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This 12-year-old is enchanting people with her Yiddish singing. Her klezmer musician dad explains why.
In the summer of 2020, when the world was in lockdown, I couldn’t stop watching a video that featured two young children — Dinah Slepovitch and Pinya Minkin — singing a Yiddish folk song about eating potatoes every day, which felt a lot like life during COVID-19, even as it evoked what poor Eastern European Jews often ate in the past.
I was enchanted, and I wasn’t the only one, as we saw from the Facebook comments responding to our Yiddish article about her.
The Yiddish language was still relatively new for me then, and I had no idea that Dinah — at the grand age of seven — was already an experienced singer of Yiddish songs.
Here she is three years earlier at age four, performing the children’s song “Hob ikh mir a mantl” (“I had a little coat”) at the Workers Circle Hanukkah concert in New York. She sings entirely from memory in perfect Yiddish and her father — klezmer musician, composer and Jewish music scholar Zisl Slepovitch — accompanies her on the keyboard. The audience joins in for the refrain. Dinah and her father have made nearly 20 videos together over the past several years, showcasing a wonderful variety of Yiddish songs.
In 2025, 12-year-old Dinah gave the world premiere of “Afn taykhl sholem” (“By the river of peace”), composed by her father with words from a Yiddish poem by former Forverts editor, Boris Sandler. Father and daughter performed the song together at a gala in honor of Sandler’s 75th birthday.
Dinah also debuted as a soloist with the National Yiddish Theater-Folksbiene during their Hanukkah program at Hebrew Union College. And she appeared in new videos of Yiddish songs, including the bittersweet “Zol shoyn kumen di geule” (“May the Redemption Come Soon”), composed after the Holocaust with words by the poet Shmerke Kaczerginski.
I recently spoke with Dinah and her father about the role of Yiddish songs in her life — in the past, today, and hopefully into the future.
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Stern: How did Dinah begin singing songs in Yiddish?
Zisl Slepovitch: I’ve been singing Yiddish songs to her since she was born. She naturally started imitating me, the way little kids do. We mostly speak Russian at home, because my wife and I grew up in Belarus. Of course Dinah speaks English at school, and English and Russian with her friends.
But Yiddish and Yiddish songs are part of our family life, and she soaked them up from her daily environment. She hasn’t been exposed to Yiddish in a systematic way, so she can’t converse yet like she does in Russian or English. But it’s clear how easily and naturally she sings in Yiddish.
Stern: Dinah, how do you learn all these Yiddish songs by heart? What’s your process?
Dinah Slepovitch: When we pick a new song to learn, my father sings it to me as many times as I need. I have a pretty good memory, so I start to remember the melody right away. Then we go over the words, translating them into Russian and sometimes into English. We also talk about what the song means, the kinds of emotions that it describes. Because I know so many Yiddish songs by now, a lot of the words are already familiar — more and more words over time.
Stern: What are your favorite Yiddish songs?
Dinah Slepovitch: “Shnirele Perele” is special to me, because I sang it in the first video that my dad and I made during COVID-19. And of course the song about potatoes is close to my heart, since that video was really popular and helped a lot of Yiddish fans get through COVID. I also love “Arum dem fayer” (“Around the Fire”). When I sing it, I feel calm and connected to the other people singing with me.
Stern: What kind of reaction have you gotten to your videos?
Zisl Slepovitch: We’ve gotten a very positive reaction. I travel around the world because of my music work, and I hear from many musicians and Yiddish enthusiasts in other countries that they’ve watched the videos, often with their children. Yiddish teachers and teachers of Jewish music show them to their classes. It’s inspiring for students to see a child who loves Yiddish and sings it so comfortably.
Dinah Slepovitch: My friends watch the videos, and I think they like them!
Stern: Dinah, how do you feel when you sing for a live audience, especially in a big theater or auditorium?
Dinah Slepovitch: Nervous. But my mom helps me a lot. She’s my biggest cheerleader, and she’s always there with me backstage when I’m getting ready to perform. She helps me to calm down. Once I go out on the stage and start singing, I feel very happy.
Stern: Do you want to learn Yiddish more systematically, maybe with YiddishPop?
Dinah Slepovitch: Yes, I plan to start next summer, when I won’t have so much schoolwork to do. Hopefully I’ll learn pretty easily, because I’ve been hearing Yiddish my whole life. And I know so many words.
Stern: Will you keep singing Yiddish songs for live audiences and making videos?
