Early wishes for a freylekhn Peysekh (Happy Passover)!
Peysekh begins Saturday evening, March 27, and ends at sundown Sunday, April 4. You have almost a month to learn some seder songs in Yiddish! See Klezmer & Yiddish Music Links and Yiddish Language Links, below.
Between now and Peysekh, enjoy a presentation by the incomparable Yiddishist Michael Wex and broadcasts of God of Vengeance brought to you by the Yiddish Theatre Ensemble. Details for both are below.
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If someone has forwarded this newsletter to you,
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Lecture Series Presented by KlezCalifornia
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Strange Yiddish Expressions and How They Got That Way, with Michael Wex
Sunday, March 14, 11am Pacific Daylight Saving Time (2pm Eastern DST, check local times in UK, Europe, Israel)
In Michael Wex’s second presentation for KlezCalifornia, he will look at a few well-known Yiddish expressions and their sources to see what they tell us about the history, nature, and attitudes of the language and about why Jews felt that they needed a language of their own.
Author of three books on Yiddish, including the bestselling Born to Kvetch, Michael Wex has taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Michigan. He is a mainstay of the contemporary Yiddish scene.
Sunday, April 25 , 11am Pacific Daylight Time
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presented by Yiddish Theatre Ensemble
Co-presented by KlezCalifornia
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Streaming: watch any time between Saturday, March 20, 8:30pm PDT and Tuesday, March 23, 11:30pm PDT (Vimeo, 100 mins.). VIP conversation Sunday, March 21, 4pm PDT hosted by performance artist Sara Felder and some of the cast.
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A video adaptation of Sholem Asch’s ground-breaking 1906 play. Directed by Bruce Bierman. English translation by Caraid O'Brien. |
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Surrounded by controversy (the first Broadway production was closed down for portraying unconventional characters and the first lesbian kiss on Broadway), this play was the inspiration for the award-winning Broadway show, Indecent. Yiddish Theatre Ensemble offers audiences the first opportunity to experience the play (in English, with a bisl Yiddish) online.
Although originally set in turn-of-the-20th century Poland, this adaptation is set in New York’s Lower East Side circa 1930, bringing it closer to the American experience. The multi-cultural, multi-generational and diverse LGBTQ cast of seventeen includes veteran of stage Naomi Newman, co-founder of the Traveling Jewish Theater. Actors were filmed in character and full costume from their homes.
Tickets: $18, $36, $54 ($54 tickets include VIP Conversation March 21)
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Klezmer & Yiddish Music Links |
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This Land is Your Land, Woody Guthrie's classic now in Yiddish, newly translated, and recorded by Daniel Kahn, Sarah Gordon, Lorin Sklamberg, Michael Alpert, and others.
Di Fir Kashes (The Seder's Four Questions, in Yiddish), sung by Bay Area duo The Book of J (Jewlia Eisenberg and Jeremiah Lockwood), with guitar. Transliterated lyrics are in the next section, below!
The Jewish People's Philharmonic Chorus sings Peysekh songs in four-part harmony and English supertitles:
Mu Adabru? (Yiddish counterpart to Ekhad Mi Yodea? (Who Knows One?))
Itzik Manger's Megile-Lider, a musical satire of the traditional Purim story directed and adapted by Mike Burstyn. Esther has a love interest whom she jilts to marry the king! With an all-star cast of Yiddish theater players. In Yiddish with English narration and subtitles.
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Mah nishtano ha-laylo ha-ze mikol ha-ley-loys?
Farvos iz di dozike nakht fun Peysekh andersh fun ale nekht fun a gants yor?
Ale nekht fun a gants yor
esn mir khomets oder matso,
ober di nakht fun Peysekh
esn mir nor matso?
Ale nekht fun a gants yor
esn mir a-ler-ley grinsn,
ober di nakht fun Peysekh
esn mir bitere grinsn?
Ale nekht fun a gants yor
tunken mir ayn afile eyn mol
ober di nakht fun Peysekh
tunken mir ayn tsvey mol?
Ale nekht fun a gants yor
esn mir say zitsn-dik, say on-ge-shpart,
ober di nakht fun Peysekh
esn mir ale un-ge-shpart?
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Why is this night different
from all the nights of the whole year?
Why is this Peysekh night different
from all the nights of the whole year?
Why is it that every night
we eat khomets or matzo,
but on this Peysekh night,
we eat only matzo?
Why is it that every night
we eat all kinds of greens,
but on this Peysekh night,
we eat only bitter herbs?
Why is it that every night
we dip at most one time,
but on this Peysekh night,
we dip twice?
Why is it that every night
we eat sitting up straight or reclining,
but on this Peysekh night,
we all eat reclining?
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NOTE: This begins with the general question in Ashkenazi Hebrew, followed by the same question in Yiddish. |
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Other Yiddish Culture Links |
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Gabila's Knishes - check out the six-minute film history of this hundred- year-old New York institution. It'll make you want to eat a knish right away!
Send us the name and location of your favorite place in the S.F. Bay Area to buy a knish and we'll publish it in the April newsletter.
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Remembering chaver Avrom Lapin, my teacher at the Peretz Shul in Winnipeg 1948-1951, who tirelessly gave everything of himself to the school and its students
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Diana Scott & Joel Schechter: |
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Workers Circle/Arbeter Ring of Northern California honors the memory of our beloved friend, social justice activist Jean Pauline (9/24/1921 - 11/23/2016), in her centennial birth year. Warm, strong-willed, and independent, she’s remembered as “an important friend and role model for dozens of younger activists in the Bay Area and beyond.” Jean stood with Women in Black, worked at Modern Times, and volunteered at SFSU’s Labor Archive and Research Center and the anarchist bookstore, Bound Together. With partner-soulmate Tom Brown (d. 10/24/2014), she sang Yiddish songs for many years with the Jewish Folk Chorus of San Francisco. Rest in power, Jean!
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In memory of Sam and Sophie Levinson. It never occurred to me that my Grandpa Levinson spoke a language other than English. I remember him sitting on the sofa reading an American newspaper and watching baseball on TV. Though he came from Russia, I never heard him speak one syllable of Russian. I think he was delighted to be in America. I don't even know if he or Grandma spoke Yiddish. Still, they gave me a strong sense of my Jewish identity. I'll always be grateful to them for that, and for their love and kindness. |
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View KlezCalifornia's Honor Wall. Become a donor to post your tribute.
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Help us continue our exciting mission to connect people and communities around the Bay Area with Yiddish culture.
If you prefer to mail a check, use the address below.
A sheynem dank! Thank you very much!
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A bisl mer (a little bit more)
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