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March comes in with a roar of new Yiddish music
(New York Jewish Week) — As they say in the mameloshn (mother tongue), “Dos Yidish lid iz umetum.” In other words, “Yiddish song is in the air.”
This month a collection of new Yiddish songs will be performed for the first time in America at a Manhattan museum; two Brooklyn blues musicians will release their recordings of old Yiddish folk songs and a new web site preserving the work of a couple who played a pivotal role in promoting Yiddish song is set to debut.
If all that weren’t enough, the stars of the Yiddish stage will also appear at an event celebrating the woman who was dubbed “the Sherlock Holmes of Yiddish song.”
“Because we all have this weird relationship with Yiddish, every project that people do takes it to a different place,” Alex Weiser, director of public programs at YIVO, told the New York Jewish Week. “Interesting, weird things are currently happening with Yiddish song.”
Read on for ways to get your Yiddish on.
Sister act
As part of Carnegie Hall’s multi-venue celebration of women in music, on Sunday, March 5, the Paul Shapiro Quartet takes the stage at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park to perform “Di Shvester: The Sisters.” The sisters (by another mother, anyway) in this concert of Jewish and Yiddish music are Eleanor Reissa, the singer/director/actress who is fluent in Yiddish, and Cilla Owens, the superb jazz vocalist who teaches at Hunter College and can sing in Yiddish as well.
Reissa and Owens will perform some songs by the Barry Sisters, the Bronx-born trio of the mid-20th century who brought Yiddish songs into the mainstream. One of the songs they will perform is based on a poem by the Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt, aka Woody Guthrie’s mother-in-law. In a cross-genre segue, Reissa and Owens will follow “Zumer Bay Nakht Oyf Dekher” (“Summer At Night On The Roof”) with “Up On the Roof,” the Carole King/Gerry Goffin sung memorably by Laura Nyro.
Shapiro, whose albums for John Zorn’s Radical Jewish Culture series were critically acclaimed, has worked with Owens, who has spent most of her life in Crown Heights, since 1990. Shapiro first started collaborating with Reissa, who grew up in Brownsville, at Yiddish New York in 2017.
“To me they’re both Brooklyn royalty,” said Shapiro, who hangs his fedora in the Lower East Side’s Grand Street Co-ops.
“When I sing with Cilla, I feel like I’m home,” Reissa said
The two vocalists have appeared together several times in Shapiro’s Ribs and Brisket Revue, which began at the now-shuttered Cornelia Street Café.
Percussionist Ricky Gordon, right, and Jeremiah Lockwood, the front man for The Sway Machinery, form the duet Gordon Lockwood. (Courtesy)
A right to sing the blues
For the entire month of March a free five-song EP titled “Once Upon a Time the Fire Burned Brighter: Ballads from the Yiddish Gothic” is available for download. Created by the Brooklyn-based blues performers Gordon Lockwood, these are re-interpretations of Yiddish folk songs, three of them by Lifshe Schaecter Widman, a Yiddish folksinger who begot the Yiddish poet Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, who begot the Yiddish scholar and former newspaper editor Itzik Gottesman, now a senior lecturer in Yiddish language and culture at the University of Texas at Austin whose Yiddish Song of the Week blog is an important source for lovers of Yiddish song.
The EP will be accompanied by videos of the five songs, plus additional multimedia that will be viewable online. Gordon Lockwood may sound like a Canadian folk singer, but it is actually a duo comprised of percussionist Ricky Gordon, who performs with Wynton Marsalis and has collaborated with Spike Lee, and Jeremiah Lockwood, the front man for The Sway Machinery, a brass-heavy world music band. Lockwood, a card-carrying ethnomusicologist with a PhD from Stanford, recently produced an album of music that features several Hasidic cantors from Brooklyn. In April, Gordon Lockwood will perform their “Once Upon A Time” repertoire in New Haven and New York.
Yiddish royalty
On March 23, the life of Chana Mlotek — the late, great musicologist, folklorist and archivist, who curated the Yiddish music collection at the vaunted YIVO archives — will be celebrated at YIVO’s West 16th St. headquarters. Nine descendants of the Mlotek clan will participate, along with actors Reissa and Steven Skybell, who played Tevye in the Yiddish production of “Fiddler On The Roof.”
