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Teens, seniors explore Ashkenazi traditions at Yiddish New York festival
A group of klezmer musicians was jamming in Lower Manhattan, when its fiddler suddenly stopped and encouraged a preteen clarinetist to lead a tune. After a moment, the young musician began playing a traditional Yiddish dance melody known as “der shtiler bulgar,” and the other musicians joined in.
This was one of many scenes at the 11th annual Yiddish New York festival that took place last month at the New York City campus of Hebrew Union College.
The size of the festival was impressive: Over 100 speakers, 700 participants and 200 workshops and sessions on various aspects of Yiddish culture.
Yiddish New York began after KlezKamp, a storied Yiddish cultural festival that had been held in the Catskills for three decades, made its decision to shut down. “It was 2014 and KlezKamp had announced its last festival,” said Pete Rushefsky, executive director of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance and one of the lead organizers of Yiddish New York. “A bunch of us got together and said ‘we can’t bear to face the world without our Yiddish festival.’”
Now that the college has announced the sale of its Manhattan campus to nearby New York University, the five-day festival will be searching for a new home for 2026. “We’re going to have to find a new venue,” said Rushefsky. “It will be a challenge we will have to overcome. I’d love to see a residential component moving forward — I think there’s an interest.”
When he wasn’t helping out with administrative tasks, Rushefsky spent much of the day behind a tsimbl (an Eastern European hammered string instrument with a long history in the klezmer tradition), leading informal klezmer jams.
The festival’s offerings were wide-ranging within the scope of Yiddish culture: practical workshops, lectures, concerts, film screenings and informal music jams. And, of course, plenty of schmoozing.
Concerts included an evening of music by the versatile Yiddish playwright and performer Mikhl Yashinsky whose setlist included original Yiddish tradaptations (adapting a text from one language to another to make it culturally relevant for a new audience) of Tom Lehrer’s “Hanukkah in Santa Monica” and Bob Dylan’s “With God on Our Side.” Yashinsky also performed, together with a group of collaborators, several original songs and scenes from his Yiddish stage works Feast of the Seven Sinners and The Gospel According to Chaim.
Cantor Sarah Myerson and Dr. Avia Moore led a Yiddish Dance Fellows program featuring four fellows from around the country: Hannah Mira Friedland (Chicago), Sarah Horowitz (Albuquerque), Yael Horowitz (NYC), and Rachel Linsky (Boston). All were already leading, teaching and in some cases even choreographing Yiddish dance in their communities.
But the training that Myerson and Moore gave them wasn’t just about learning dance steps. They also role-played typical scenes where dance sessions might not go so smoothly. “Avia and I offered the most common ‘disruptions’ we experience on the dance floor: ignoring the leader, talking loudly, doing the wrong steps, etc. The fellows adjusted with generous grace!” Myerson said.
There were also programs for younger audiences. Teens learned about a 1950s music group, the Jewish Young Folksingers, affiliated with the International Workers Order, a mutual aid organization targeted during the Second Red Scare. Yiddish folk singer Ethel Raim, who was a part of the Jewish Young Folksingers herself, taught songs from the group’s history and shared her experiences in it. On the last day of the festival, the teens presented a skit based on all they had learned.
“It was really exciting to have that many generations in one room; we were spanning almost eight decades,” said Ozzy Gold-Shapiro, one of the teen program’s organizers. The youngest was 10; the oldest — in her eighties. “I was especially moved watching the Teen Program kids express and perform their version of cultural exploration and participation,” said Raim, who is herself in her 80s.
On the last evening of the festival, people gathered for the awarding of the 14th “Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Award” to musician and researcher Michael Alpert, known affectionately by his Yiddish name, Meyshke. Cooper, a singer and Yiddish cultural activist who passed away in 2011, played a leading role in the contemporary revival of Yiddish music.
“I was inspired and touched by Adrienne’s ability to make the Yiddish tradition accessible,” Alpert said. “There was a time when I thought I’d be the last person in the world who knew how to sing old Yiddish ballads and obviously that’s not the case. The younger cohort of this remarkable intergenerational community is one of the great joys of my life.”
The post Teens, seniors explore Ashkenazi traditions at Yiddish New York festival appeared first on The Forward.
