KlezKamp Blog

How to talk to the band

2010-12-31T21:28:00.002-05:00

What a great week. And I can't wait until Summer Kamp in Madison, WI. What does Madison have that Kerhonksen doesn't? Frozen Custard!

As I was sadly saying goodbye to the klezkamp community, Joanne Borts shared with me the handout she used in her class, "Better With A Band". In this glossary, she gives non-musicians terms for basic "musician speak". She provides terms like, Major and Minor keys, Coda, Bridge, Tempo as well as Jewish music terms like Doina, Hora, Serba and even the mode names like Freygish, Mishebeyrakh and Mogon Ovos. What a great idea! As those of us who make our livelihood on the bandstand, an educated singer and dance leader makes our job easier.

But the best thing is the last section called "BWAB Secrets.....Shhh.." where she advises:
"Don't hook up with the drummer....it can turn out badly...."

Now she tells us.

Klezkamp photos on Facebook!!

2010-12-30T16:46:00.001-05:00

Follow this link to see quite a few more pictures of this years fun!

KlezKamp 2010

2010-12-29T22:04:00.006-05:00

Di HooHA!

2010-12-29T17:24:00.002-05:00

Tonight, KlezKamp's newest old tradition Di HooHA our fency-shmency dress up dance party takes off at 7:45 with Tantz Meister Steve Weintraub leading hundreds of dancers in a gaggle of high end ballroom dances.

The 20 piece orchestra under the batons of Cookie Segelstein and Pete Sokolow will lay down compelling dance rhythms while dressed as well as if they were actually getting paid for the gig. Add to that the intermission performance of Jenny Romaine's and Tine Kindermann's Youth Theater Workshop production of Di Balade fun dem Yid Vos Iz Gegansen frun Groy Biz Blo (The Jew Who Went from Gray to Blue) after Itzik Manger.

Tired yet? How about three (count 'em three) dance bands followed by a midnight Yiddish song kabaret and you have the end of another perfect KlezKamp day.

All the cool kids speak Yiddish...

2010-12-29T16:51:00.002-05:00

For the last 90 minutes, there have been a two young co-eds, maybe 18-19 at most and cute like heck, flirting furiously entirely in Yiddish.

When's the last time you heard that?

BTW: all the cool kids speak Yiddish.

Whew...

2010-12-29T10:19:00.004-05:00

Man, it was kind of like a dream.

Clarinetist and producer Alex Kontorovich made the treacherous drive up from the city to lead a good chunk of the Klezkamp staff in a tribute concert (turned dance party) to the late clarinetist German Goldenshteyn. The occasion was the release of the latest Living Traditions CD "The Tradition Lives: Yiddish-Moldavian Music of German Goldenshteyn" by the Goldenshteyn Memorial Orchestra. Recorded at Klezkamp just last year, the release sees the reunion of all the players from German's first and only recording "German Goldenshteyn: A Living Tradition," (available on iTunes and CD Baby) playing material chosen by German and Alex for his second release, but sadly was unable to record after his untimely demise not long after the release of his first CD.

But it was with hearts filled with joy that the band hit the Hudson Valley stage last night, playing down German's repertoire as if that's the only music they had ever played. With no rehearsal and only a glass of vodka for preparation Kontorovich lead a band featuring Dan Blacksberg, Cookie Segelstein, Susan Hoffman-Lankin, Henry Sapoznik, Lauren Brody and yours truly through a solid 90 minutes of Moldavian tunes played in the Jewish style that German first introduced to us. (Accordionist Joshua Horowitz and drummer Aaron Alexander could not attend for family and weather issues, though they were with us in spirit.)

Links to purchase this CD, as well as the new Pete Sokolow CD, will be posted soon!

2010-12-28T11:50:00.002-05:00

Under Full Sail

Day Two: classes are up and running smoothly as if we'd been doing this for years (oh, yes, for 26!) and all the new folks (nearly 70%) are acting like they're old hands at this (which after a day here is not that hard.)

Last night's staff concert was tremendous, starting with a wonderful short film by Jenny Romaine and ending with a (literally) show stopping turn by Michael Wex and co. with a real great diversity of talent in between.

Tonight we have a record release dance party as a roll out for the new German Goldenshteyn Memorial CD recorded at last year's KlezKamp and then, of course, followed by a bevy of our dance bands: ear, reading and Hasidic.

Okay, I'm exhausted already. But a good exhausted.

More to come....

Damn, what's all this white stuff??

2010-12-27T19:29:00.002-05:00

Well, it's hard to even find time to sit down and write at all. And the first few days were filled with such bad weather and screwed up schedules, we were never sure who was going to get up here and when. Even now a few weary stragglers are stumbling into the resort to find a the toast warm folks inside already deep into yet another deep KLEZKAMP experience. Thanks to what we can only assume was the recent article in the NY Times, there's quite a few new faces, almost as many as folks we already know and that's mighty invigorating.

The first nights fun was watching the documentary "A Jumping Night in the Garden of Eden" with it's director in attendance. It was amazing to see all our heroes live in person (Dave Tarras, Leon Schwartz) and many of our staff (Henry, Frank, Lauren, and others) in their youth. The intervening 25 years were presented in sharp contrast to the current state of Yiddish Cultural affairs. Tonight is the staff concert where I'm pretty sure I will be playing a few tunes with Elaine and Susan Hoffman-Watts and the Youngers of Zion w/ Cookie and Hank which is always a selfish highlight for me.

Gotta run!

The calm before the storm....literally

2010-12-26T10:00:00.002-05:00

Sunday morning at the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa. The skeleton crew showed up last night and we're getting KlezKamp on its feet. It's the calm before the storm: literally. Weather predictions are anything from snow showers to blizzards today. 40 years in the desert did little to prepare us for this kind of weather.

A Major Announcement

2009-12-28T22:28:00.002-05:00

Last night, Douglas Rosenberg from the University of Wisconsin, Center for Jewish Studies made an exciting announcement on the Tanzhall stage. Here is an excerpt, making mention of Henry Sapoznik and the Klez Kamp Road Show residency in Madison this spring:

"Henry’s residency and the KlezKamp Roadshow generated tremendous excitement for the work that those of you involved with KlezKamp have been doing for the last 25 years. It seemed that there was an audience waiting to happen in Madison, not just in the university milieu, but more importantly, in the communities beyond the university walls. The momentum provided by that residency led to more conversations with Sherry, Carol, Henry and my colleagues at UW about how we might form a permanent partnership that would honor and perpetuate the work of Living Traditions and of the KlezKamp community as well.

The idea was met with great enthusiasm from colleagues across numerous disciplines on campus, including theater, music, art, dance, language and most importantly, the University library. The library has agreed to house the Mayrent collection and to make it universally accessible as well as to preserve and maintain the original discs in perpetuity.

That was a pivotal commitment and in the last few months, we put together a larger proposal for an institute of Yiddish culture on the UW campus. That proposal worked its way through the various university committees and two weeks ago we were informed that it had passed unanimously.

So, tonight, I am honored to announce the creation of the Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture to be permanently located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The initial funding for the institute is made possible by a generous gift from Sherry Mayrent and Carol Master. The Mayrent Institute for Yiddish Culture will be a unique facility devoted to fostering an understanding of the world of Yiddish through its arts. The institute will be directed by Henry Sapoznik.

The work is not done yet though, and the university along with the Center for Jewish Studies has undertaken a campaign to raise the additional funds necessary to insure the longevity of the institute as well as to achieve all of the goals that we have set out for it.

I want to say one more thing about this: Though I have not been associated with KlezKamp for very long in the scheme of things, what I realize is that KlezKamp is a community effort that has inspired tremendous loyalty and ownership in the future of a very fragile culture. The Mayrent Institute honors the contributions of countless people over the last 25 years and is a measure of the commitment and hard work by the staff of Living Traditions as well as the efforts of every teacher and participant of every KlezKamp. We are truly blessed by this.

Thank you.

Yiddish Bulgar

2009-12-28T16:31:00.003-05:00

Henry Sapoznik, Cookie Segelstein, Pete Sokolow, Alex Kontorovich, Micheal Winograd, Mike Cohen, Frank London, Daniel Blacksburg, Jim Guttman, Aaron Alexander, Loren Brody, Malka Lerner, Adrienne Greenbaum.

The Hoo-Hah : Grand March, snippet

2009-12-28T15:23:00.002-05:00

2009-12-28T15:10:00.002-05:00

Henry Sapoznik, Cookie Segelstein, Pete Sokolow, Alex Kontorovich, Micheal Winograd, Mike Cohen, Frank London, Daniel Blaskburg, Jim Guttman, Aaron Alexander, Loren Brody, Malka Lerner, Adrienne Greenbaum.

The Big "Hoo-Hah" Dance, Krakowiak

2009-12-28T13:46:00.001-05:00

Henry Sapoznik, Cookie Segelstein, Pete Sokolow, Alex Kontorovich, Micheal Winograd, Mike Cohen, Frank London, Jim Guttman, Aaron Alexander, Loren Brody, Malka Lerner, Adrienne Greenbaum.

The Second Half

2009-12-27T08:42:00.002-05:00

This morning begins the second half of KlezKamp. Shabbos was a wonderful, restful experience for most of the folks here, lots of singing and shmoozing, and catnaps on the lobby couches. It's such a pleasure to have uninterrupted time to spend with friends. Last night the program began again with a bang -- literally -- as Elaine Hoffman Watts and friends celebrated the release of Elaine's new CD with a delightful concert. Today we're back to business as usual, and looking forward to Di Hoo-Hah and the announcement of some amazing news affecting all members of the extended KlezKamp/Living Traditions family. Stay tuned for more....

2009-12-24T18:11:00.001-05:00

Pearl Sapoznik singing in the hall..

