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Living Traditions
Peysakh 2007 • 5767 xsp
KlezKamp 22:
We Could Have Danced All Night!
As the automatic doors glide open, we are met with a smorgasbord of klezmer sounds: the
sweet exhale of the clarinet mingles with the anguished cry of the violin; the ivory keys of the
piano dance with the tingling strings of the tsimbl (cimbalom). Sitting on couches and leaning
on pillars, the hotel lobby is full with people of all ages playing… instruments, creating a
symphony of sound. Through the foggy thickness of the collective music, a bilingual sign can be
read – “Welcome to KlezKamp.”
– Algemeiner Journal, January 4, 2007
T
his is just a brekl of what more than 400
Yiddish lovers of all ages and backgrounds enjoyed at Living Traditions’
22nd Annual KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk
Arts Program, held December 24-29, 2006
at the Hudson Valley Resort and Spa in
Kerhonkson, NY.
That this was really one of the great
KlezKamps – from the terrific music ensembles and challenging classes to the impromptu
jams and serendipitous meetings — was
echoed in the Yiddish press who were caught
up in the shtetl we created for five days in the
Catskills.
Our theme, “Hasidish Yiddish,” was particularly apt since so much of Yiddish language
and culture’s future is tied to the Hasidic community. Thanks to our good friend Dovid Katz
in Vilna, we invited Y.Y. Jacobson, the young
editor of the Algemeiner Journal, the main
Yiddish newspaper geared for the Hasidic
community, but of interest to all Yiddish
speakers. His joining us at KlezKamp was a
truly historic event, bridging what should not
be, but is, a gulf between Yiddish religious and
secular communities. This link to Jews who are
part of Orthodox communities where Yiddish
is spoken – and read – on a regular basis makes
the context of the living Yiddish culture which
we champion all the more exciting and viable.
KlezKamp 23:
December 23-28, 2007
Highlights this year for me were:
Steve Weintraub (center) teaches
Flash (Bottle) Dancing (Bob Blacksberg)
up
laying in the German Goldenshteyn
memorial concert;
u r ecording Ray Musiker’s new CD in yet
another converted hotel bedroom like last
year’s recording with our beloved German
(see page 3);
um
y interview with old pal Andy Statman
before a packed house. Another great high
point was grabbing my banjo and sneaking away with Andy, and Mark Rubin on
bass and guitar, for a breathtaking ride
through Andy’s amazing bluegrass mandolin playing; and
um
y book party, in which I had a blast
— a gossamer-thin excuse to play tunes
with Rubin and Cookie Segelstein and
to zhloke Steve Weintraub’s amazing
martinis.
If you couldn’t be there, you can still enjoy the
KK22 concerts and the Statman and Jacobson
interviews on CDs offered at our website:
www.livingtraditions.org/docs/store.htm.
Read About Our
Latest Projects:
Hope to see you at the next KlezKamp,
which, I am happy to say, we are already planning for December 23-28, 2007. Mark your
calendars!
Get Ready for
KlezKamp 23. . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Henry (“Hank”) Sapoznik
Executive Director/Founder
OyTunes! Online Digital
Sound Archive. . . . . . . . . . . 2
“Zvee Scooler:
Der Grammeister”. . . . . . . . 4
Ray Musiker: Continuing
“A Living Tradition”. . . . . . . 3
“From the Repertoire of
German Goldenshteyn”. . . 3
Highlights:
KlezKamp 22:
Photos and More. . . . . . . . . 5
KK: From Russia (and
Poland) with Love. . . . . . . . 2
Design Our New Logo! . . . . 3
Come Meet The FOLKs. . . . 5
KlezKamp Roadshow:
We Deliver!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
KlezKamp: From Russia (and Poland) with Love
KlezKamp creates a fantastic opportunity
to enjoy our amazing Yiddish culture
and to meet the beautiful people who
celebrate and re-interpret it. – Alicja Głuszek
OyTunes! Online Digital Sound Archive
H
ow often have you wanted to hear vintage recordings of
genuine klezmer music, but didn’t know where to look?
Or else you actually found and listened to some of those
early 78 rpm records, and couldn’t tell the fiddle part from the
trumpet for all the scratches and the popping?
Soon you’ll be able to find these classic Yiddish performances online – in fully restored digital transfers – and
download them onto your MP3 player or computer
to listen to anytime you want.
