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Dear Friend of Yiddishkayt,
Yes, we know, March is a long ways away. I mean, we're talking about 2009 here (don't panic). Why should you care? Because the Klezmatics are playing at UCLA on March 5, 2009 and tickets just went on sale. Help us sell out the show early and purchase your tickets this week. Here's the deal: Yiddishkayt made the shidekh, the match, that made this concert possible and so UCLA has agreed to donate a very generous portion of the proceeds to us. This is an amazing opportunity to see the Klezmatics and help raise money for Yiddishkayt! (If we sell out the show we could receive $10,000!) More info below.
Yasher koyekh, a hearty congratulations to our friends at the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies (CJS). Last week the CJS announced that they have received a generous endowment for an academic chair in Yiddish language and culture.
It is with great sadness that we report that on July 10 we lost a dear friend of Yiddishkayt, Johanna Cooper. Our thoughts are with her family and many friends. Read Aaron's tribute to Johanna below. There are plenty of great Yiddish-related and Yiddish-centric events on the near and distant horizon. This Sunday, join Yiddishkayt in congratulating JDub Records on their 5th anniversary with a FREE concert at Grand Performances at California Plaza, featuring exuberant klezmer-punk band, Golem. (Also, rehearse your drive to California Plaza - you'll want to make the trip again on September 20th for the ¡Viva Yiddish! festival and concert.) Speaking of ¡Viva Yiddish!, we're not the only ones exploring the connection between Jews and Latinos this summer. On August 24, the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony premieres "The Sephardic-Latino Connection" at the Ford Ampitheater. Enjoy this great night of music showcasing the similarities between Sephardic and Latino music originating from Spain.
IN THE NEWS: Did you know that cinnamon in kugl contains a magic charm (even one able to control parents)? The popular Disney show, Wizards of Waverly Place, puts kugl front and center in a recent episode ( click here for the kugl-centric episode, and scroll in about one minute).
If high gas prices are forcing you to take a humble vacation this summer, why not enjoy a local J-cation to Fairfax Avenue, writes Edmon Rodman in the Jewish Journal. And check out this moving tribute published in Ha'Aretz to Shloyme Mikhoyls, the great Yiddish actor, director and spiritual leader of Soviet-era Russian Jewry.
CORRECTIONS: Yes, even this humble e-newsletter gets the facts wrong from time to time. In our May yidbits we shared the story of Nathan Birnbaum, an architect of the Chernowitz Conference and the coiner of two words you probably know: Yiddishism and Zionism. The article implied that Birnbaum had embraced Political Zionism after reading Herzl's Judenstaat in 1896 - in reality he had invented this very term several years earlier. In 1897, Birnbaum spoke of "Zionism as a Cultural Movement." Reports of Birnbaum's poor Yiddish are exaggerated and the purpose of his trip to the US was less for fund-raising and more for friend-raising gaining supporters for the Conference.
mit vareme vuntshn, The Yiddishkayt Staff |
IN LOVING MEMORY: JOHANNA COOPER
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We mourn the passing of our friend, colleague, past board member and inspirational guide, Johanna Cooper. Johanna produced the groundbreaking collaboration "Jewish Short Stories: From the Old World to the New" for KCRW and National Public Radio as well as numerous other special radio productions focused on Jewish holidays and culture.
Her love for Yiddish was woven into her love of Judaism and the Jewish people. She joined the Yiddishkayt board in 2002 and remained an active advisor and friend of the organization right until her untimely death this month after a valiant battle with breast cancer.
I met Johanna in 1994 when she was shooting video for the yet to open Skirball Museum. She was looking for different people to talk on camera about their own Jewish identity - a subject near and dear to her heart. She ended up putting me into the opening exhibit at the Skirball where I remained, on screen, for many years. It was the beginning of a warm friendship whose importance for me was far out of proportion to the quantity of time we were able to spend together.
Five minutes with Johanna were enough to make you feel happy, excited, loved and ready for life. Whenever we were together or talked on the phone, she wanted to know exactly what I was up to and she was always brimming over with new projects we would collaborate on. With her close friend, Abbie Phillips, also a Yiddishkayt board member, we dreamt up radio programs, podcasts, streaming video and other new media ideas that would bring Yiddish to a new generation.
She attended the Kugl Kukh-Off on June 1 of this year and she looked great. I will always remember that last exchange with her in the lobby of the Center. There was a line of people checking in their kugls and I was running around, like always, working on the many details of the day. We hugged - I thanked her for coming and worried aloud that we didn't have more people and more kugl. But I told her how we were documenting the entire day and that we planned to make a film based on the event. She seemed genuinely surprised by my concern with the turn-out. "This is fantastic Aaron!" she told me and her beautiful eyes beamed. And I knew it was true.
We plan on finishing the kugl documentary as soon as we can and dedicating it to Johanna's memory. I also hope that we will be able to set up a new media program for Yiddishkayt that will enable her dreams for Yiddishkayt to be realized.
In loving memory of a wonderful mentsh.
--Aaron Paley
Share your memories of Johanna with this online guest book. Johanna's family requests that contributions in her honor be made to SOVA, Mazon, and the Disability Rights Legal Center's Cancer Legal Resource Center.
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3/5/09 KLEZMATICS AT ROYCE HALL
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UCLAlive presents the Grammy Award-winning KLEZMATICS, live in concert at Royce Hall.