2009-12-24T16:53:00.001-05:00

Pete Sokolow at the controls...

2009-12-24T11:30:00.000-05:00

It's starting....

2009-12-23T12:15:00.003-05:00

People have started to arrive, and in a couple of hours the trickle of arrivals will swell to a torrent. The registration folders are in pristine alphabetical order, waiting to be handed out; signs point the way to all the classrooms, the tees and sweatshirts are folded and sorted by size. Even the sun is shining.

My late entry to the Klez Kamp Zhurnal

2009-12-23T11:43:00.004-05:00

I screwed up and delivered my Zhurnal story a week too late to make publication, so here it is at least on line:

Man, it was cold, colder than I could ever remember with snow everywhere. Sure it got cold on the Oklahoma plains where I was born and raised, but I had been living in Texas for a long while now and tonight I stood shivering in my cowboy boots there in the foyer of the Paramount. Just as unfamiliar to my experience was the great bus-load of little old folks and precocious little kids streaming into the old resort, all a ruckus with big hugs and joyful reunions, chattering away in this strange Germanic tongue. Up to that point, the only Yiddish I had heard was my Godfather Morris Katz calling his milk cows into the barn for the night back in Stillwater. Frankly, I had never around this many Jews before, not even at High Holy Days. My head was swimming.

“Oh good, you made it!” said the guy who invited me as he bounded towards me in the lobby. I had never met Henry Sapoznik in person but we had corresponded for years and for just as long he had been cajoling me to come up to “Kamp.” Though technically a stranger (heck I didn’t know a soul there really,) he hugged me like an old friend. “You’re just in time! The dancing is starting. We need a bassist.” He led me down into the Tanzhall and bade me onstage. I took of my coat, inquired about a key from the amiable clarinetist, and proceeded to clam my way through a thrilling set of dance tunes with Merlin Shepherd and Loren Brody.

Back home in Texas I play for dancing quite a bit, it’s one of the reasons I live there in fact. But here for the first time in my life I was actually playing Yiddish music, MY people’s music, for room full of Jewish dancers dancing Yiddish dances. Not a concert, with lifeless music set in amber, distant and removed. Tonight, here at this place music had sprouted legs, was drinking a bit too much and was tearing up the dancefloor. I don’t know if I can properly express how huge a thing that is, how music literally comes alive when it’s simply just a part of a greater function, in a living context. 13 trips back to the Catskills over Xmas week later, I am still in awe of that first of what was to be many, many “Klez Kamp Moments.” If only for this one gift, dayenu.

Truth is I’ve got quite a lot of stories I could tell you; of the musical relationships that formed here, of the people I now call my family, how these experiences have in many ways made me who and what I am not only as a musician, but as a person and as a Jew. Of the deeply moving naches of watching the same little pischers who were running around wild when I first came here mature in the adults that we now look to continue our work. I could tell you about the time I was down with no one to turn to and how this community, the Yiddish Culture family that Klez Kamp gave birth to 25 years ago and nurtures to this day, lifted me up with love and support.

I don’t know if I can properly express how huge a thing that is.

2009-12-22T21:40:00.003-05:00

The hotel is quiet tonight. Five of us are quietly working on our computers in the lobby; the bartendder has a football game on the tv, and the Epes Center is starting to take shape. Once again, KlezKamp is about to happen. In a few short hours, old friends and new will start trickling then pouring in, and by dinnertime the lobby will no doubt be full of music.

It's just as exciting now as it was 22 years ago when I walked in for the first time.

On the verge of the next 25....

2009-12-22T08:51:00.003-05:00

KlezKampers and KlezKamp fans:

On the verge of celebrating our 25th annual winter KlezKamp, starting tomorrow at the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa in lovely Kerhonson, NY, we have brought our blog into the modern era by linking to our Facebook page. Please join us, either in person or in cyberspace, as we keep you up to date with our celebration of our first quarter century. And for a forshpayz (a taste) of what's to come, check out last year's blog entries for some fine music and photography, as well as on the spot impressions of the program.

"Set the Way-Bac Machine for 1989, Sherman...."

2008-01-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

This transmission comes to us from that far off universe called 1989, when, after only a few short, successful years of running KlezKamp at the late and very lamented Paramount Hotel, we launched the first of two summer KlezKamp West events in northern California. This one was at Camp Swig in Saratoga, California. The next was in 1998 in Petaluma.
The wonderful thing about this surprisingly sweet little piece is that it very accurately captures a crystalline moment when we were collectively creating and honing our shared common Yiddish culture as we were inventing the context of KlezKamp. The enthusiasm and vitality displayed here -- fresh as all things back then always seemed to be -- is what made creating, learning and playing together the great experience it was. Oh, yeah: and we were nerdy, too!
Among those you'll see here are: Adrienne Cooper,her mom Buni Cooper, Joel Rubin, Gerry Tenney, Alan Bern, Margot Leverett, Wendy Marcus and her daughter Sophie Shifra (in the very touching scene where Wendy signs for her) Michael Alpert, Harvey Varga, Sarah Felder, Alan Senauke, Dan Peck (shlepping boxes in the background of one interview) and some young skinny kid who looks like Groucho Marx in a Brooklyn Dodgers cap.
Thanks to KlezKamp KlezKids Co-Director Sarah Gordon (who is also in it) for unearthing this video cuneiform and reminding us that, though we've changed on the outside, we're still as youthfully passionate and devoted to Yiddish music and culture as ever. HooHA!

Henry

http://www.jewishtvnetwork.com/?bcpid=533363107&bclid=1138125718&bctid=932508392

KlezKamp Podcast now available!!

2008-01-04T16:49:00.000-05:00

Thanks to our friends Mark Rubin, Mitchel Mernick and many others, you may now subscribe to the KLEZKAMP PODCAST. We intend to add new episodes to the podcast offerings on a regular basis. They will reflect not only this past KlezKamp 23, but gems from our sound archive of 23 years of KlezKamp concerts and, more recently, Radio KlezKamp, the in-house radio station run at KK by Mitch Mernick.

Podcasts available at this time include interviews with Elaine Hoffman Watts, Andy Statman, Judith Bro Pinhasik, Ray and Julie Musiker, and Pete and Vera Sokolow. Also available are music from the KlezKamp Youth Orchestra, the Staff Dance Band and the "Philadelphia Shers" by the Elaine Hoffman Watts Ensemble.

You may download these podcasts individually or you may subscribe to the podcast and have them delivered automatically to your computer at http://klezkamp.mypodcast.com/

We are thrilled to be able to share these treasures with you. It is just one of the ways that Living Traditions is fulfilling its mission to bring Yiddish culture to new generations in ways both inspiring and relevant to contemporary Jewish life.

Fortunately, there is much more to come.

More KlezKamp photos

2008-01-04T12:29:00.001-05:00

Here is another set of KlezKamp photos, these by Alan Lankin.

More photos

2008-01-03T18:59:00.001-05:00

Here are more KlezKamp 2007 photos, these courtesy of Bonnie Greenberg.

KlezKamp 2007 Photos!

2007-12-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

Here are photos of KlezKamp 2007, courtesy of Bob and Aaron Blacksberg:

http://rblacksberg.com/KlezKamp2007/index.html

Thanks Bob and Aaron!

If you have an album of KlezKamp 2007 photos you would like to share, please send the link to info@livingtraditions.org and we will post them here and on the KK website.

Well, THAT was quick!

2007-12-28T19:12:00.001-05:00

Yet again, the week for we spend months and months planning, is gone for another year. KlezKamp23 is over, and with it, the memories we created for the over 425 people who joined us -- 70% of them first timers -- are now in place.
It seems like only hours ago that we made our quiet arrival on Saturday the 22nd in advance of an uncharacteristically thick London-like fog which enveloped scenic Kerhonkson. Our tiny crew which set up KK (Dan Peck, Sherry Mayrent, Sabina Brukner. Carol Master, Laura Wernick and Amber Feldman, among others) were soon joined by the eager masses of people from around the world who came to share the lush bounty of Yiddish culture with us. It was non-stop from then on.
Highlights for me this year were: My sessions on khazntes, Yente Telebende and Yiddishe Mames and my enthusiastic class of over 60; Part 2 of the late night bluegrass jam session with Andy Statman on mandolin and Mark Rubin on guitar and myself on banjo included warp speed bluegrass instrumentals -- one of which Andy is being nominated for a Grammy this year -- and a bevy of terrific Jesus-themed songs for which the ultra Orthodox Statman knew all the words; the rip roaring popularity of "Liquid Apple Pie" an accurately named mason jar filled confection imported all the way from Rockingham County, North Carolina; playing for Steve Weintraub's "Go Figure" dance class with Cookie Segelstein, Mark Rubin, Josh "P.J." Horowitz and Mike Cohen; Michael Winnograd's 3:00 AM tsunami of musicians who flooded the hotel lobby in advance of Steve Weintraub and hordes of followers dancing backwards in an eye popping flashback to the old KlezKamp days at the Paramount Hotel; performing and recording with the great Elaine Hoffman-Watts orchestra and the release concert of the new Living Traditions CD by Ray Musiker; my mother singing in the late night cabaret; Bob Berkman's kickass Klezmerola concert/lecture and the amazing contraption he brought to play his Yiddish piano rolls. There are many, many more memories but I have to leave SOMETHING to the imagination...
Now begins the real work: finding a new year round home as the Workmen's Circle has sold the building in which we have our offices and have evicted us with less than a month's notice....
Despite that, we are excitedly planning KK24. See you then!

Carpathian Jewish Ensemble

2007-12-28T15:16:00.000-05:00

Lead by one time Kamper, now staffer, Jacob Shulman-Ment:

Jake Shulman-Ment is among the premier young performers of klezmer violin. He has performed and recorded with many of the stars of the international klezmer scene, as well as with his own groups. Proficient in a variety of styles, Jake has travelled extensively in Hungary, Romania, and Greece documenting, recording, and performing traditional folk, Gypsy, and Jewish music.