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U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas
Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, said in an interview aired Sunday that the Israeli government is as “evil” as Hamas, sharpening his criticism of Israel in the closely-watched Democratic primary.
“Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,” El-Sayed told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raja on the network’s Inside Politics program. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one — Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.”
El-Sayed, 41, is a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants. He is seeking to channel the energy of the 2024 Uncommitted movement, which protested the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. He is also hoping to build on the surprise success of the New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani in taking on the Democratic establishment.
He is locked in a dead heat with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens. The primary is set for Aug. 4.
Earlier this month, El-Sayed faced backlash for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric — including saying that Hamas “is a thousand times better” than Israel. McMorrow, who is married to a Jewish man, and Stevens, who is closely aligned with AIPAC, have both criticized El-Sayed.
In the CNN interview, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker, framing it as an effort to reach voters who feel alienated from traditional politics. “My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech,” he said.
#MISen Abdul El-Sayed on CNN Inside Politics: @mkraju: You said Israeli government is evil. Do you think they’re just as evil as Hamas?
El-Sayed: “Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not about how evil one is versus the other. Hamas —… pic.twitter.com/4GfJ5oCtqR
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) April 19, 2026
The Michigan Senate race is shaping up as one of the starkest tests of the Democratic coalition and how the party navigates policy towards Israel in Congress amid the wars in Gaza and Iran. The state is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
Last week, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers, used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza; 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. It shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions of disapproval to block some weapons transfers last year.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is Jewish, was among those who voted for the measures. In remarks as they announced their votes, Democrats highlighted their opposition to the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied West Bank, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the war with Iran.
The post U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas appeared first on The Forward.
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NYC Mayor Mamdani Unveils Major Tax Hike on Unoccupied Luxury Real Estate
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
i24 News – NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has officially introduced a controversial new tax targeting secondary residences valued at over $5 million.
The measure, designed to tap into the city’s vast concentration of unoccupied luxury wealth, is projected to generate roughly $500 million annually for the municipal budget.
“This tax is specifically aimed at the ultra-rich,” Mamdani stated, highlighting high-profile examples such as Ken Griffin’s $238 million Midtown penthouse and Alexander Varshavsky’s $20.5 million Columbus Circle residence.
While the city has yet to finalize specific evaluation criteria or the methods for distinguishing primary from secondary homes, the proposal has already become a flashpoint for economic debate.
The move has drawn sharp condemnation from billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who argued that the policy is fundamentally flawed.
Ackman contended that owners of luxury secondary residences contribute significant capital to the local economy without utilizing costly municipal services. He warned that the tax would likely trigger a corporate and high-net-worth exodus to low-tax jurisdictions like Miami, ultimately harming the city’s tax base.
President Donald Trump also entered the fray, denouncing the policy as “totally misguided” and claiming it is “destroying New York.” Trump, whose own extensive real estate holdings in the city could be impacted, argued that such taxation serves only to drive away the international investors who fuel New York’s development.
Implementation remains a significant question mark, as the tax could potentially affect nearly 13,000 property owners, including major figures like Jeff Bezos. Financial analysts point out that many of the city’s most expensive apartments are held through complex offshore structures and shell companies, making the identification and appraisal of these properties an immense administrative challenge for the city.
As the debate intensifies, the Mamdani administration faces a difficult path ahead in balancing its “tax the rich” mandate with the practical realities of New York’s competitive global real estate market.
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Iran Rebuffs Trump Announcement of New Peace Talks, State News Agency Reports
Iran rejected new peace talks with the United States, its state news agency reported on Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was sending envoys for talks in Pakistan and would launch new strikes on Iran unless it accepts his terms.
Trump posted on Truth Social that his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for negotiations, a timetable that would leave only a day for talks to make progress before a two-week ceasefire ends.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited no specific source in its report that Iran had rejected the talks.
“Iran stated that its absence from the second round of talks stems from what it called Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire,” IRNA wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s rejection of the talks.
Earlier, a White House official said the US delegation would be headed by Vice President JD Vance, who led the war’s first peace talks a week ago, and also include Trump’s envoy Steven Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump had initially told ABC News and MS Now that Vance would not go.