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A Yiddish rock supergroup will reunite for one Manhattan show on Dec. 25
(New York Jewish Week) — On the evening of Dec. 25 — yes, Christmas — influential aughties Yiddish rock band Yiddish Princess will take the stage in Manhattan for a one-night-only reunion show.
Billing itself “the world’s favorite Yiddish rock band,” Yiddish Princess was founded in New York City circa 2006 by vocalist Sarah Mina Gordon and Michael Winograd, who is best known as a klezmer clarinetist but plays synthesizer in this band. Over the course of a few years, Yiddish Princess played numerous gigs in the city and abroad and released one eponymous EP in 2010 before going on, as Gordon calls it, “a semi-permanent hiatus.”
Now, for the first time in more than a decade, the group — which also features guitarists Avi Fox-Rosen and Yoshie Fruchter and bassist Ari Folman-Cohen — will reunite for a show at Bowery Electric (327 Bowery) as part of the wide-ranging Yiddish New York festival taking place throughout the city from from Saturday, Dec. 23 through Thursday, Dec. 28.
“They’re a supergroup,” said Aaron Bendich, the founder of Borscht Beat, an independent Jewish cultural project focused on Yiddish music, who was instrumental in booking the reunion show. “Each of them, in their own right, and in sub-configurations, are super-active in the Yiddish music scene or klezmer music scene and have their own other albums and projects.”
Gordon, whom Bendich describes as a “major figure” in New York’s Yiddish music scene, is a native New Yorker who grew up steeped in Yiddish culture — her mother, Adrienne Cooper, who died in 2011, was considered “the mother of the Yiddish revival movement.” Gordon appeared on her mother’s albums, and she also collaborates with modern-day klezmer greats like Frank London and Daniel Kahn. But she initially formed Yiddish Princess — with its raucous, ’80s glam-rock style — as a way to forge her own path.
“It was really kind of a playful thing,” Gordon, 44, told the New York Jewish Week about the band’s origins. “I was really trying to find something that was mine. It really came out of a sense of play and fun.”
Co-founder Sarah Gordon playing a Yiddish Princess gig in NYC in 2013. (Tinker Coalescing)
Gordon, who resides in Brooklyn near the “klezmer shtetl” of Midwood and is also a teacher at Brooklyn Friends School, describes Yiddish Princess as having “big rock sounds that are very influenced by the music of our childhoods in the 80s and 90s,” citing personal heroes like Kate Bush, Pat Benatar and Cyndi Lauper.
“Real powerhouses,” she added.
Yiddish Princess’ website, which was last updated in 2013, describes the band’s sound this way: “Double guitar onslaught. Drums beating you into submission. Precious analog synths beckoning. And a voice that can shatter ice and coo you into mellifluous bliss.”
For Gordon, who sings in Yiddish, the band “was a way of inviting people into Yiddish in a different way,” she said. “There was real freedom in being like, ‘This is a rock show, we’re not going to translate.’ It’s unapologetic. If you don’t get this, that’s OK, this is for us.”
Many fans, of course, “get” what Yiddish Princess is doing — and what sets the band apart from other Jewish “fusion” acts out there isn’t just their musicianship.
“You can’t do genre-melding without genuine investment in both genres being melded,” Bendich said. “And it is an all-too-common, particularly in Jewish music, phenomenon where people only really buy into the Jewish half of the puzzle, and then they make a disingenuous rock album or something. But Yiddish Princess is pretty much all-in on both halves. That’s the magic of it.”
The reunion, said Gordon, is intended to be a one-time thing. Though there was no official breakup of the band — nor scandals or huge dramas a la VH1’s “Behind the Music” — its members, while remaining close friends and collaborators, have simply grown up and moved on to other things.
“I feel very honored to continue to be part of that [Yiddish music] tradition,” Gordon said. “I think that there’s a lot of space to play, and I think that Yiddish Princess is an exercise in that. And it’s really nice that it has brought joy to people and continues to.”
As for Monday night’s show, Gordon said the audience can expect to hear all the songs on Yiddish Princess’ EP and more. “I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun,” she said. “And loud.”
Yiddish Princess will play Dec. 25 at 9 p.m. at Bowery Electric (327 Bowery). For additional information on Yiddish New York, click here.
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The post A Yiddish rock supergroup will reunite for one Manhattan show on Dec. 25 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.