Thanks to generous funding from the Corners
Fund for Traditional Cultures, Living Traditions
this year will launch its Online Digital Sound
Archive of over
3,000 remastered
In Chris’s transfers, you feel
recordings of klezmer
like you’re sitting in the room
with the singer.
and Yiddish song and spo– Sherry Mayrent ken word recordings collected by Sherry Mayrent,
our Associate Director, KlezKamp.
This innovative online recording library will allow visitors
worldwide to search for Yiddish music by such fields as artist,
composer, lyricist, genre, Yiddish/English title, and country, and
to hear audio samples of their finds.
Musicians, scholars, and just plain
fans can then download rediscovered
klezmer music, Yiddish folk and
theater songs, comic dialogues, and
even rare Hebrew cantorial works
from Mayrent’s extensive and
continually-growing sound
collection.
Before setting up
this online archive of
rare, often unobtain- Sherry Mayrent
able recordings, Living
Traditions hired Grammy Award-winning engineer
Christopher King to painstakingly remaster these
timeworn, fragile disks with today’s digital technology.
These modern digital transfers will provide a remarkably clear
aural window on early 20th century Yiddish culture.
Future plans include partnering with other private collectors
and public archives to make all extant public-domain Yiddish 78rpm recordings available on the Internet. Soon everyone will be
able to study and enjoy a part of our Jewish cultural history that
might have been lost forever without Living Traditions’ Online
Digital Sound Archive.
Living Traditions • www.livingtraditions.org
Ray Musiker:
Continuing “A Living Tradition”
KlezKamp has a new Living Tradition of its own.
We take a room in a quiet, unused
stretch of hotel corridor, empty out
the furniture, and set up recording
equipment. Then, for three hours a
day over the next four days, we record a CD featuring a great veteran
klezmer master accompanied by the
finest Yiddish musicians today.
“From the Repertoire of
German Goldenshteyn”:
Companion Book to His
“A Living Tradition” CD
Here is a chance for all musicians to share in German
Goldenshteyn’s legendary notebooks of klezmer melodies,
which he collected while playing at weddings and celebrations in
Moldavia and the Ukraine.
We began doing this in 2005
at KlezKamp 21, where we informally set up to record the legendary Ray Musiker, fourth
generation klezmer
German Goldenshteyn, z”l.
clarinetist, carries on
At KlezKamp 22, we recorded our “A Living Tradition”.
old friend clarinetist Ray Musiker.
He and CD co-producer Pete
Sokolow chose a wide variety of beautiful material from Ray’s
deep catalog of music: some original tunes by Ray and his late
brother Sam, a lost Abe Ellstein theater bulgar, an urbane Herman
Yablokoff waltz, and a reprise of his performance on Dave Tarras’
famous “Tanz!” LP. All these selections were performed in pianist
Sokolow’s typically elegant arrangements by Ken Maltz (tenor
sax), Alex Kontorovich (alto sax), Jim Guttmann (bass), Aaron
Alexander (drums), and Henry Sapoznik (guitar).
The CD, “Ray Musiker: A Living Tradition”, is now in postproduction and is scheduled for a 2007/5768 release.
The next CD in our “A Living Traditions” series will be recorded at KlezKamp 23 with Philadelphia legend and, if you pardon
the expression, drum role model Elaine Hoffman-Watts and
trumpet diva (and daughter) Susan Watts.
“From the Repertoire of German Goldenshteyn” is a collection of transcriptions of 100 bulgars, freylakhs, hongas, khosidls
and zhokuls from Goldenshteyn’s
800-tune repertoire. The book,
transcribed for B-flat instruments,
includes all the melodies on the
“German Goldenshteyn: A Living
Tradition” CD. An edition for C
instruments will be released soon.
As German himself wrote before
he passed away last summer, “This
is music which inspires the desire
to live a good life and to make
merry in spite of life’s woes, music
which inspires the desire to spread
love and happiness. This is music
which makes the spirit soar. Like
good medicine, it is life-giving.
May your music-making bring joy
to you and your audiences.”
Living Traditions has published
transcriptions of 100 songs
from Goldenshteyn’s 800-tune
klezmer repertoire.
Living Traditions is thrilled to help you spread this joy by making these transcriptions available for all.
You can buy our “A Living Traditions” CD series,the Goldenshteyn book, and other klezmer and Yiddish
goodies at our online store – www.livingtraditions.org/docs/store.htm — or by contacting our office.
Help Design Our New Logo!
When we first launched LT back in 1994, we created our lady
fiddler and gramophone logo by closing our eyes and randomly
choosing images out of a book of early 20th century graphics.
