can you teach me how to sound more Jewish?"

Christian Dawid - Berlin-based, world-renowned klezmer clarinet player - explains that people ask him, a non-Jew, to help them sound "more Jewish."

The Roughness of Yiddish

Christian Dawid - Berlin-based, world-renowned klezmer clarinet player - explains that he likes Yiddish for its "roughness" and the ways in which it can be both beautiful and obscene.

"Rumania, Rumania"

Peter Sokolow, a full-time professional musician active in Klezmer revival, performs Aaron Lebedeff's classic "Rumania, Rumania" and explains the Yiddish lyrics.

"My Grandparents Would Speak in Fluent Yiddish When They Didn't Want Us to Understand"

Merlin Shepherd, klezmer musician and instructor, recalls an incident in which his grandfather started yelling at another driver in Yiddish in order to keep him from understanding.

The Plum Tree: Old Music, New Lyrics

Elizabeth Schwartz, singer, introduces and performs The Plum Tree, a traditional klezmer melody she composed English lyrics for in honor of historian Itzik Schwartz and his wife Tzila.

Reflecting on a Secular Jewish Upbringing

Peter Sokolow, a full-time professional musician active in Klezmer revival, talks about his secular upbringing in Crown Heights and his mother's unique political philosophy.

What’s a Club Date?: Peter Sokolow Explains

Peter Sokolow, a full-time professional musician active in Klezmer revival, remembers his first professional gigs playing in Country Clubs for weddings and other simkhes.

He Spoke My Parents' Dialect

Israel Bartal - Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew University - shares the story of getting a letter from a klezmer musician from Galicia who spoke his parents' dialect.