Singers will include Lorin Sklamberg of The Klezmatics and Sarah Gordon of the Brooklyn Yiddish rock band Yiddish Princess. Gordon is the daughter of the late Adrienne Cooper, often referred to as the “mother of the Yiddish revival.” The evening’s musical director will be Zalmen Mlotek, Chana and Yosl’s son and artistic director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.
On March 20, the Workers Circle is expected to launch The Yosl and Chana Mlotek Collection of Yiddish Song, a website that turns the Mloteks’ three-volume “Pearls of Yiddish Song” anthology into a searchable multimedia resource. Consisting of more than 400 Yiddish songs, the web site will include content curated from YouTube and TikTok, according to an email from the publicist.
The Mlotek collection adds another important resource to a field that includes YIVO’s collection of 4,000-plus Yiddish songs, a project directed by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and featuring the field recordings of the late musicologist Ruth Rubin, and many in the Yiddish song scene are looking forward to it.
“We’ve been waiting for this for many, many years,” said Linda Gritz, a retired molecular biologist active in the monthly sing at the Workers Circle in Brookline, Massachusetts. The group has been meeting online during the pandemic and unable to use the couple dozen copies of each Mlotek book, so it has had to create PDFs of 30 songs for its monthly virtual gatherings.
“When it’s online, people could request any song from any book and we could put the URL in the chat and go to it,” said Gritz. “That’ll be an amazing resource.”
Songs for and about refugees
On March 26, “Pleytem Tsuzamen” (“Refugees Together”) will be performed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Two performances of Josh Waletzky’s Yiddish song cycle will mark the American debut of the work, which was first performed in 2019 at the Weimar Republic of Yiddishland gathering in Germany. Performers will come from Latvia, Germany, England and Canada, and Brooklyn violinists Jake Shulman-Ment and Deborah Strauss are part of the cast.
“It’s fitting that we’re doing it a couple of weeks before Pesach [Passover] because there’s a Pesach theme that goes through a lot of the songs,” said singer Daniel Kahn, who lives on a houseboat in Hamburg and plays accordion in the production. “It’s incredible how prescient and universal Josh’s song cycle has proven to be…. Those songs and their themes of displacement and upheaval resonate with the liberational traditions within Yiddishkayt [secular Yiddish culture] and Jewish practice.”
English and Ukrainian supertitles will make the two-hour concert, co-sponsored by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, accessible to non-Yiddish speakers.
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The post March comes in with a roar of new Yiddish music appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Remembering Abe Foxman, the longtime ADL leader known as the ‘Jewish pope,’ who always answered my calls
Friday before sundown, I realized that Abe Foxman had not sent me his weekly “Shabbat Shalom” message. For the past seven years, since we began texting regularly about Jewish and political issues, the message would arrive each Friday like clockwork — often accompanied by screenshots of Shabbat memes. My response never changed: “Good Shabbos, tzaddik,” using the Hebrew word for a righteous person that Foxman himself often used.
A few minutes after sundown, I texted him anyway: “Good Shabbos, tzaddik.” Then I turned off my phone. The message showed as “read” Saturday night. But there was no response.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one waiting for Foxman’s Shabbat greetings. The silence said everything. On Sunday, the Anti-Defamation League announced that its former longtime chief had died at age 86.
I first started texting with Foxman after he stepped down in 2015 as national director of the ADL, concluding a remarkable 50-year run with the organization, including nearly three decades at its helm. By then, he had become one of the most recognizable Jewish communal leaders in America. He was nicknamed the “Jewish Pope.” Former President Barack Obama, a frequent target of Foxman’s criticism over Israel policy, said upon Foxman’s retirement: “Abe is irreplaceable.”
For me, a rookie journalist covering national politics through a Jewish lens, Foxman became an invaluable source. He was in the room with presidents, prime ministers and world leaders during some of the Jewish community’s most consequential moments. Yet he was always available. He answered calls quickly. He texted back. He spoke candidly. He could be sharp, direct and deeply critical when he thought leaders were making mistakes. But he was also compassionate, warm and surprisingly personal.