Dinah Slepovitch: Yes. As I learn more Yiddish, I’ll be able to sing more kinds of songs. I sing with the New York chapter of the National Children’s Chorus, which helps with singing technique. We sing in English, Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew, Hawaiian, Mandarin, Latin. The conductors help us pronounce the words correctly. I love singing in all kinds of languages. But Yiddish songs will always be special for me, because Yiddish is such a big part of my life.
This article previously appeared in Yiddish.
The post This 12-year-old is enchanting people with her Yiddish singing. Her klezmer musician dad explains why. appeared first on The Forward.
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Lawmakers seek 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect prayer goers from protests
(JTA) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a federal legislation Thursday in the House and Senate aimed at protecting houses of worship from disruptive demonstrations, following a series of protests outside of synagogues this year.
The Right to Worship Act was introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, alongside Reps. Brad Knott, a North Carolina Republican, and Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat. It would establish a 100-foot “buffer zone” around houses of worship during religious services — mirroring similar legislation recently enacted in New York.
“The First Amendment guarantees every American the right to freely exercise their faith, and Congress has a duty to ensure that guarantee is met,” Cruz said in a statement Thursday.
The legislation would also establish civil penalties for offenders and provide pathways for individuals, including state attorneys, to seek court orders and damages in federal court. While the legislation would target protesters who knowingly disrupt scheduled religious services, houses of worship would not be required to make their schedules public.
The bill’s sponsors say the measure is aimed at conduct rather than the content of protesters’ speech.
“No one should have to push through a hostile crowd or shout over a bullhorn in an attempt to pray,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which helped lawmakers draft the legislation.
It’s the latest attempt at passing federal legislation aimed at insulating houses of worship from protest, following Suozzi’s “SACRED Act” legislation, a similar bill he introduced in April but which has not progressed in the House.
Those efforts have now been joined by Slotkin, who is Jewish, and Cruz, who has often taken aim at antisemitism within the Republican coalition over the past year.
“Exercising your right to worship should not require you to exhibit particular courage as you enter your synagogue, church, mosque, temple, mandir, or gurdwara,” Suozzi said in a statement.
The New York City Council passed a local buffer zone bill in March following a series of pro-Palestinian protests outside of synagogues that hosted Israeli real estate expos. While Jewish groups and leaders heavily advocated for the measure, it also faced opposition from civil rights leaders who said it would have a chilling effect on First Amendment protections.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Lawmakers seek 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect prayer goers from protests appeared first on The Forward.
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Over 95% of Canadian Jewish university students report exposure to antisemitism
(JTA) — Nearly all Jewish students surveyed on Canadian university campuses said they have experienced or witnessed antisemitism, according to a new government-commissioned report.
The survey from the Department of Canadian Heritage found that 95.7% of Jewish students said they were exposed to antisemitism, with 70% saying their university did not take antisemitism seriously and 22% reporting physical violence against Jews.
“Antisemitism on Canadian campuses is neither isolated nor episodic,” said Jack Jedwab, the report’s main author, at a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday. “It can reasonably be described as systemic.”
The surveyed students anonymously detailed rhetoric, discriminatory treatment, vandalism, intimidation and physical attacks from their classmates as well as professors and administrators. Some 45% said they experienced Holocaust denial or distortion often or sometimes, and 65% said they encountered it “at least rarely.”
One respondent said they had witnessed a friend who wears a kippah being chased out of a school building by a group of students who shouted, “There is a Jew … let’s get him.”
Another student described a professor writing that “we need to kill all Zionists, that she had worked with them and saw how evil they were.” Students also said they were pressured by peers and professors to give their opinions on Israel because they were openly Jewish.
Some 36% of respondents complained about course content or classroom discussions that “they experienced as antisemitic or biased,” while 34% said “a professor introduced Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism when unrelated to the course subject.”
The survey, out Wednesday as part of a report titled Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences, included about 900 Jewish students from schools across Canada. It was originally conducted for the government’s special envoy on antisemitism, a role that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration dissolved alongside an Islamophobia envoy earlier this year.
Carney replaced those offices with a new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion, which he announced in June after saying that the country was “failing Jewish Canadians.” The new council was introduced as a push to unify the government’s approach toward combating systemic prejudice, but some Jewish groups decried the elimination of distinct envoys.
Pressure has mounted on Carney’s administration to stem the tide of antisemitic attacks in Canada since 2023, including gunfire at Jewish schools and synagogues and attacks on Jewish businesses and community centers.
On the same day the report was released, an Oklahoma-based organization called Jewish Tulsa made news for urging President Donald Trump’s administration to offer refugee status to Jewish Canadians.
