Scroll down for information and links to purchase tickets for YNY’s evening/special events!
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 6:00-9:00pm
*SPECIAL PRE-YNY EVENT*
YNY Visual Arts Exhibition Opening Reception
Abrazo Interno Gallery, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, 107 Suffolk Street at Rivington Street, Lower East Side.
Free event open to the public.
Join us as we open YNY’s 2016 Visual Arts Exhibition with a reception. This year’s exhibition is entitled “Trees of Life and Evil Eyes – A Contemporary Take on Superstition, Symbols and Mysticism” and is being curated by Deborah Ugoretz and Tine Kindermann. The exhibition runs through Wednesday, December 28th and explores a number of questions: What role do superstitions and expressions of their associated symbols, play in today’s Jewish worlds? What need is there for protection through amulets or ritual practice? How do we navigate the gap between scientific explanations and irrational, all too human fears? Artists interested in the call to art should click here.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 6:30pm
*SPECIAL PRE-YNY EVENT*
Klezmer: Music, History and Memory
A lecture and performance with Dr. Walter Zev Feldman (author, tsimbl) and Deborah Strauss (violin)
At the New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Library, 455 Fifth Avenue.
Free event open to the public (we advise you to get there early to ensure a seat). The Library is fully accessible.
A special talk/performance held in conjunction with the launch of Feldman’s new book (Oxford University Press) which traces the emergence of the klezmer tradition from 16th century Prague, to New York in the mid-twentieth century. Walter Zev Feldman is a leading scholar of klezmer and Ottoman music who has been a pioneer in klezmer’s revival since his work with Andy Statman and Dave Tarras in the 1970s. For more information click here.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 6:00pm
*SPECIAL PRE-YNY EVENT*
YNY Special Yidishlekh and Heymish Friday Night Egalitarian Service
At the Town & Village Synagogue, 334 East 14th Street
Open to all – come and join us!
Yiddish New York’s Cantor Jeff Warschauer – a long-time pioneer of the klezmer revival – will officiate along with Town and Village’s renowned clergy, Rabbi Laurence Sebert and Cantor Shayna Postman. We are grateful to the synagogue community for opening their doors to YNY again this year!
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 6:00pm – 10:00pm
*SPECIAL PRE-YNY EVENT*
YNY Orthodox Service and Shabes Dinner
At the Stanton Street Shul, 180 Stanton Street (between Clinton and Attorney Streets, just South of E. Houston on the Lower East Side)
Open to all, but those wishing to attend the dinner must register in advance (registration is separate from YNY registration). Click here for dinner registration.
One of the last tenement synagogues of the Lower East Side, the Stanton Street Shul was built in 1913 to house a congregation with roots in Brzezan in Southeast Galicia (now Ukraine). We are grateful to Rabbi Aviad Bodner and the synagogue community for welcoming YNY to join them for services and dinner.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1:00pm
*SPECIAL PRE-YNY EVENT*
Lecture and Lower East Side Historical Walking Tour
At the Stanton Street Shul, 180 Stanton Street (between Clinton and Attorney Streets, just South of E. Houston on the Lower East Side)
Free and open to the public.
Join us for a talk followed by a walking tour led by acclaimed scholar Elissa Sampson. You’ll learn about the neighborhood’s historic synagogues, old tenements, landsmanshaftn, and secret community gardens that tell a tale of the LES’s evolution. Bring your walking shoes! The talk will run from 1-1:30PM, with the walking tour from 1:30-2:30PM (if it rains, we’ll spend more time inside). If you come earlier, the Stanton Street Synagogue’s shabes service starts at 9:30AM, and all are welcome to join the congregation for some nosh at the kiddush at 12 noon.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 6:00 – 11:00pm
YNY Chronikah Opening Night Tantshoyz Yiddish Dance Party & Visual Arts Reception
At Clemente Soto Velez, 107 Suffolk Street (corner of Rivington St.)
Free to 6-day YNY registrants. Others may purchase tickets by clicking here or pay at the door ($15). The Visual Arts Reception runs from 6:00pm-9:00pm, the Tantshoyz Yiddish Dance Party starts at 7:30pm. 6-Day Pass Registrants – you will be able to check-in during the event.