Since then, our mission has outgrown our logo. So we invite
you to come up with a simple, classy design that shows how we’re
preserving and sharing Yiddish folk arts –music, song, dance, language and more.
E-mail us your design by May 30, 2007 and you could win a
free week at KK23! Contact us for further information and specifications at: info@livingtraditions.org.
KlezKamp 23: December 23-28, 2007
Know someone who
might be interested in
Living Traditions?
Send us their contact info and
e-mail addresses.
And make sure we have your
latest e-mail address — you
don’t want to miss our e-mail
updates!
Send to:
info@livingtraditions.org
Remembering Zvee Scooler: Der Grammeister
Living Traditions recently released “Zvee Scooler: Der Grammeister”, a CD anthology of this
beloved Yiddish actor’s selected radio performances, poetry – and even commercials – and first of a
series from our Yiddish Radio Project archives. The CD is now available at www.livingtraditions.
org/docs/store.htm.
In the CD liner notes, Isaiah Sheffer – playwright and librettist, actor, and cofounder/artistic
director of NYC’s Symphony Space – recalls his Uncle Zvee’s unique popularity on Yiddish radio.
Z
vee Scooler’s decades of entertaining
weekly rhymed recitations, heard at
11:40 AM every Sunday morning
at the climax of “The
Forward Hour”, flagship
program of Yiddish radio station WEVD, were
like nothing else that has
ever come over the airwaves, before or since.
Broadway and film actor, learned Hebrew
scholar and Talmudist, sophisticated new
Yorker, smart poker player, comical and
tuneful badkhen, accomplished linguist, fervent
Yankees fan, patriotic Zionist, and fierce
Yiddishist.
paigner against the vulgarity that threatened Yiddish culture with borscht-belt
schlock, and a moralist who could scold
I remember well watching Uncle Zvee (he
was my mother’s big brother) standing up
in front of that microphone and playing to
– Isaiah Sheffer
that adoring crowd.
And it didn’t hurt that
his fellow immigrants who gave in too
Zvee was the possessor
easily to the tawdry temptations of life in
of a rich, resonant voice,
But what exactly were
the goldene medina.
which he could play like
these ten-minute spoken
any instrument of the
But equally important, Zvee Scooler
radio commentaries that
orchestra,
creating
an
was
a performer. It is not unimportant
became a beloved and
audio
gallery
of
vivid
for
an
understanding of his grammeisterai
long-running
regular
radio
characters,
from
to
note
that it was performed in the artcultural experience for
deco Fifth Floor Studio A of the WEVD
tens of thousands of Jews Zvee Scooler broadcasting from WEVD. Litvaks to Galitzianers
to
Lower
East
Siders,
as
Building on West 46th Street in front of a
in the NY metropolitan
well
as
live audience.
area? What was unique about Scooler’s
all
the
colorful
Americans
radio persona as “Der Grammeister” (The
As a child performer
who peopled his weekly
Master of Rhyme), and what made his
occasionally playing roles
rhymed feature stories.
weekly “gram-monologues” so popular
on “The Forward Hour’s”
and so memorable to his fanatically loyal
He was a writer, of
serialized dramas, I relisteners?
course, who spent many
member well watching
hours
each
week
creatUncle Zvee (he was my
I think the answer to these questions it
ing
his
Sunday
morning
mother’s big brother)
that the man Zvee Scooler, and hence his
secular
sermons,
polishstanding up in front of
weekly rhymed radio column, embodied
ing the delightful, often
that microphone and
a unique combination of several different
multi-lingual
rhymes
and
playing to that adoring
cultural, literary, and theatrical traditions.
outrageously
clever
puns.
crowd, as well as to his
He was an extraordinary blend of liberal
He
was
a
passionate
edilisteners gathered around
political journalist, trusted daily newsIn
a
faux
crepe
beard,
Zvee
Scooler
torialist with strong opintheir radios at home.
caster and radio personality, observer of
performing in a Yiddish theatre role.
ions
on
the
events
of
the
American Jewish life, literary scriptwriter,
day, a determined camhandsome Yiddish theatre leading man,
A Sheynem Dank to Our Major Donors
Living Traditions is immensely grateful to the following institutions and individuals for their significant financial support:
The Corners Fund for Traditional Cultures, The Forward Association, Rita Poretsky Memorial Fund, Jacob and Mollie Fishman
Foundation, Nan Bases, Lydia Kleiner, Marsha Dubrow, Jill Gellerman, Ruth and David Levine, Jonathan Sunshine, Michael Isard,
Donna and Sidney Lipton, Fran Chalin, Helen Engelhardt, Philip and Halina Hoffman, Dan Sinclair, Gail and Walter Fried, Adam
Whiteman and Paula Teitelbaum, and Jacob Bloom.