Elaine Hoffman Watts Ensemble

2007-12-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

A short excerpt of the epic Philadelphia Sher, which ran close to 20 minutes of continuous playing and dancing, the later ably lead by Steven Weintraub.

Elaine Hoffman Watts on traps, Mike Cohen, clarinet, Ken Maltz, alto sax, Adrian Banner, piano, Susan Watts, trumpet, Dan Blacksburg, trombone, Henry Sapoznik, tenor banjo, Mark Rubin, tuba and conductor-arranger Aaron Alexander.

Cookie and Josh

2007-12-27T17:31:00.000-05:00

Here violin instructor Cookie ("Marlene") Segelstein and tsimbl-accordionist Joshua ("P.J.")Horowitz of Veretski Pass play a snippet of a tune from their newest CD "Traffik," released just this week.

Arkansas Traveller? Arkansas Traveller!

2007-12-27T15:41:00.001-05:00

Staffers Mark Rubin and Andy Statman play a little American music at the staff concert.

Introducing the Klez Kamp Podcast!!

2007-12-27T01:21:00.001-05:00

Cookie Segelstein & Mark Rubin

Photo by Alan Lankin

First up, a snippet from the Klez Kamp Staff Dance Band

The Living Traditions CD Series Concert

2007-12-26T23:46:00.000-05:00

Tonight's evening program was an opportunity to introduce this year's KlezKampers to the Living Traditions CD series documenting some of the treasured elders of our community. These recordings are each made during the four days of a KlezKamp and feature stellar ensembles of our staff musicians. The first one, recorded atKlezKamp 21 and released last year, documented the playing and repertoire of the late German Goldenstein, who died unexpectedly shortly after it was completed. Fortunately, the subjects of both last year's effort, Ray Musiker, and Elaine Hoffman Watts (who is being recorded this year) were on hand to received some well-deserved koved from the crowd in the Manhattan Theater.

The evening began with the ensemble that recorded the Ray Musiker CD: Ray (of course), Ken Maltz, Mike Cohen, Aaron Alexander, Jim Guttmann, Henry Sapoznik and Pete Sokolow, who was the musical director for the project and provided informative introductions to each tune. They performed six selections, and I found the arrangements totally delightful. The playing was wonderful, as were the tunes, many of which had been written by Ray himself. This half of the show closed with the beautiful arrangement of Papirosn by Sam Musiker that I had last heard played on the KlezKamp stage by Ray, Howie Leess and Paul Pincus.

After a brief talk by Henry on the need for community support of this important series, the ensemble that is in the process of recording Elaine and her family's unique musical heritage came on stage. I have always loved both Elaine and her drumming, and she was in excellent form tonight. I was especially moved when she pointed out it was kind of amazing that KlezKamp had on staff this year not one, but two winners of the prestigious National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and that both were women.

This band consisted of Elaine, her daughter Susan Watts, Mike Cohen, Ken Maltz, Dan Blacksberg, Adrian Banner and Mark Rubin, and they performed some amazing tunes from the Hoffman family archives, including a freylekhs that Elaine's father had written for her. The concert closed with a beautiful waltz that made me cry, and I remembered that it had also made me cry the first time I heard it, back at the Paramount in a class in which Hankus Netsky was interviewing Elaine and a fellow Philadelphia musician, Joseph Buloff. It was a moving end to a very moving evening.

It occurred to me while I listened how incredible and unique this project is: When the current CD is completed, we will have three recordings representing three completely different klezmer styles and repertoires, each equally authentic and each equally beautiful and engaging. As Henry said this evening, we may not have the money we need to support all the projects we want to accomplish, but we beyond wealthy in human resources. I feel really lucky to be a part of this organization and to play a role in making these projects happen.

Photos from the Front.....

2007-12-26T22:50:00.000-05:00

Pete Sokolow

Andy Statman

Beyle Schaechter-Gotteman

Some guy on Bass

Jimmy Gutman and other dancers

Photos by Alan Lankin

Last night's Staff Concert

2007-12-26T15:47:00.001-05:00

Heiko Lehmann at the Staff Concert

Last night's Staff Concert was full of noteworthy performances each of which would be the highlight of any other klezmer concert.

One of the highlights of those highlights for me was nonagenarian KK dance teacher Felix Fibich's improvisational dance accompanied by accordionist Evan Harlan, our terrific new accordion teacher. Others were a rocking duet by Mark Rubin on bass fiddle and Andy Statman on mandolin, Michael Winograd's clarinet turn, Paula Teitelbaum and Susan Leviton's solo songs, Michael Wex's hilarious comments as emcee and so many others.

Henry Sapoznik and other KK Staff during the Staff Concert

The evening concluded with dancing to staff and student bands as well as another night of KlezKamp cabaret, this time featuring Yiddish Art Song.

Pete Rushefsky & Madeline Solomon dance the night away

Photos by Nina Becker

Aloha from KlezKamp!

2007-12-26T13:45:00.000-05:00

Hard to believe that KlezKamp is more than half over (it's Wednesday after lunch as I write). Radio KlezKamp is broadcasting, small groups of students are practicing in the lobby, others are browsing Sal Kluger's impressive retail array, and still others are juggling. Ah yes, this is the sensory potpourri that is KlezKamp at its finest.

I had just finished with the Slow Jam in the lobby just before dinner yesterday, when I heard Carol (my other half) calling to me excitedly. "Can you play Pua Mana for us so we can dance?" she asked. She had found a fellow ukulele player and they had discovered that they both know the hula to this beloved Hawaiian song (in my non-KK life, we are part-time residents of the aloha state and in fact will be returning there next week). So, for the first time at KlezKamp, traditional hula was performed.

Not Yiddish, but very KlezKamp.

Meeting with our Masters

2007-12-25T16:39:00.000-05:00

We had one of those "only at KlezKamp" moments last night. It epitomized our goal to have older masters of the Yiddish folk arts transmit authenic Yiddish culture directly to the next generations.

We screened the new film documentary about Yiddish poet and songwriter Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, a member of our KK faculty this year. The film consists entirely of Beyle speaking in Yiddish, telling her life story and reciting and singing the poetry that has come from her experiences, illustrated with her paintings and photos. The audience, most of whom are not Yiddish speakers, sat rapt by Beyle, even through the filter of subtitles. After the film, Beyle answered questions posed by KKers.

KKers heard the story of a person whose life and whose art is conducted entirely in Yiddish. They heard directly about Yiddish life in Eastern Europe before the war and the impact of the war on a single individual. They heard a story of coming to American and making a life and making art here. Here, at KlezKamp, they have the opportunity to sit and talk with elders who are eager to share their experiences. It is an increasingly rare opportunity, tsum badoyern. It's a privilege to help make it happen.

Er, what day is it again??

2007-12-25T14:28:00.000-05:00

Oh, yeah, Christmas.

Who could have possibly known?

I mean, there's yiddish music in every corner and yiddish language at every table. There's no dead tree propped up in every corner, and no snow men anywhere. Like Andy Statman said last night, the sound of no jingle bells anywhere is the sound of home.

At this moment, I'm playing hooky from Jill Gellerman's Hassidic dance class to write these few lines, and already I feel guilty for pulling away from the the immediate "nowness" that this event creates. It's been only 24 hours and I in the zone: I feel like this is how I've always lived and I cannot forsee a life any other way. (Strange to think like that when in a pitiful few short days I'll be dodging drunks driving home from New Years Eve parties.)

My first impressions this year is the vast number of first timers here, and of the high level of cultural literacy that they bring with them. It's a gas to see folks line up the dots and find the context to the music, art and dance that they have devoted themselves to. Even a jaded staffer like myself has to step back and marvel at these moments. It's heartening to know that these folks will take this contextual depth with them, and hopefully inform the communities that they come from, with any luck raising the bar that we here will have to rise to.

But enough palaver, back to the dance band stage!!

We're well underway...

2007-12-24T15:21:00.000-05:00

It is now the end of the PM1 class period. The youngest children have just ended the first rehearsal of their own ensemble, Oomchicks, right outside my temporary office here. I hear them playing their little violins, drums and other instruments learning "Baleboste Zisinke" singing the words in very clear Yiddish. This is really what KlezKamp is about.

Getting to KlezKamp was an adventure for many. The weather was about as bad for driving as it could get. There was steady, heavy rain and thick fog through which it was close to impossible to drive. An live electric power line fell across the highway, only a few vehicle lengths in front of one of the KlezKamp charter buses. One KKer fell ill while driving three others up to camp and had to be taken from the side of the road by ambulance to the hospital (fortunately, she is now fine and arrived at KlezKamp very late last night). The weather played havoc with air traffic, the trains and the buses and many folks were delayed by many hours. And to make it perfect, the roof of the hotel, which we were told had gotten a new roof six months ago, could not withstand all the rain and there were leaks throughout the public areas and a torrent backstage.

But all of that seems to be forgotten less than 24 hours later. I look around and most everyone seems very happy. We've seen our old friends, made new ones, are having a full day of classes, and we've all enjoyed a very successful opening evening activity, featuring fine music by Ray Musiker, Pete Sokolow, Cookie Segelstein, Josh Horowitz, Mark Rubin, Andy Statman, and Judy Bro Pinhasik. Judy, who directs development and fundraising for Living Traditions, ended the program with her version of the old Yiddish song, "Donor, Donor."

Tonight, we'll be seeing the new film documentary about Yiddish poet and songwriter (and KK faculty member) Beyle Schaechter Gottesman, followed by an interview of Beyle by Anita Norich. There'll be dancing to live music by our dance bands and a cabaret focusing on Yiddish Folk and Theater songs, hosted by Joanne Borts.