Every conversation began the same way: asking about me. My kids. How I was holding up. Only then would we get to politics. The conversation would often veer from Yiddish to English and back again.
Our last conversation was on April 15, after a record 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers to Israel and 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. “A broch,” Foxman replied, using the Yiddish word for disaster. “A sad time for American politics.”
That worldview shaped much of his public commentary in recent years. In interviews with the Forward and other publications, Foxman weighed in on rising antisemitism, campus protests, Democratic divisions over Israel, President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and the Biden-Netanyahu relationship.
Foxman could be combative and unapologetic. Critics on the left viewed him as too hawkish on Israel, while critics on the right sometimes accused him of being too willing to criticize the Israeli government or American conservatives. But nobody doubted his commitment to the Jewish people and to Israel.
Foxman’s own life story
Born in Baranavichy in 1940, in what is now Belarus, Foxman survived the Holocaust as an infant after being hidden by his Polish Catholic nanny, who baptized him to hide his Jewish identity, while his parents were confined to a ghetto. After the war, he was reunited with his parents, first living in a displaced persons camp in Austria before immigrating to the United States.
Those early experiences shaped the course of his career and ultimately made him one of the most influential Jewish communal leaders of the modern era.
In 1965, after getting degrees from City College of New York and New York University School of Law, Foxman joined the Anti-Defamation League as a legal assistant. Over the next five decades, Foxman rose through the ranks of the organization before being named its national director in 1987, a position he held until 2015.
Under his leadership, the ADL became one of the world’s most prominent voices combating antisemitism and hate.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed Foxman to serve on the council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was reappointed by Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. He was also vice chairman of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
Foxman was often willing to challenge leaders he believed were wrong on Israel, including Democratic presidents he otherwise respected. He was sharply critical of Obama’s approach toward Israel early in his presidency and became one of the leading Jewish voices opposing the administration’s 2009 demand for a freeze on Israeli settlements.
In remarks at Foxman’s farewell dinner in 2015, Susan Rice, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and national security advisor under Obama, told the audience: “The thing I most value about Abe is his candor and integrity. He holds everyone to the same high standards, and I can always count on him to tell it to me straight, even when he knows I won’t necessarily like what he has to say.” In 2020, Foxman publicly advocated for Biden to choose Rice as his vice-presidential running mate.
“America and the Jewish people have lost a moral voice, a passionate advocate for the Jewish people and the state of Israel, and a remarkable leader,” Foxman’s successor, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement announcing Foxman’s death.
Foxman’s political commentary
Even after retiring from the ADL, Foxman remained a leading voice in Jewish public life, especially after the election of Trump in 2016.
Foxman told me in an interview at the time that the Jewish community should engage with Trump and hold him accountable when needed. He advised Trump to be cautious about making good on his promise to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He became more critical of Trump after the president said that there were “very fine people on both sides” in response to a 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In 2020, Foxman broke his tradition of not endorsing political candidates to back Biden. He argued that Trump was a “demagogue” whose reelection would be a “body blow for our country and our community.”
Once Biden took office, Foxman started to express doubts about the president’s handling of the U.S. relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said it “sends the wrong message to our friends and enemies” that Israel is being held to a higher standard than other countries in the region. Foxman was also a harsh critic of the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul, warning that the right-wing cabinet ministers could hamper support for Israel among American Jews.
In 2024, he warned that Biden’s increasingly harsh rhetoric over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza would repel Jewish voters. “I believe that this administration, because of its political season, is taking American Jews for granted or has written us off,” said Foxman. ”If they’re worried that the Arabs in Michigan will vote with their feet, they need to worry that Jews can also vote with their feet.”
Most recently, Foxman was critical of national Democrats opposing the military operations against the Iranian regime in March for a lack of congressional authority. “Sadly, it is purely political games,” Foxman told me, noting that previous Democratic administrations conducted military operations without explicit congressional authorization. “Ninety-nine percent of Democrats are on record saying Iran is a terrorist state and cannot have nuclear weapons. So why this game?” he asked.
Now, as Jews mark Jewish American Heritage Month, that voice is silent. But for me, and for the many people still waiting for one more “Shabbat Shalom” message from Foxman, he will not soon be forgotten.