Thursday, March 5
Begins at 8:00 pm
Royce Hall at UCLA
Tickets just went on sale, buy them today!Tickets are available for $60, $45 or $38 ($15 for UCLA students)Purchase tickets on the UCLAlive website or by calling the UCLAlive box office at (310) 825-2102. Help us sell out the show - your ticket will help raise money for Yiddishkayt! Because we made the shidekh, the match, that made this concert possible, UCLA has
agreed to donate a very generous portion of the proceeds to us. If we sell out the show Yiddishkayt could receive $10,000. There has never been an easier way to help raise money for Yiddishkayt - all while seeing the Grammy-winning Klezmatics at the world-class Royce Hall. Founded in 1986 as the result of a Village Voice ad, this
freewheeling group of musicians from New York's East Village have
become world-renowned klezmer superstars, perpetually reinventing and
revitalizing this traditional genre to create exuberantly modern dance
music. With their irresistibly eclectic mix of gospel, punk, Arab,
African and Balkan rhythms steeped in Eastern European Jewish
traditions, the ensemble has garnered numerous accolades, including a
2006 Grammy for Wonder Wheel (created from the never recorded
lyrics of folk icon Woody Guthrie), and has collaborated with a diverse
list of luminaries including Arlo Guthrie, Itzhak Perlman, Ben Folds
Five, Chava Alberstein, and the late Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. "(They)
aren't just the best band in the klezmer vanguard... they rank among the
best bands on the planet. Jewish traditional music is just the starting
point for songs that jump, rock and swing-sometimes all at the same
time" [Time Out, New York].
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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7/27 JDub Records and Grand Performances present:
Slivovitz & Soul (including our favorite Yiddish Punk band, Golem)
Sunday, July 27Music starts at 8pmFree admission, lots of available parkingGrand Performances at California Plaza350 S. Grand Ave, in Downtown Los Angeles Featuring: Yiddish Gypsy Rockers GOLEMIsraeli hip-hop crew SOULICOw/ special guests Join JDub Records in celebrating their 5th Anniversary at Slivovitz & Soul: Eastern Europe meets Israel in a shtetl-fabulous dance party.
8/10 Arbeter Ring/Workmen's Circle presents
Far Yugnt/For Youth: the Yiddish Songbook of S. Polonski
Sunday, August 10
2:00 pm
The Workmen's Circle
1525 S Robertson Blvd
Free admission, reservations not required.
Yiddishkayt is proud to participate in the annual commemoration of of Soviet Yiddish Writers. Fifty-six years ago, on August 12, 1952, the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin executed fourteen prominent Yiddish writers and Jewish communal officials in an attempt to wipe out Jewish culture.
This year, we recognize Soviet Jewish composer S. Polonski, who contributed several well-known songs to the Yiddish repertoire. The Mit Gezang Yiddish Chorus of the Workmen's Circle will delve deeper into Polonski's musical legacy, performing the entirety of his songbook written for Yiddish-speaking schoolchildren in the Soviet Union, published in 1931. This unique program will be in Yiddish and English.
8/24 Los Angeles Jewish Symphony premieres
The Sephardic-Latino Connection
 Sunday, August 247:30 pmFord Ampitheater2580 Cahuenga Blvd, HollywoodTickets are $36 & $25; $12 for full-time students and children under 12.Purchase tickets from the Ford online or call the box office at (323) 461-3673.
The Los Angeles Jewish Symphony premieres The Sephardic-Latino Connection,
celebrating the similarity of impassioned cries of the cantors and
those of the flamenco artists whose roots originate from Spain, as part
of the Ford Summer 2008 Series. Conducted by the symphony's
founder/artistic director, Dr. Noreen Green, accompanied by flamenco
guitarist Adam del Monte and harpist Marcia Dickstein. Also with
Argentinean Cantor Marcelo Gindlin and special guests, The Mariachi
Divas. For more information, visit the LA Jewish Symphony website.Yugntruf (Youth for Yiddish) presents their annual Yiddish Week from Wednesday, August 20 to Tuesday, August 26, 2008 Head
to upstate New York for an entire week completely in Yiddish: play,
swim, eat, dance, talk, learn, think, and dream in Yiddish. At the Berkshire Hills Emanuel Adult Recreation Center in Copake, New york. Click here for more information. |
THE VORTSMAN
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 vortsman, meaning Man of his Word, brings you the story of a different Yiddish word or phrase each month.
Written by Hershl Hartman, Long-time Yiddishkayt member (and Education Director at the Sholem Community)
 People who half-remember Yiddish as spoken by their grandparents have asked what "a bankes is," based on their recollection of the phrase s'vet helfn vi a toytn bankes. Their guess is that "a bankes can't help because it's dead." Actually, it's not the plural bankes that are deceased. The phrase translates as "t'will help like cups on a corpse." The bankes/cups in question are not of the tea-sipping variety. They're thick glass, similar to but wider and more rotund than a shot-glass. In primitive "medicine" as practiced in both the old and new worlds, the cups were heated and placed on the backs of people ill with a wide variety of diseases. The heated hollow produced a vacuum against the skin, causing it to redden and rise. The treatment didn't work but, then, neither did applying live leeches... Why, then, do some people think it's the bankes that are dead? That brings us into Yiddish grammar. A corpse (masc., sing.) is a toyter. If the corpse is the object of a verb ( helfn/help), the noun declines to a toytn. _ _ _ _ _ Have a question for the vortsman? Send him an email and ask the meaning of a favorite, or confusing, word or phrase. |
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Yiddishkayt Los Angeles
www.yiddishkaytla.org
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