More to come...

Sabina

PS- Isn't Faith Jones amazing? What a great post about the Zhurnal outtakes! And we've been getting nothing but raves about the Zhurnal which Faith edited. We miss you and Winnifred!!

Zhurnal 2007: the Outtakes

2007-12-23T16:13:00.000-05:00

As you gather in Kerhonksen, probably lining up as I write to get your registration package with a copy of the Zhurnal in it, I thought I'd give you a taste of some of the things that didn't make it into the Zhurnal.

We had hoped to include an excerpt from Anita Norich's new book, Discovering Exile: Yiddish and Jewish American Culture During the Holocaust. But Anita's book was published late in November and my copy didn't arrive until this week. I've since been reading it and it is, as you would expect, as thoroughly bracing as the class she gives every year at KlezKamp. If I'd had it in time I would have excerpted a section near the beginning of the book where she discusses two symposia of American Jewish intellectuals that took place, one in Yiddish in 1943 and the other in English in 1944. While neither symposium discussed the war then underway, the Yiddish one displayed a "creative paralysis in response to contemporary events," Anita writes. The English-language writers were more American in their response: "These intellectuals all shared the vocabulary of angst and alienation and a concern for the position of the creative being in American culture." Each sympsium evoked impassioned responses, in both languages: indeed, the two gatherings of intellectuals seemed to talk to each other. But in the end, the "urgency of the moment of destruction...was proportionately greater for Yiddish writers," Anita concludes. The book is available at Kamp, and there's going to be a book launch later in the week, where Anita will sign a copy for you.

Another item that didn't make it into the Zhurnal, this one because of space considerations, was my collection of feminist-camp Yiddish sheet music. I'm probably deeply odd, but I find these things fabulous.

Here we have "Mamenyu." It seems to me that the mere mention of a mother in a Yiddish song or play was a signal to pull out the hankies. While “Mamenyu” claims to be an elegy to the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the text hardly mentions them. Most of the song is a standard “orphan” ballad bemoaning the hard life and poverty of a child who has lost his mother. Finally in the last stanza four lines evoke the tragedy: “A fire broke out mid-day, and hundreds of workers were burned. Those who ran from the fire jumped to their deaths.” The lyrics then move on to a mother’s lament over a dead daughter, again using standard phrases (“shrouds instead of a wedding dress”) rather than making specific reference to the tragedy. Aside from the four lines relating to the fire, the lyrics seem to have been recycled from similar material, and with good reason. The sheet music for “Mamenyu” appeared within hours of the tragedy it supposedly commemorates. I came across it when I was researching artistic responses to the Triangle Fire. But while there are many sincere Yiddish-language poems and novels, this song remains a curiosity.

"Take Me Away From This Machine," sung by Jennie Goldstein, came from a musical called "Girls of Today." In this melodrama the heroine comes under the spell of a sweet-talking no-goodnik who gives her money but gets her hooked on drugs. Early on in the play she’s mostly concerned with getting out of the sweatshop. “My strength is giving out. I can’t go back to the shop: every bone in my body aches. Tell me, what can I do? Save me from this living death: take me away from this machine!” The more famous song from this musical, by Herman Wohl, is “Samet un zayd” (Velvet and Silk). When the heroine realizes her boyfriend has ruined and left her, she cautions, “don’t sell yourself for velvet and silk.” Still good advice.

Finally we've got "Beser Iz Tsu Blaybn a Moyd," (It's Better to Stay an Old Maid). It sounds like it comes from a musical comedy, but if so the sheet music does not indicate it. With words by J. Reingold and music by Rumshinsky, it may have been a song from a show that bombed. My theory is that, rather than mention the unsuccessful show, they simply repackaged the sheet music as “a humorous song” in the hopes of salvaging something from the turkey. The plot: a young woman gets married and finds she's expected to be wife, mistress, maid and nanny, all in one. Too bad you can't turn back time, she laments: if you know what's good for you, stay an old maid! That is just lip-smacking stuff.

I hope you enjoy the Zhurnal. Winnifred and I are deeply sad not to be there with you this year; we're unable to get away from commitments on the West Coast, but we'll be following this blog with great interest.

Faith

Finals week indeed!

2007-12-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

Henry wasn't kidding when he said that this past week has been like finals week -- in fact, for me it was like some sort of nightmarish finals week unlike any I ever actually experienced in college (I tended to be the nerdy kind of kid who did everything way in advance....).

Apart from having to deal with last minute logistic issues such as those Henry and Sabina mentioned, I also discovered that my clarinet had a crack in it, which meant spending an unscheduled half-day at my clarinet guy's place choosing a new one. The good news is that I was able to get one of Buffet's relatively new "Green Line" clarinets -- made of 95% wood dust bound together with some sort of carbon filament. The result is a very nice sounding clarinet that has many of the acoustic qualities of wood, since it IS wood, but none of the torque and warping issues associated with having a wood grain. This is a huge boon for those of us who live in drastically dry winter climates. I think I'll take my poor cracked instrument with me to Hawaii, where the lovely humidity will allow the crack to close and I'll have something good to play on over the winter.

I guess that's what you'd call a silver lining.

Anyway, apart from that, there were also a couple of dead hard drives and missing class handouts to contend with, but I'll be leaving for Hudson Valley in an hour or so, and all is well.

See you all on Sunday!

Office Update

2007-12-20T20:41:00.000-05:00

I am happy to announce that we were able to get back into our office this morning following the very untimely flood our building suffered.

If you heard a loud sound around 9:15 this morning, that was my sigh of relief.

Sabina

It's always something...

2007-12-19T15:50:00.003-05:00

Never have Emily Litella’s words been more true; it’s always something. It's the middle of the homestretch towards the finish line of KlezKamp and we can’t get into our office! As Henry mentioned in his entry today, there was a major flood in the basement of the Workmen’s Circle Building and the elevator shaft and other parts of the basement (not our office or our storage area, thank goodness) were filled with water and sewage. The office is off limits until the haz-mat guys are finished pumping and cleaning. They tell us I'll be able to get back in by tomorrow morning. We honestly don’t know what we will do if that is delayed but as Sherry wrote earlier, like Passover, KlezKamp comes around every year and we always manage to get ready.

Until yesterday, when we first heard that Lauren Brody broke her arm in a fall, followed by news that it was a health hazard to breath the air in the office, we had been having a fairly uneventful, if unpredictable, run up to KlezKamp. The registration pattern was different this year. Many more people registered later, causing us to worry that the numbers would be down this year. Fortunately, the last minute rush did indeed come and we will have about the same number of KlezKampers as last year-- over 400 people coming together to share their love of our Yiddish folk culture in all is permutations.

KlezKampers can look forward to an amazing array of classes, evening programs, dancing, forshpayzn (programs before dinner), in house Radio KlezKamp, and a chance to make and meet friends. Many families are attending, including a number of grandparents choosing to spend the week with their grandchildren while the parents have a week off. We will have one four-generation group this year—great–grandmother, grandmother, mother and child. We have KlezKampers who are only a few months old and we have KlezKampers in their nineties. One of the best parts of my job is that I get to speak with so many of them on the phone before we even meet in person.

Another thing KlezKampers can look forward to is the amazing KlezKamp zhurnal (journal), edited with great skill by Faith Jones. Faith put together a wonderful array of articles and photo essays focusing on our theme of Mame Loshn: Women in Yiddish Culture. There is even a crostic puzzle on the theme, created especially for KlezKamp for the second year in a row, by Rick Winston. The zhurnal will be posted on our website after KlezKamp so that those of you who are not able to attend can still enjoy it.

We’ll do our best to chronicle KlezKamp for you here on the blog.

Wish us luck that we’ll be able to get into our office tomorrow!!

Sabina

After 23 years it's still a challenge!

2007-12-19T09:09:00.000-05:00

Wednesday: Hard to believe that's it's imminently erev KlezKamp. As I sit here translating Yente Telebende vaudeville 78s for my class, it feels like back in the olden days of KK when all we had to worry about was producing a full week of deeply textured, original programming run smoothly and with great care and good cheer.
Yet, amid the kind of enthused, excited "finals week" ambience which characterizes our KlezKamp preparations, we've had some challenges: On Monday, our good friend (and KlezKamp accordion instructor) Lauren Brody, fell down a flight of stairs and broke her arm in three places. As of now, we're still without her replacement (as if she were replaceable...!) We wish her a full and speedy recovery.
More critically, only weeks ago we learned that our year round home (the Workmen's Circle building in midtown Manhattan) has been sold and that, as soon as this spring, we're going to be out on the street with nowhere to go! (Does anyone know of affordable office space in NYC???) And if that weren't enough, as if in some kind of weird foreshadowing of our imminent enforced departure, yesterday the building suffered a flood of bite sized-Biblical proportions: diluvial effluvia of raw sewage spilled into the basement -- where our office is -- and filled two elevator shafts to heights of six feet! As of this moment, we are locked out of our offices with no clue as to when we will be allowed back in.

Such is the magical pixie dust environment in which we create KlezKamp.

Stay tuned....

HS

Passing time...

2007-12-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

Let me start by setting the scene: I am sitting at my desk in the basement of the Cincinnati JCC (not a fancy place), some random musical is playing from playbillradio, and I sit here dreaming of Klezkamp.

Yes, I am the pathethic person dreaming of a hotel filled with Jewish and non-Jewish, Yiddish loving, artistic types that flock to the cold every year. Each year I dream of being the cool one at KK...the one everyone wants to sit with...that people all know (and secretly wish to be)...the life of the party. The reality is...I take a week off from my job every year to work at KK...and I love every minute of it.