Foxman is survived by his wife Golda, his daughters Michelle and Ariel and four grandchildren.
JTA contributed to this article.
The post Remembering Abe Foxman, the longtime ADL leader known as the ‘Jewish pope,’ who always answered my calls appeared first on The Forward.
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Jailed Iranian Peace Laureate Mohammadi Moved to Hospital in Tehran
A picture of Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on the wall of the Grand Hotel in central Oslo before the Nobel banquet, in connection with the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2023, in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2023. Photo: NTB/Javad Parsa via REUTERS
Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been moved to a hospital in the capital, Tehran, and has been granted a suspension of her sentence on heavy bail, a foundation run by her family said on Sunday.
Mohammadi, 54, won the prize in 2023 while in prison for a campaign to advance women’s rights and abolish the death penalty. She suffered a heart attack two weeks ago.
Her family had called for her to be transferred from Zanjan, northwest of Tehran, where she was serving her sentence and where she had been initially taken to a hospital, so that she could receive better medical care.
She is now at Tehran Pars Hospital for treatment by her own medical team after being transferred by ambulance, the Narges Mohammadi Foundation said in a statement.
Mohammadi was sentenced to a new prison term of 7-1/2 years, the foundation said in February, weeks before the US and Israel launched their war against Iran. The Nobel committee at the time called on Tehran to free her immediately.
She had been arrested in December after denouncing the death of a lawyer, Khosrow Alikordi. A prosecutor told reporters that she had made provocative remarks at Alikordi’s memorial ceremony.
The foundation gave no details of the bail arrangements or suspension of her sentence.
“However, a suspension is not enough,” it said. “Narges Mohammadi requires permanent, specialized care. We must ensure she never returns to prison.”
Iran shut down most of the internet in the country in January as authorities suppressed mass protests triggered by economic unease. Rights groups have reported ongoing executions of people involved in the unrest.
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Israel’s Attorney General Calls to Cancel Netanyahu’s Mossad Chief Appointment
Israeli Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara. Photo: Twitter
i24 News – Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the High Court of Justice on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman as the next Mossad chief must be canceled.
Baharav-Miara filed her position ahead of a Tuesday hearing on petitions challenging the appointment, telling the court that “substantial flaws” had been found both in the process conducted by the advisory committee and in the conclusions it drew. She said Netanyahu’s decision suffered from “extreme and blatant unreasonableness” and could not stand legally.
At the center of the dispute is the case of Ori Elmakayes, who was a 17-year-old minor when he was activated in 2022 by Division 210, without going through authorized intelligence channels. At the time, the division was commanded by Gofman. Elmakayes was arrested in May 2022 under espionage charges after two officers sent him classified information and told him to post it online as part of an “influence campaign,” despite not being authorized to do so. Gofman initiated this operation. Elmakayes was then held in full detention until July, spending an extended period under electronic monitoring and house arrest before the indictment against him was canceled in late 2023.
Baharav-Miara says Gofman’s involvement in leaking the classified information to the minor, “casts a heavy shadow on Gofman’s integrity and thus on his appointment to head the Mossad.” The attorney general also identified serious procedural failings in the advisory committee’s work. She notes that the majority members signed their opinion before committee chairman and former Supreme Court president Asher Grunis had written his dissent and before two members had reviewed several classified documents significant to the full picture. Grunis concluded that integrity flaws had been found and that it was not appropriate to appoint Gofman as Mossad chief.
The attorney general also says the committee failed to hear directly from Elmakayes or from a relevant senior military intelligence officer, instead relying in part on media interviews.
Netanyahu, who appointed Gofman to head the Mossad starting in early June, for a five-year term, submitted his own response to the court on this past Friday, arguing that the decision fell within his executive authority. The Prime Minister also said that his assessment of the matter was “dozens of times superior” to that of the court, adding that Gofman’s integrity was “found pure,” and describing him as the most qualified candidate.
Other coalition figures responded to the attorney general with sharp criticism, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir accused Baharav-Miara of fighting the state, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said her position was “one step too far” and vowed to advance legislation splitting the attorney general’s role in the Knesset’s summer session.