So it’s the first night of Hanukkah, and many of your non-Jewish friends are waiting for a bearded man with a red kapote to creep from their pripetchiks. Where do you go? Why of course, come to YNY’s Chronikah Opening Night Tantshoyz Yiddish Dance Party! Bring your dancing shoes for an evening of freylekhs, shers, bulgars and more – dancers of all levels welcome – master dance leader Jill Gellerman will show you the steps. The YNY All-Stars led by Michael Winograd and Grammy-winning trumpeter Frank London (The Klezmatics) will provide the music- you won’t hear better klezmer anywhere! And you can also come to YNY’s amazing Visual Arts Exhibition where a special reception will be happening (reception starts at 6:00PM). Registrants may also check-in for the full festival at the event.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 11:00am
*YNY PARTNER EVENT*
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Kids & Yiddish Rides Again Concert!
At the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place
YNY is pleased to be a sponsor of this event presented by our friends at the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene. Separate tickets are required (not included in YNY registrations). For information and tickets click here (YNY friends can get special $10 tickets – use code “YiddishNY” when ordering online).
A reunion concert performance of NYTF’s wildly popular family musical. 90% English, 10% Yiddish and 100% fun! For families with children ages 4 and up. Created by YNY’s Joanne Borts, as well as Menachem Mike Fox and Zalmen Mlotek. A bunch of YNY faculty members will be appearing, and if you want to take your family to Kids & Yiddish before coming back to the 14th Street Y and depositing your children in the YNY Kids or Teen program, that’s absolutely fine!
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 12:00 – 5:00pm
*YNY PARTNER EVENT*
Museum on Eldridge Street Holiday Celebration
At the Museum on Eldridge Street, 12 Eldridge Street
YNY is pleased to be a sponsor of this event presented by our friends at the Museum on Eldridge Street. Separate tickets are required (not included in YNY registrations). For information and tickets click here (YNY friends receive 10% off – use code “MENSCH” when ordering online).
Looking for something fun to do on Christmas Day – also the second day of Chanukah? Visit a landmark synagogue in Chinatown! Join the Museum for tours, scavenger hunts, and an art activity inspired by Chanukah cards featured in the Blavatnik Archive (12-3 pm). At 3 pm, the Museum screens the 1925 silent film His People with an original score created and performed live by saxophonist Paul Shapiro and his sextet. Young and old will be on the edge of their seats, riveted by this century old story of a Lower East Side immigrant family. At 4:30 the Museum conducts a Chanukah candle-lighting ceremony.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 8:00pm
5th Annual Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Memorial Concert
At the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place
Free to 6-day YNY registrants. Others may purchase tickets by clicking here.
Once again we gather to celebrate the legacy of Yiddish singer/cultural activist Adrienne Cooper, who passed away in 2011. This year’s event will honor Yiddish poet Irena Klepfisz with the 2016 Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Award, and feature a host of the Yiddish music world’s leading lights including Cooper’s daughter Sarah Gordon, Daniel Kahn, Judith Berkson, Josh Dolgin, Ethel Raim, Zhenya Lopatnik, Psoy Korolenko, Joanne Borts, Jewlia Eisenberg, Nicole Borger, Joyce Rosenzweig, Yoshie Fruchter, Marilyn Lerner, Michael Winograd and Frank London. For tickets click here.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 26, 7:30pm
YNY Unplugged!
At the Town and Village Synagogue, 334 East 14th Street
Free to 6-day YNY registrants. Others may purchase tickets by clicking here or pay at the door ($15).
An evening of some of our favorite acoustic acts! Featuring: Book of J – an amazing new Bay Area collaboration between singer/guitarist Jeremiah Lockwood (Sway Machinery) and singer Jewlia Eisenberg (Charming Hostess) making their New York debut; Socalled with Strings – internationally renowned Montreal-based rapper Josh Dolgin (Socalled) debuts a new project backed by a string quartet; The Fabulous Shpielkehs represent four generations (if not more) of traditional klezmer, Philadelphia-style, and are led by drummer/NEA National Heritage Fellow Elaine Hoffman Watts and her daughter, trumpeter Susan Hoffman Watts. The evening will close with a dance set led by acclaimed violinist Jake Shulman-Ment and the New York Fidl Kapelye. Dance master Steve Weintraub will be on hand to lead dancing!
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 7:30pm
Vodka & Latkes Party
At Drom, 85 Avenue A
Free to 6-day YNY registrants. Others may purchase tickets online or pay at the door – click here for more information.