Living Traditions • www.livingtraditions.org
Come Meet The FOLKs!
Living Traditions staff
and FOLK members:
(left to right),
Sabina Brukner, Henry
Sapoznik, Sherry Mayrent,
Joyce Rosenzweig, Donna
Lipton, Libby Sklamberg,
Helen Engelhardt, Lydia
Kleiner, Nan Bases, and
Judith Bro Pinhasik
(missing – Sidney Lipton).
We’re proud to introduce our new Friends Of Living
Traditions/KlezKamp (FOLK), a voluntary Advisory Board assembled in Fall 2006 to guide and support Living Traditions during its exciting third decade of growth.
Selected from longtime and active supporters, our FOLK will
suggest ways to make KlezKamp even better, keep their eyes open
for new Living Traditions program opportunities, educate newcomers about our mission, and find potential supporters for our
new and ongoing Yiddish cultural projects.
We welcome our first “FOLKs”, and look forward to their creative ideas and advice in the months to come.
KlezKamp 22 Scrapbook
“Hasidish Yiddish” Rocks
the Catskills:
(clockwise from upper left), Cookie
Segelstein and Josh Horowitz klez
away; Klezkids and Oomchicks
play; Alex Kontorovich snares
some zzzzzz’s; Jill Gellerman
and her tanzers; Papercutting
the plagues; Y.Y. Jacobson speaks;
(center) Mark Rubin and Hank
Sapoznik get their freylekh on.
Photos by Marilla Wex and Sabina Brukner
KlezKamp 23: December 23-28, 2007
Why We Do What We Do
Sabina Brukner, Associate Director, Living Traditions, posted this open letter on our online blog (www.klezkamp.
blogspot.com) two weeks before KlezKamp 22. It perfectly sums up our mission and its vital importance in sharing
our Yiddish heritage with today’s Jewish community.
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, welleducated 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
Living Traditions and KlezKamp are
school, JCC programs,
the means by which we treasure the
legacy that these young people have
synagogue youth groups,
been taught to ignore.
college Hillel programs,
– Sabina Brukner 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 the 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.
KlezKamp Roadshow: We Deliver!
Now you can get Yiddish folk arts to go! Our KlezKamp Roadshow delivers
the best of yidishkayt right to your neighborhood all year round. Now you don’t
have to wait until December for
KlezKamp – and you won’t be
hungry two hours later.
Co-sponsoring with local community centers and congregations, Living Traditions brings a
one-day, weekend, or week-long
immersion in the KlezKamp experience to young and old alike
nationwide. Led by our skilled
and inspiring staff, the KlezKamp
Roadshow offers lectures, workshops, and performances featuring klezmer music
and Yiddish radio, dance, language, songs, and crafts.
Talk to your JCC, your local arts
council, or your congregation about
booking the KlezKamp Roadshow in
your community. Call (212) 532-8202
for more information.
2007 KK Roadshows
uB
lock & Hexter, Poyntelle, PA:
July 25-Aug 1, 2007
u T he Jewish Center of the Hamptons,
East Hampton, NY: Aug 3-5, 2007
u YOUR TOWN?
Save the Dates!
KlezKamp 23:
December 23-28, 2007
We may have just wrapped up KlezKamp
22, but Living Traditions is already making
plans for KlezKamp 23.
Returning once more to that center of
Yiddish culture – New York’s Catskills
Mountains – this year’s KlezKamp will take
place from Sunday, December 23rd to Friday,
December 28th, 2007 at The Hudson Valley
Resort and Spa, Kerhonkson, NY.
Circle those dates in red on your
calendar!
Check our website at www.livingtraditions.
org for updates, and your mailbox in August
for our KlezKamp 23 catalogue.
Join us for an unforgettable week of klezmer,
Yiddish song, folk dance, theatre, crafts, and
shmuzing – kumt un farbrengt zikh!
Living Traditions • www.livingtraditions.org
Don’t Pass Over Living Traditions – Give Us “Latzoh Matzoh” This Year!
Yup, we’re looking for funding like a kid searching for the afikomen at a Peysakh seyder. And to prove that we’re gite, klige kinder, and
deserve all the bread (unleavened) you’ll send our way, we’re ready to answer your 4 kashes about Living Traditions:
1) W hy is Living Traditions different from all other Yiddish
cultural organizations?