“With the urgency around the challenges and the inaction we see in Canada, an asylum pathway makes sense,” Joe Roberts, who leads the conservative think tank, told The Canadian Press. He said that his family moved from Ontario to Tulsa after witnessing antisemitic graffiti in his neighborhood.
Martha Piper, former president of the University of British Columbia, said the campus antisemitism report revealed “a shocking presence of campus antisemitism throughout this country along with a troubling institutional failure to respond.”
“The results suggest a university culture that is not welcoming to Jewish students and systemically tries to exclude and vilify them,” said Piper.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Over 95% of Canadian Jewish university students report exposure to antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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British Conservatives face backlash for nominating a former neo-Nazi for local office
(JTA) — LONDON — Britain’s Conservative Party has defended its decision to endorse a former neo-Nazi activist as a candidate in next year’s local elections despite his imprisonment for crimes including racially aggravated harassment of Jewish former Labour MP Luciana Berger.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the candidate, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, had demonstrated rehabilitation through his work in countering extremism. Berger, who was prominent in the last decade for her many battles against antisemitism on the right and in her own party, said in a statement that Badendoch “got this very, very wrong.”
“This case still haunts me,” Berger, who is now a peer in the House of Lords, posted on X on Tuesday afternoon. “I feel a bit sick reading well known commentators debate his selection today and say that ‘these are precisely the people we need in public office’.”
Bonehill-Paine, 33, was imprisoned for more than two years after being convicted of multiple crimes. Bonehill-Paine had called himself “a proud antisemite” while planning a 2015 rally that aimed to undo the “Jewification of Great Britain.”
Bonehill-Paine will run for the Crewkerne South seat on Somerset Council in southwest England in May 2027, less than a decade after his release from prison in 2018. His incarceration came after he was prosecuted for sharing what a judge described as “vile” antisemitic material ahead of a planned neo-Nazi demonstration, as well as for racially aggravated harassment after publishing a series of antisemitic blog posts targeting Berger.
Among other slurs, he referred to Berger as an “evil money-grabber,” depicted her as a rodent and said the number of Jewish Labour MPs was “a problem.”
According to the Guardian, Bonehill-Paine said the Conservative Party and his local branch were aware of his past before selecting him. He told the Guardian that since his release from prison he has spoken publicly against antisemitism and extremism and has completed government-backed radicalization and counter-extremism programs.
The Conservative Campaign Headquarters responded to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment by relaying Badendoch’s remarks to reporters in Surrey on Tuesday morning.
“I think people can look at me and know that I’m not a person who would be recruiting neo-Nazis,” said Badenoch, who was raised in Nigeria and who has become an outspoken critic of rising antisemitism in Britain. “Josh is someone who actually has been certified by the Home Office to train police officers on antisemitism and on countering extremism.”
She acknowledged Bonehill-Paine’s conviction but said he has “shown contrition for his crimes, has been rehabilitated and is spending every day working to solve the very problem which he knew he had caused previously.”
She added that he is “actively working to help communities, especially Jewish communities and this is what I want to see.”
The backlash from Jewish organizations has been swift . Board of Deputies of British Jews Vice President Karen Newman stated, “It beggars belief that any party would select as a candidate a multiply convicted felon and the founder of a far-right group called National British Resistance.”
She also noted that the board had contacted the Conservative Party “to set out our concerns and call on them to rescind his selection and review their vetting processes.”
The Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council put out a separate joint statement saying they had declined the Conservative Party’s invitation to meet with Bonehill-Paine, stating that his “crimes targeting Luciana Berger and others mean that he still faces ongoing legal restrictions.”
They added, “Whilst we do believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, this should not in this case entail selection as a candidate for a major political party, and the impact of this decision on the victims ought to be a central consideration.”
Both organizations said they had agreed to meet with members of the party “to discuss their decision-making processes and to urge them to rescind this decision.”
The Jewish Labour Movement called the decision “truly appalling,” saying that Bonehill-Paine’s record, and particularly his attacks on Berger, should have disqualified him from elected office. “This is a former Neo-Nazi who was sent to prison for racially abusing a Jewish politician,” the group said.
Berger represented Liverpool Wavertree from 2010 until 2019 and entered the House of Lords last year. During her tenure she received constant antisemitic abuse, both online and in person, and was the target of several criminal incidents involving extremist harassment.
Bonehill-Paine did not respond to JTA’s requests for comment.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post British Conservatives face backlash for nominating a former neo-Nazi for local office appeared first on The Forward.