I wont get any work done this week. I know I fly up to NY on Saturday and the rest of the week is just trying to make time pass. I know I am only a week away from the Dance Band playing "shark in the mikvah"...one of music's great tunes. I know I am only a week away from a hotel lobby filled with music, conversation, and people sitting checking their email (just to stay in touch with the real world). I know I am only a week away from the best music I hear all year. Ahh...I can smell that kosher food already. See you all Sunday! Amber

Why is this week different from all other weeks?

2007-12-18T11:40:00.001-05:00

It occurred to me this morning, as I fielded emails and phone calls from various KlezKamp staff members and worked on getting my own class materials in order, that getting ready for KlezKamp was a lot like preparing for Passover. We keep a kosher home, so there's always a lot of cleaning to do, and we host two seders, so I spend an entire week shopping and cooking. As in my preparations for KlezKamp, I wear two hats: I'm the cook, but I also lead the singing and have to help my wife Carol make decisions about the overall logistics for the household. And there always comes a moment, usually within 36 hours of that first sundown, when it feels as though it's never going to get done, that we'll start the seder and discover huge holes in our preparations.

Yet somehow, when we sit down and I look around the table at the faces of our family and friends, the candles lit and the flowers providing a brilliant flash of springtime to what is often a dreary winter day, I'm always ready. Peysakh always happens.

And so it will be on Sunday, as I stand at the Epes Center greeting old friends and welcoming new participants or running the staff meeting that afternoon. Despite how it feels today, I'll be ready. And KlezKamp will happen.

Genuck mit di goyische nahkes, already...

2007-12-17T20:27:00.000-05:00

Ah, Yultide in Texas.

The weatherman informs me that I might want to close the windows tonight as it may get down to a chilly 55 degrees after midnight, brrrrrrr. While the majority of my neighbors are all rushing around buying each other crap for Christmas that any of them could readily do without, I find myself headed out to the shed to locate my trunk of "New York" clothes.

Regular Kampers may have noticed that I show up nearly every year in the same outfit, so I guess it's only fair to explain to you that the hat, gloves, coat, scarf, long britches, and long handle underwear that you will see me in year after year has all only ever been used for one week at a time, over the course of maybe 12 years now. This ritual of breaking open the old Army surplue locker and pulling out this cold weather ensemble portends yet another great week of fruendschaft un Yiddishkeit, the sort of which your Okie born KK Staffer appreciates greatly.

So as they say around these parts, "if the good Lord's willing, and the creeks don't rise (or the flights canceled due to snow,) we'll be seeing you all real soon."

MR

KlezKamp 23: מאַמע-לשון Mame-Loshn: Women in Yiddish Culture

2007-11-01T15:47:00.001-04:00

To understand the centrality of women in the world of Yiddish, one need only look to our title for this year’s theme, the coziest and most intimate expression used to describe our language: Mame Loshn: Mother Tongue.

For from its earliest incarnations one of the first books published in Yiddish was the Tzena-Rena (a translation for women of Torah lore, prayers and commentary) -- to the unprecedented number of women on today’s klezmer bandstands, the contributions of women to the vitality of Yiddish culture are undiminished.

To celebrate this tradition, KlezKamp whose staff is 51% women - focuses on heroines such as poet Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman and veteran drummer Elaine Hoffman Watts, both winners of the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Folklife Award. (Elaine, along with daughter Susan Watts, will be recording a new CD during KlezKamp, another in our “A Living Tradition” anthology series.) We also welcome dance historian Judith Brin Ingber and legendary nonagenarian pianist Shirlee Paul, and welcome back literary scholar Anita Norich.

Beyond the Mame Loshn theme, KlezKamp offers its vast array of Yiddish arts including multi-tiered music classes, an expanded vocal program, all-Yiddish offerings, more general interest classes and our second-to-none KlezKids program and teen theater troupe.

Our venue, the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa, offers luxury in the Catskill tradition, with a kitchen run by celebrated Culinary Institute of American graduate Chef Ed Kelly under the shtreng Glatt Kosher hashgokhe of Ha-rov Gershon Kreuser.

Now in our 23rd year, KlezKamp continues to innovate and inspire as a model for the vigorous and widespread resurgence of Yiddish culture around the world. Be one of thousands who, over the years, have made KlezKamp the Capitol of Yiddishland.

More KlezKamp photos

2007-01-14T17:43:00.000-05:00

Here are more KlezKamp 2006 photos by Rill Wex:

http://flickr.com/photos/44225293@N00/sets/72157594475966617/

Watch as it happens...

2007-01-07T02:03:00.000-05:00

Ain't technology grand?

Meredith Holch and Dan Peck uploading the German tribute video to YouTube.

See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5JrABKGQRo

Articles about KK from the Algemeiner Journal

2007-01-05T11:44:00.000-05:00

Interesting articles about this year's KlezKamp from our friends at the Algemeiner Journal:

יידיש Yiddish: http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?id=2759

English: http://www.algemeiner.com/generic.asp?ID=2776

Hebrew: http://www.shturem.net/index.php?section=news&id=11768&lang=hebrew

Forshpayz/Nokhshpayz - Who has time to eat?

2007-01-01T21:58:00.000-05:00

Wednesday evening saw presentations discussing very different aspects of Yiddish culture and klezmer music.

The afternoon forshpayz was a fascinating discussion of our theme, Hasidish Yiddish, by the vibrant young editor of the Algemeiner Journal, the major Yiddish weekly of the Hasidic community, Yosef Yitzkhok Jacobson. Jacobson gave a bilingual Yiddish-English talk before a large group of rapt KlezKampers tracing his own recent history as the new editor of his newspaper and his effort to incorporate and, indeed, introduce its readers to the richness of Yiddish literature.
It is the Algemeiner Journal that is reprinting great works by writers, such as Peretz and Mendele (as well as new writing by important contemporary Yiddish cultural figures from the secular world) in its pages and on its website. He encouraged KlezKampers to contribute to the literary and political dialogues which are found in its pages and, by his presence and by his words, did much to build the bridge between worlds of Yiddish lovers that need not be estranged. Y.Y. Jacobson is a charming and charismatic man who has the will, the position and the ability to be a truly transformative, historic figure in the world of Yiddish. We who heard him speak could not help but be inspired to work together with him in service of our mutual love of Yiddish language and all parts of its culture. We were honored to have Y.Y. Jacobson at KlezKamp and look forward to working together with him well into the future.

Y.Y. Jacobson (2nd from right) continues the discussion with KlezKampers after his talk on Wednesday evening.

After dinner , there was a vigorous and animated nokhshpayz discussion on the theme of Klezmer in Germany, led by Heiko Lehmann. Staff and KlezKampers from Germany, joined by American KlezKamp faculty who have lived and played in Germany, described their experiences playing in Germany, their personal experiences and motivations and answered the "unspoken" questions that were finally articulated from the audience. The session was punctuated and illustrated by wonderful performances from Sanne Moricke and Christian Dawid and by singer/accordionist Katherina Muether.

These presentations started discussions that went on well into the night and which are certain to continue through to the next KlezKamp and beyond. KlezKamp....it's not just music, that's for sure.

More photos of KlezKamp 2006

2007-01-01T01:09:00.000-05:00

Bob Blacksberg's photos of KlezKamp 2006 can be found at www.rblacksberg.com/KlezKamp06/.
Thanks, Bob!

A great student concert!

2006-12-31T18:56:00.000-05:00

Thursday night's student concert was so impressive. It is amazing to see how students who had never played together before came together in four sessions to present wonderful klezmer and Yiddish music, as well as dance. Apologies to the groups whose pictures did not make it into this collection:

Youth Orchestra

Mike Cohen Ensemble

Traditional Ensemble

Michael Winograd Ensemble

Community Chorus

Fidl Kapelye

Adrianne Greenbaum ensemble

Goldenshteyn Repertoire ensemble

Ray Musiker ensemble

Dobe Ressler ensemble

Mandolin Orchestra

I'm missing photos of the Electric Klezmer Band (how much do I love that there was a 90 year old in the Electric Klezmer Band!), the wonderful Interpreting Jewish Dance class's performance of Der Rebbe Elimeylekh, choreographed by the great Felix Fibich, and of some of the other ensembles. We'll fill in the blanks soon.

It was a great night.

The Lobby of Yiddishland

2006-12-31T11:03:00.000-05:00

You can get a sense of the informal activity at KlezKamp from these views from the lobby. What you can't sense here is the constant hum of voices, the folks playing the piano and singing along, the plink of the tsimbl as Pete Rushefsky teaches his students, the laughter, and all the other sounds of KlezKamp. We're lucky that we can take over the entire hotel for KlezKamp, allowing us to create our own little Yiddishland.

The view from above:

The ride and announcements board, ably administered by our Minister of Information, Hartley Wynberg:

The displays from the craft classes, including these amazing works from Adam Whiteman's papercutting פּאפּירשניט classes:

Staff and KlezKampers hanging out:

And Mitch Mernick in his lobby base, broadcasting Radio KlezKamp 24 hours a day during KlezKamp, adding to our pleasure immeasurably. At KlezKamp, any radio on the hotel grounds can pick up Radio KlezKamp and listeners can hear klezmer music, interviews with KlezKampers, live concerts and KlezNews (put together by youngsters in the children's program). It is an amazing effort by Mitch for which we are all grateful.

It's Sunday morning-- Have you done your KlezKamp Crostic yet?

2006-12-31T09:49:00.000-05:00

Among the features of this year's KlezKamp Zhurnal is the crostic puzzle created especially for KlezKamp by Rick Winston. The Zhurnal was in the registration folder you received upon arrival at KlezKamp. It is available in PDF form on the KlezKamp website's Zhurnal page, for those of you who weren't at KlezKamp yourself. The crostic puzzle alone may be downloaded as a pdf here. Rick Winston, a former KlezKamper himself, is the proprietor of the Savoy Theater in Montpelier, Vermont. This puzzle is a treat and is well worth the effort, even if you have never done a crostic puzzle before.