There is no group like Living Traditions that combines today’s cyber and digital technology with traditional in-person
workshops, classes, and lectures to preserve, teach, and disseminate Yiddish culture.
4) So, nu, how can I support Living Traditions?
uB
ecome a member of the tribe – As an individual, family,
or at a discounted senior/student rate, your membership
fee entitles you to our annual newsletter, regular e-mail
updates on events and programs, and our KlezKamp 23
catalogue!
2) Doesn’t KlezKamp revenue pay all of Living Traditions’
bills?
Nope, KlezKamp tuition only covers expenses for our one-week festival – it doesn’t take care of the other 51 weeks of the year. We work
year-round planning KlezKamp,
and on projects like our CDs, our
KlezKamp Roadshow, our Online
Digital Sound Archive, and more.
uG
ive us a kleyne matoneh – Your tax-deductible gift to
Living Traditions (unrestricted or earmarked) can benefit
you while benefiting us:
– $250-$499 Donors: Receive your choice of 1 free
Living Traditions CD from our online store;
– $500-$999 Donors: Receive your choice of 2 free CDs
and 2 free publications from our online store:
– $1,000-plus Donors: Receive any 4 items of your
choice from our online store, plus acknowledgment on
our website and all printed materials.
3) How do I know my mazumeh will
pay for programs and not for your Living Traditions could use your
bread – unleavened, of course.
gefilte fish?
We’re proud that 87% of our expenses are for programming, not overhead (based on our FY06 audit). You can
also earmark your gifts to support specific Living Traditions
projects.
uR
emember us in your will – Talk to your attorney about
providing Living Traditions with a bequest – unrestricted,
earmarked, residuary, or contingent – in your will. Or
name Living Traditions as a beneficiary or contingent
beneficiary of your IRA or pension plan. Contact Judith
Bro Pinhasik at judy@livingtraditions.org about planned
giving.
Remember Living Traditions at Peysakh – use our tear-off donation form below and the enclosed response envelope, or give online at
www.livingtraditions.org.
You’ll be ensuring that our precious Yiddish culture – our stories, songs, music, crafts, dance, and more – will live on for our children
and our grandchildren.
And that ain’t chopped liver.
!
I know that Living Traditions needs “latzoh matzoh” for KlezKamp and its year-round programs. So here’s my membership fee of:
n $75 Individual n $100 Family n $36 Full-time Student/Senior Citizen
And here’s my tax-deductible donation of:
n $18 n $36 n $72 n $100 n $250 n $500 n Other_ ____________
n This gift is in memory of/in honor of_ __________________________________________________________
Name:____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Address:___________________________________________________________________________________________________
City:_ ________________________________________________ State:_ ____________ Zip Code:_________________________
Phone:________________________________________________ E-mail:______________________________________________
LIVING TRADITIONS, INC., 45 East 33rd Street, B-2A, New York, NY 10016
Living Traditions is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; your gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
KlezKamp 23: December 23-28, 2007
Our Mission
Living Traditions, Inc.
45 East 33rd Street
Suite B-2A
New York, NY 10016
Phone: 212-532-8202
Fax: 212-532-8238
Info@livingtraditions.org
www.livingtraditions.org
Henry Sapoznik
Executive Director/Founder
Sherry Mayrent
Associate Director, KlezKamp
Sabina Brukner
Associate Director,
Living Traditions
SZlyj rezdnva
Founded in 1994, Living Traditions is a nonprofit organization committed to the celebration
and continuity of community-based, traditional
Yiddish culture.
We don’t view yidishkayt as a symbol of a lost
world, nor as customs that are our “duty” to perpetuate. Instead, Living Traditions strives to bring
the lush bounty of this cultural heritage to new
generations in ways both inspiring and relevant
to contemporary Jewish life. We make Yiddish a
meaningful part of one’s active personal identity in
a multi-cultural world.
Through our annual KlezKamp and other yearround programming, Living Traditions encourages
development of a worldwide Jewish community
knowledgably steeped in Yiddish language, culture, and traditions too often forgotten in modern
Jewish life.
Judith Bro Pinhasik
Associate Director for
Development
Address service requested
www.livingtraditions.org
45 East 33rd Street
New York, NY 10016
LL i v i n g
Tr a d i t i o n s
NEW YORK, NY
Permit No. 8403
PAID
Non-Profit Organization
U.S. POSTAGE