Isaac Stern famously summarized US/Soviet cultural diplomacy as “they send us their Jewish violinists from Odessa, and we send them our Jewish violinists from Odessa.” Tonight the Yiddish worlds of the US and Former Eastern Bloc collide fruitfully, as we present the Ternovka Ensemble, a new collaboration between renowned Yiddish singer Zhenya Lopatnik (who recently relocated to New York from Kharkiv, Ukraine) and tsimblist (hammered dulcimer) player Pete Rushefsky; Smithsonian Folkways recording artists The Brothers Nazaroff, an international supergroup that is the subject of a new documentary film, Soul Exodus, with Daniel Kahn (Berlin), Psoy Korolenko (Moscow), Bob Cohen (Budapest) and Jake Shulman-Ment (Brooklyn); The Sway Machinery, a horn-driven group led by guitarist/singer Jeremiah Lockwood that draws on a mélange of influences—from Latin jazz to Ashkenazi cantorial tropes—to forge a dance-friendly, at times ecstatic sound; and Hydra, Brooklyn’s newest vocal creature performing in English, Albanian, Spanish, Macedonian and HydraTongue with Yula Be’eri, Rima Fand and Sarah Small. The evening will be capped by a set by the YNY All-Stars.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 6:30pm
Yiddish New York & New Yiddish Rep present:
God of Vengence (Got fun nekome) by Sholem Ash
At La Mama, 74A East 4th Street
Limited availability, free to 6-day YNY registrants on a first come-first served basis. Performed in Yiddish with English supertitles.
Considered one of the most psychologically revealing plays of the first half of the 20th century, and still highly explosive for its conflicted view of Judaism, God of Vengeance is the basis of Paula Vogel’s Indecent, which will be coming soon to Broadway. Ash’s play tells the wrenching story of a brothel owners attempt to marry off his daughter to lead a dignified religious life, only to have her drawn back into the life of sin in which she grew up. The production features several veterans of the Yiddish underground theatre scene: Shane Baker in the role of the brothel owner Yekl; David Mandelbaum (NYR’s Artistic Director) as marriage broker Reb Ali, and Carad O’Brien is Hindl, a sex worker. Directed by famed Yiddish theater actress Eleanor Reissa, who also plays Yekl’s wife Sarah. The cast also includes a group of young actors who receive intensive training from NYR to perform in Yiddish, including a number of former members of the city’s Hasidic communities. This extraordinary opportunity to experience this play authentically in its original language is presented by YNY and the internationally renowned New Yiddish Rep, which recently produced acclaimed Yiddish-language versions of Waiting for Godot (2013 & 2014), and Death of a Salesman (2015).
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 9:00pm
Ahavas Oylem – An Evening of Sacred Music
At the Town and Village Synagogue, 334 East 14th Street
Free to 6-day YNY registrants. Others can purchase tickets by clicking here or pay at the door ($15).
An evening of spiritually-infused Jewish liturgical music. ECM recording artist Judith Berkson is a soprano, pianist, composer and cantor with a range of musical styles who recently created a program of cantorial music inspired by early 20th century recordings from the YIVO Institute’s sound archive. Renowned Cantor Jack Mendelson pays tribute to the Golden Age of the Cantorate with an all-star ensemble led by clarinetist Michael Winograd and Grammy-winning trumpeter Frank London of The Klezmatics.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28, 11:00pm
YNY Late-Night Klezmer Jam Session
At Mona’s, 224 Avenue B, just south of 14th Street
Free to the public, but please buy drinks and tip generously to support Mona’s!
Bring your axe for a klezmer jam session hosted by acclaimed trumpeter Jordan Hirsch at Mona’s, which has been called “ground zero for an emerging late-night scene of young swing and traditional jazz players” (the Wall Street Journal). But tonight we’ll klez it up into the wee hours!
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2:00pm
YNY Student Concert!
At the 14th Street Y
Open to registrants only.
YNY’s capping event is our wonderful, amazing Student Concert. Last year we saw amazing performances by the instrumental ensembles, some wonderful new songs from the vocal program, a dizzying array of Yiddish theater sketches (with supertitles!) and we’re still shepping nakhes fun di kinder. If you thought you had seen it all by Thursday, wait ’til the Student Concert where dreams come true! Yiddishland hot talant!