KlezKamp in the Yiddish Forward

2006-12-30T20:41:00.000-05:00

Read an article about KlezKamp 2006 in the Yiddish Forward here.

2006-12-30T18:01:00.000-05:00

At home after KlezKamp and finally getting out from under the kind of sleep deprivation usually associated with religious cult indoctrinations or prisoner interrogations and a vocal croak eerily identical to Froggy the Gremlin's...
This was an exceptionally amazing KK on so many levels. While as per other years, nearly 60% of the attendees were there for the first time, a regularly reoccuring miracle. Our demagraphics have shifted in the most amazing way: we were excited to be host to more young, articulate and exciting musicians (like trumpeter Ben Homes and mandolinist Eric Stein) and to Jews who are part of more Orthodox communites where Yiddish is spoken -- and read -- on a regular basis. This broader footprint makes the context of the living Yiddish culture which we champion all the more exciting and viable. Highlights for me: playing in the German Goldenshteyn memorial concert; recording Ray Musiker's new CD in yet another converted hotel bedroom (this time room 4112) along with Aaron Alexander, Jim Guttmann, Alex Kontorovitch, Ken Maltz under the leadership of Pete Sokolow and recorded by King Django. The music (a mix of great traditional tunes, an unpublished Yiddish theater song by Abe Ellstein and some Ray originals) was amazing and we'll have the CD out later in 2007; my interview with old pal Andy Statman before a packed house. Speaking of Andy: another great high point was grabbing my banjo and sneaking away with him and Mark Rubin on bass and guitar, for a breathtaking ride through Andy's amazing bluegrass mandolin playing.... (and you haven't lived until you've heard Andy sing tenor harmony on bluegrass standards like Don Reno and Red Smiley's "I Know You're Married")...Had a blast at my book party, a gossamer thin excuse to play tunes with Rubin and Cookie and to zhloke (drink) Steve Weintraub's amazing martinis.. Thanks mucho to the jaw droppingly wonderful Faith Jones for organizing it. Of course, there are always those things I meant to do which didn't happen like a midnight screening with MIchael Wex of the new all Yiddish Hasidic heist film "Der Gesheft.' Maybe at the next KlezKamp, which, I am happy to say, we are already planning for December 23-28 2007.

A few favorite shots from KlezKamp 2006

2006-12-30T15:18:00.000-05:00

A grandfather and grandaughter take a turn on the dance floor.

Music teacher Mark Rubin and KlezKamp founder Henry Sapoznik, rather than having a fit when someone began playing "Fiddler on the Roof" in the lobby (as most of the rest of us did), decided to join in the fun with some atypical dancing.

Dance instructor Steve Weintraub on duty as barkeep for Henry's book launch. The man has a costume for everything.

Henry's mom Pearl Sapoznik and Living Traditions associate director Sabina Brukner's Aunt Regina at lunch. These two "kvellniks" (older relatives of KlezKamp faculty) are surrogate-family to me and my partner: since we moved to New York and are far from our own families, it is the KlezKamp extended circle which has taken us in. Both Pearl and Regina have had us over at pesach, with food of a quality and magnitude that can only be hinted at. You may not have realized that the potato kasha soup the hotel served this year was made from a recipe Pearl gave the chef last year.

Jenny Romaine, leader of the teen theatre workshop, and Frank London, trumpet teacher, with the mitzvah kinder, who played a major role in the videos the teens shot. You can count on Jenny to have some of the stranger Jewish toys and costumes.

Day Four Sleep Deprivation

2006-12-30T15:04:00.000-05:00

It's one thing when people choose a quiet moment when the lobby is relatively empty to catch a few zzz's. Jenny Romaine, who was leading the teen theatre workshop, managed to fall asleep as Anna Schnur-Fishman and Adrienne Cooper conducted an animated conversation not two feet away (below).

The Littlest Klezmorim

2006-12-30T14:45:00.000-05:00

Thursday evening, as Kamp is winding up, is the chance to check out what other people have been doing all week. For the under-five crowd, KinderNest is a chance to make and wear costumes, and to bang on drums. Some slightly older children help out with providing the melody.

Then the older children get a chance to perform the traditional final-evening play. This year, in keeping with our Hasidic theme, the play involved a test of faith and a barrel of shmaltz herring. Thanks to Michael and Rill Wex for writing the script.

After dinner the much-anticipated teen performance takes another look at our theme. Our hosts were Sabu and Jonathan.
All the teens did amazing work writing their script, shooting and mixing footage for the video sequences, and performing as they explored I.L. Peretz's "Gilgul fun a Nign" (The Transmigration of a Melody) in ways Peretz could not have imagined.

New Klez Kamp Videos

2006-12-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

Michael Wex and Andy Statman in the staff concert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZU0gin4AAs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbUVV4FaUI8

So busy having fun

2006-12-27T22:52:00.000-05:00

Busy day at Kamp. Here's a shot from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender party. There were some gay men there, really; they just left before the picture got taken.

Last night we had the book launch for the paperback edition of Henry Sapoznik's book Klezmer! Jewish Music From Old World to Our World. That's him playing with his band, the Youngers of Zion. Mark Rubin is on the cello and Cookie Seigelstein on the fiddle. The Youngers have this amazing ability to combine Jewish music with an American roots feel--they all play multiple musical styles--resulting in a warm atmosphere. Then Henry signed books and shamelessly basked in the adulation of the crowd.

Andy Statman made such a great contribution to Kamp this year. Here he is consulting with KlezKamp's technical director Laura Wernick about her mandolin hobby. He made himself completely available to everybody at all levels of learning, and his solo at the staff concert was a highlight nobody is likely to forget soon.

Meanwhile, what would be Kamp without some fire-eating? Jake and Katy Weinstein could only come for one day this year, but tonight they stilted and ate fire for the crowd. This is them rehearsing, thus no actual fire on those sticks, but the father-daughter duo is never anything less than entertaining.

Notes from the front

2006-12-27T12:02:00.000-05:00

Here are scenes from Jill Gellerman’s PM1 Hassidic Dance class, exploring the effect of popular American dance steps in the Hassidic community. So, the bunny-hop is kosher, who knew?

The amazing Binyomim Ginsburg leads the band on vocals and wonderfully cheesy electric piano sounds.

Frank London, Dan Blacksburg, Michael Winograd, myself and Matt Temkin make up the band, which is having WAY too much fun playing for this class. I may come here to teach, but I always come away learning much more.

Salo Kluger of Simchas Sales.
It just wouldn’t be KlezKamp with out the convivial merchant of all things Yiddish.

Such a deal! Now all you need to find is something to play them on….

Michael Wex sports a new lid.

Klez Kamp: German Goldenshteyn Concert Video on YouTube

2006-12-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

This is the first two tunes from the memorial concert for German Goldenshteyn at Klez Kamp on Monday night. It was an extraordinary experience to be there.

Thanks to Meredith Holch and Mark Rubin for their efforts in making this posting happen so quickly. We hope to have some more clips up during Kamp.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5JrABKGQRo

Best Staff Concert Ever

2006-12-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

Best Staff Concert EVER! I heard that over and over last night after an amazing concert featuring KlezKamp staff playing solo turns and in ensembles covering every possible variation of Yiddish and Klezmer music.

Michael Wex emceed the program with aplomb, including his droshe on the influence of Curly and the other Stooges on Yiddish in the greater culture. All of the acts deserve mention but the stand-outs for me included an amazing clarinet solo by Andy Statman, who did the impossible at KlezKamp and achieved a totally silent, rapt audience; Elaine Hoffman-Watts, who drummed up a storm; the Frank London brass ensemble; Susan Leviton's beautiful Yiddish song; Ray Musiker's Mayn Shtetele Belz solo; Michael Wex's "I'm too sexy for Chabad" solo; so many more.

It was an incredible evening. We have recorded all the evening programs and will have them for sale at the EpesCenter and, we hope, soon on our website .

A conumdrum indeed..

2006-12-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

The inherent problem with this on-site blogging thing is that if you are doing your job and having a great time learning and teaching and interacting in this magical enviornmnet, there is no possible way to take a moment out and write about it.

That said, here I find myself listening to Pete Socolow's band during AM2 and showing Louis London a few things about basic HTML code, so I can drop in on the blog if only for a second.

So here's my story of the day:

"He's here....."

We were on the ballroom stage, those of us who had the privilidge of recording with German Goldenshteyn, not but a year ago at this very place, playing a tribute to his memory. About 2 tunes in, the stage lights go wacky; flashing on and off, dimming and then cutting out completely only to come back on again. Absolutely infuriating as I'm reading charts to be certian not to mess up, I glare at Bill Korich the stage manager who is hurridly running around trying to figure out what's happening. No one is messing with the switches or anything, there's what we like to call in Oklahoma a "haint" in the system. No human hand is messing with us onstage tonight.

Alex Kontorovich, who is already pretty damn spooked at the prospect of having to play the role of his mentor onstage turns around to me and says matter of factly, "He's here."

Indeed.

Here with us all.

A gast in shtetl

2006-12-26T09:24:00.000-05:00

Andy Statman, the great Klezmer clarinetist/Bluegrass mandolinist is at Kamp for two days to give master classes to advanced music students. Last night he was interviewed by Henry Sapoznik in front of a packed audience in the cabaret. The two have known each other for about 2,000 years and are beginning, like an old married couple, to strangely resemble one another. That's Henry on the left and Andy on the right--or is it?

Another great thing that happens at Kamp is the confluence of different generations. Here the great Klezmer drummer Elaine Hoffman Watts discusses technique with Aaron Alexander, another drum instructor.

Last night was also the German Goldenshteyn memorial concert. Playing German's repertoire, the band that recorded on his CD, led by Alex Kontorovich, started the evening. Later they were joined by about 25 other staff members, all of whom were touched by German as a person and a teacher, and who play his repertoire. It was a fantastic show, and when, about half-way through, Henry invited the audience to get up and dance, dance teacher Steven Weintraub didn't need a second invitation. His enthusiasm for moving to Yiddish music is infectious, and soon the whole crowd was there including my new favorite KlezKamp cutie.

The Excitement is Spreading

2006-12-25T15:14:00.000-05:00

This morning, Henry Sapoznik and I gave the first session of our class introducing Living Traditions' online digital archive project to the world, and it was a great experience. We told the story of how the project came to be, which is also contained in an excellent article in this year's KlezKamp Zhurnal. One of the best moments was when I played "before" and "after" clips of a couple of tunes. The "before" clip was from the kind of transfer of a 78 rpm record that is commonly circulated among interested parties who don't have access to professionally remastered reissues; the after clip was from the transfer made by the engineer for this project, Chris King, who is a genious at making both words and music intelligible. Jaws dropped in a very gratifying fashion.

I was also able to share images of some of the beautiful labels on these old records. Here's an example of one particular colorful image from a recording of Belf's Rumanian Orchestra made in Rumania about 1908. The writing is in cyrillic, which is the alphabet used by Russian and Ukrainian.

This project, which will make as many extant Yiddish recordings as I can locate widely available at nominal cost, feels almost as important a contribution to the preservation and dissemination of Yiddish culture as KlezKamp itself, and it was clear from the reactions of the students in class today that they immediately "got" this. There can be nothing more gratifying. I can't wait till tomorrow's class, where we're going to be playing examples of Eastern European khazns (cantors) accompanied by choruses.

Monday morning at KlezKamp

2006-12-25T12:13:00.000-05:00

AM2 classes are going on right now as I write this. KlezKamp's first full day is well under way. Most of the crises have been taken care of and folks are gathered all over the hotel doing the business of KlezKamp, learning and sharing all aspects of Yiddish music and culture. This is happening after a night of spirited dancing, singing and music last night. The EpesCenter is almost set to open with an amazing array of klezmer and Yiddish related goods, not to mention the KK22 t-shirts and sweatshirts featuring the ever-popular faux-Magritte Dos iz nisht keyn beygl cover to the catalogue.

I'm looking forward to hearing Henry Sapoznik interview his fellow founder of the klezmer revival, Andy Statman, later this afternoon during our forshpayz period before dinner. We're really fortunate that Andy will be here teaching master classes in clarinet and mandolin. I first heard him play on the Vaserl record of new Yiddish songs which was recorded in the mid-70s and have enjoyed his playing ever since.

I'm also looking forward to the German Goldenshteyn Memorial Concert, which is tonight's evening activity. All of the musicians who recorded with German at KlezKamp last year will be playing in his memory. That recording session yielded the wonderful recording German Goldenshteyn: A Living Tradition , which is a fitting tribute to German, who died this past June. One of the best things about KlezKamp is the opportunity to meet and get to know amazing people such as German Goldenshteyn. We miss him terribly but his music was heard all over the lobby last night so he is still with us.

Klezkamp Day 1

2006-12-24T20:44:00.000-05:00

wow...it has started...the rush of people coming to register was a sight to be seen...the hotel is transformed into one giant klezmer concert...

the deep sounds of Pete talking with the paino
the smell of Kosher salmon wafting from the kitchen
and the sight of babies in their pj's running wild through the lobby.
Sabina sitting at her large computer...
the people just kept coming...
and coming
and coming...poor Sabina no rest for the weary.
Michael Wex is quietly sitting behind (or maybe in front...)a large green plant...
"Where's Wex" seems the game to play at this moment.
Wait...pause...another question to answer..."yes the bathrooms are across the lobby."
I sit at the Epes Center plunking away this quick blog entry...
the day must be recorded. Day 1 is always the busiest...

On the way to KlezKamp

2006-12-24T19:20:00.000-05:00

There is lots of work involved to set up KlezKamp and some of us arrive at the hotel on Saturday to help set up. The office in New York pretty much gets packed up and moved up to the hotel. The state of the office would not make my mother happy.

Amber Feldman came early and helped me organize the mess.

Then our Operations Manager, King of the EpesCenter and ride up to the hotel, Dan Peck, arrived. It had been some time since Amber and Dan had seen each other:

We packed the car up tight and even managed to squeeze Amber in:

But we had to make an important stop along the way, one without which KlezKamp just is not the same:

We made it to the hotel. We were surprised to find that instead of the nearly empty hotel we were promised, the hotel was fully booked with over 700 khasidim, making our theme of Hasidish Yiddish wildly ironic.

But seeing our friends makes everything worthwhile.

A posting on Day One of KlezKamp will follow soon.

Wexes Are In the House

2006-12-23T14:25:00.000-05:00

My house, that is. Those who remember last year's panic when the Wexes' plane was delayed because LaGuardia was fogged in, causing them to miss the bus and finally arrive half-starved at midnight, will be delighted to hear that they arrived safely in New York yesterday. Sad to say, most of the panic wasn't actually about the Wexes' comfort or safety but about 75 students enrolled in "Wexology" and "Daytsh af tselakhis" who were worried about getting their full Wex fix at Kamp. In fact, Rill (on the right) has gone up to the hotel today to help set up the kids' program, while Wex and Sabina will be on the bus tomorrow. Unless Brooklyn gets fogged in too.

Many people know that Wex's new book will be out, God willing, in time for Kamp next year. Meanwhile, Born to Kvetch will be at the Epes Center in hard- and soft-cover, and the audiobook, read by Wex himself, means you can feed your Jones until then.

Zayt zeks זײַט זעקס (Page Six)

2006-12-19T21:47:00.000-05:00

One of the nice things about the days leading up to KlezKamp is that I get to see KlezKamp staff in person, not just through email or phone conversations. Today was a triple crown day.

First, Alex Kontorovich stopped by the office to pick up the placement recordings sent in by students. Alex can always be seen reading a learned treatise:

Later, Vera Sokolow and I met in Long Island City at the warehouse of a wonderful organization, Materials for the Arts, which supplies donated materials and equipment to non-profit arts organizations. As you can see, we found lots of goodies which we will use at KlezKamp, especially in the children's program, of which Vera is co-director.

We loaded the supplies into a car driven by yet another KlezKamp faculty member, the one-and-only Pete Sokolow.

We are grateful to Materials for the Arts, an agency of the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs, and to its donors for their generosity.

I returned to the office in time to see more KlezKampers in the building on the occasion of the Workmen's Circle gala, which was being held on the first floor. Michael Wex was the featured speaker and he was nice enough to come down and sign some copies of Born to Kvetch for my brother. With him was my former Camp Hemshekh bunkmate and KlezKamp staffer, Joanne Borts, who is also on the Workmen's Circle board.

It was great to see so many KlezKampers staff members today and it made me look forward even more to seeing everyone at KlezKamp on Sunday.

A Creative Project, of Sorts

2006-12-16T21:44:00.000-05:00

Over the years I have taken numerous pictures of people asleep on sofas, chairs, and floors in the middle of the KlezKamp bustle. New attendees are well forewarned to pace yourselves. It is tempting to try to do it all. These KlezKampers did, and you see where they ended up. My apologies for the quality of some of these shots. I was working without flash so as not to wake the victims, urm, subjects of these pictures.

History will be made at this KlezKamp

2006-12-12T15:56:00.000-05:00

We choose a theme for KlezKamp each year around which we organize many of our classes. This year's theme, Hasidish Yiddish, is particularly apt as so much of the future of Yiddish language and culture is tied to its use in the Hasidic community. There need not be a divide between the religious and secular Yiddish worlds. We hope at this KlezKamp to explore the ways in which Yiddish culture survives in all aspects of the Yiddish-speaking and Yiddish-loving community.

One of our special guests at KlezKamp will be Y.Y. Jacobson, the young editor of the Algemeiner Journal (Algemeyner Zhurnál),דער אלגעמײנער זשורנאל, the main Yiddish newspaper geared for the Hasidic community, but which is of interest to all Yiddish speakers. He will give a lecture in the forshpayz period before dinner on Wednesday. His joining us at KlezKamp is a truly historic event, a bridging of what should not be, but is, a gulf between Yiddish communities.

We were put in contact with Rabbi Jacobson through my former Yiddish teacher, Prof. Dovid Katz, who is now research director of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute at the University of Vilnius in Vilne, Lithuania (see www.judaicvilnius.com and www.dovidkatz.net). This was truly fortuitous for all of us. Dovid writes:

Dear Henry and Sabina,

I was honored to be invited this year and was so sorry I couldn't be in the States for these dates, but wanted you to know how much I appreciate your thinking of me, and look forward to working together in years to come.

And, I wanted to extend warm congratulations on your wonderful program. Given the very timely topic (Hasidic Yiddish), I was particularly thrilled that the brilliant 34 year old Y. Y. Jacobson, editor of a major international Yiddish weekly that reaches tens of thousands of Yiddish readers, has been included in the program as a featured speaker. Actually, he is the sensation of the world of Yiddish today: When Gershon Jacobson (1934-2005), the founding editor of the Algemeyner Zhurnál (Algemeiner Journal), passed away in the spring of 2005, folks were kind of sure that his death would mean the end of the Zhurnál (itself heir to the Tog - Morgn Zhurnal). Instead, the youngest of his five children, Yosef Yitschok (“YY”), not quite 33 at the time, rapidly took over as editor-in-chief (and older brother Simon stepped in as publisher) and never has a week been missed. In the year and a half since then, Y.Y. Jacobson has emerged as (for me) the most inspiring personality, writer, and editor in the world of Yiddish of the last generation. It’s been an exquisite pleasure to write for the Zhurnál on a near weekly basis and to be in touch with such an authentic, substantial and sharp readership.

Under Y.Y. Jacobson’s editorship, the paper has been publishing an increasing number of authors from the secular world of Yiddish, including (to take some examples from recent weeks) Mordechai Bauman (Boston), Sholem Berger (New York), Khariton Berman (Kiev), Daniel Galay (Tel Aviv), Dobke Jonis (Vilnius), Dov-Ber Kerler (Bloomington), Moyshe Loyev (NY), and Simkhe Simkhovitsh (Toronto). Moreover, in partnership with the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, the Zhurnál has been publishing (and putting up on its website in digital form, for the use of Yiddish teachers, students and readers everywhere) classic works of modern Yiddish literature. Authors published to date include Sholem Aleichem, Shmerke Katsherginski, Moyshe Kulbak, Leyb Naydus and Y. L. Peretz, whose writing is being enjoyed by tens of thousands of living, current Yiddish readers. And, contrary to some popular misconceptions, much of the new haredi writing published is itself dynamic, daring, youthful, internally diverse, vibrant with the authentic living Yiddish spirit of our new century, one that is eerily a direct heir to our beloved Yiddish classics of the last century and a half.

So, my warmest congratulations to the organizers for extending to the youngest (and I’d say, most talented) Yiddish editor in the world today the reciprocal hand of friendship in the common cause of serious Yiddish language, literature and culture. I’m confident that this event at KlezKamp, in a spirit of mutual respect and frank and open dialogue, will be a date of historic note in the contemporary history of Yiddish, coming as it will to symbolize the long-overdue secular-haredi Yiddish junction.

With warmest regards from the already freezing Vilna
and every good wish for a wonderful, successful event

Dovid

I, for one, can't wait.

Why we do what we do

2006-12-10T16:40:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, I was at a meeting involving “alumni” of a mainstream Jewish program which purports to encourage Jewish continuity by sending American Jewish young people on trips to Israel. The participants were well-meaning, well-educated American Jewish young people who were there to help a Yiddish organization (not Living Traditions) develop its website.

It was depressing.

These young people, who are supposedly the best and the brightest success stories of American Jewish education, literally did not know what Yiddish was, except as the butt of self-deprecating jokes. Nowhere in their years of Hebrew school, JCC programs, synagogue youth groups, college Hillel programs or their trips to Israel, did they learn about it or to respect it. The fact that their grandparents or great-grandparents likely spoke the language or lived their lives in Yiddish was lost on them. Those of us at the meeting who spoke Yiddish to each other were asked to speak Yiddish on videotape like the objects of some terribly ironic anthropological expedition.

What these young people also did not know was that the benefactor of the program which sponsored their trips to Israel was once asked if he would consider supporting Living Traditions, to which he answered that he would gladly give money to support the destruction of Yiddish. I can only assume he does not know that alumni of his program are helping a Yiddish organization.

Living Traditions and KlezKamp are means by which we treasure the legacy that these young people have been taught to ignore, as if there were no Jewish culture between the destruction of the Temple and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. We love and respect Eastern European Jewish culture and its language, Yiddish. We find our connection to the generations that came before us by honoring and passing down the music, arts, literature, foodways, and other traditions of that world and integrating them into our lives today. Two weeks from today, hundreds of us will be getting together to celebrate and honor that culture.

That is anything but depressing.

tick...tick..tick....

2006-12-07T18:20:00.000-05:00

The plethora of help I'm getting putting KK together gives me time to catch up on playing my Bacon professional 5 string banjo which just came back from the shop. (Wow! What a difference....!) AND preparing for my class with Sherry Mayrent on the new Living Traditions Online Digital Sound Archives. I've been ploughing through Sherry's mind numbing catalog of some 3,000 78s she's collected (more since the catalog was made) and choosing some weird, rare and just plain amazing recordings for the class. Current faves: Joseph Feldman's 1925 "Fun Schlechte Chaverim Tsum Electric Chair" (From Bad Friends to...you know where.), Anna Hoffman's ribald 1923 "Froyen Nacht in a Terkishe Bath" ("Ladies Night you know where....), an extremely rare 1901 Kol Nidre by pioneeering recording cantor Selmar Cerini and a bunch of really kicking Belf klezmer discs. And about 30 more.
I do have to get some fretted instrument playing in. I still have to restring my '39 Epiphone New Yorker archtop guitar in anticipation of the Ray Musiker CD we're recording at KlezKamp this year. (Haven't played it since Pete and I disbanded Klezmer Plus! nearly five years ago...) Pete tells me his meeting with Ray on repertoire was really exciting and he even coaxed out a tango Ray hasn't played in decades in addition to some wonderful tunes made famous by his older and late brother Sammy.

Who can wait?

Update from KlezKamp Central

2006-12-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

Things are moving fast and furious here at the Living Traditions office, deep in the basement of the Workmen's Circle building, as we head towards KlezKamp at the end of the month. We may not have windows, light or fresh air but we do have a lot of enthusiasm for what looks to be a terrific KlezKamp.

First things first: It is not too late to sign up for KlezKamp! We still have space and hope that you will join us at the Hudson Valley Resort from December 24-29 for KlezKamp 22. Don't forget that we also have a wonderful children's program, so bring your kids and grandkids (kids- bring your parents and grandparents!) and experience our intergenerational Yiddish Folk Arts Program together. There are links to the important KlezKamp information on the left-hand side of this page. Call us at the office (212) 532-8202 or write us at info@livingtraditions.org if you have any questions or need additional information.

Those of us planning this event can easily become אױסגעקלעזקעמפּט (oysgeklezkempt = KlezKamped-out) during these final weeks leading up to the event. (I've likened it to planning a destination wedding (with classes) for 500-- and everyone is the mother of the bride.) But it is all well worth it to bring our wonderful KlezKamp community together for the 22nd straight year. Please join us.

We hope to see you at KlezKamp!

Klez Kamp Epes Center: New This Year

2006-12-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

This will be an exciting year at the Epes Center. We will have many new items on the shelves. A partial list:

German Goldenshteyn/ A Living Tradition (CD): This is the CD that was recorded in an unused bedroom at last year's Kamp and has become a phenomenon. It has become all the more important because we lost our wonderful friend German to a heart attack in June. The music is astounding, like nothing you've ever heard. It has made the Grammy nominating list in 3 categories.

German Goldenshteyn Repertoire (Book): Cookie Segelstein amd Alex Kantorovich have labored long and hard to have the book of German's music ready for this year's Kamp. Proceeds from the sale of the book and CD go to German's family.

Zvee Scooler/Der Grammeister (CD): Another new release from Living Traditions, this is a compilation of the Yiddish theater's great actor featuring radio performances, poetry and even commercials.

Klezmer Music/A Social History (Book) : The long awaited paperback edition of Henry Sapoznik's seminal work is finally available, this time with an included music CD.

As in recent years, we will also be offering CDs of the evening concerts the day after they happen.

Putting the Zhurnal to bed

2006-12-02T19:16:00.000-05:00

I've just about finished work on the KlezKamp Zhurnal, our annual magazine that features articles about Yiddish culture, Living Traditions, our faculty, and this year, for the first time, a crostic puzzle created especially for KlezKamp. Editing the Zhurnal is one of my favorite responsibilities in my role as KlezKamp editor, archivist, and house grammarian.

Just to whet your appetite, here's the table of contents:

A Tribute to German Goldenshteyn, z"l
Digital KlezKamp (about a new Living Traditions online music database)
Hasidic Creativity on Cassette, by Miriam Isaacs (in English and Yiddish, for those practising reading Yiddish)
Hasidic Klezmer in Israel, by Henry Sapoznik
Our Other Talented Faculty (a look at visual artwork by our crafts and children's faculty)
My Uncle Zvee, by Isaiah Sheffer (about Zvee Scooler and the new Living Traditions CD of his rhyming radio commentaries)
Meet the Scholarship Students
The KlezKamp Crostic, by Rick Winston

It's been great fun putting this together. I was honored to be able to do something to commemmorate my friend, the late German Goldenshteyn, of blessed memory (a picture of us together, with Yitskhok Niborski on the left, is above). In addition, all the articles and features are lively and informative--and I got to do the crostic before almost anybody else (although it was LT Associate Director and puzzle maven Sabina Brukner who took it out for its first spin). But my favorite item of all is the scholarship students.

The scholarship program is now in its second year. Dan Peck, KlezKamp's Operations Manager, sorts through a stack of applications from dozens of interesting, involved young people, all of whom have terrifically compelling reasons for wanting to attend Kamp. From these he must choose only two to whom Living Traditions can offer complete scholarships, a program funded by generous supporters such as yourself. For the second year in a row, the scholarship students are incredibly inspiring. I find their insights and reasons for working with Yiddish culture moving. Here's a small taste of this year's recipients:

Polish student Alicja Głuszek, a PhD candidate who lists Abraham Joshua Heschel as one of her main influences and works as a staff member of the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków; and
Dina Gidon, an organic chemist from St. Petersburg, Russia, who has switched studies to become a collector of Yiddish folklore, particularly in Ukraine.

Add to these amazing accomplishments the fact that they are both under 25, and I'm sure you'll be as floored as I was. I can't wait to meet these two first-time Kampers when we get to Kerhonkson. You can read more about these two young Yiddishists in the Zhurnal (it'll be in your package when you get to Kamp).

If you want to learn more about the KlezKamp scholarship fund, call Sabina in the office; we would love to extend this program to be able to bring more of these inspiring young people to Kamp, to join with the KlezKamp community in our collective learning, and to make our hemshekh more complete.