fbpx

Alive and Well

Aaron Paley, Los Angeles\' impresario of Yiddish, finds his job is easier these days. He no longer has to work quite so hard to prove that Yiddish is not dead.
[additional-authors]
May 11, 2000

Aaron Paley, Los Angeles’ impresario of Yiddish, finds his job is easier these days. He no longer has to work quite so hard to prove that Yiddish is not dead.”Two years ago, it was like pulling teeth to convince people why Yiddish language and culture is important,” says the director of L.A.’s second biennial Yiddish festival, “YK2! The New Face of Yiddish Culture – A Festival for the Next 1000 Years,” which has come to town this week. “Now people know. The Zeitgeist has changed.”

Paley ticks off the evidence. As Yiddish turns 1,000 years old at the dawn of the 21st century, the National Yiddish Book Center is digitally scanning every page of every Yiddish book ever published. KlezKemps and Yiddish-language ulpans are thriving everywhere from Oxford University to the Arbeter Ring (Workmen’s Circle) on Robertson Boulevard. L.A. is the site of dozens of Yiddish classes and clubs. And the Knitting Factory, where klezmer musicians and others on the radical Jewish culture scene play to hipsters on the Lower East Side, is about to open a branch on Hollywood Boulevard.

The Yiddish festival, which drew more than 10,000 Angelenos in October 1998, meanwhile, has nearly doubled in size to become the largest gathering of its kind in the United States. With more than 40 events in some 20 venues in 2000, including lectures, concerts and plays, the goal is simple.”We want to prove that Yiddish and Yiddish culture is not kitschy, moribund, tinged with sugary nostalgia or regret about the Holocaust,” says Paley, who is in his early 40’s and grew up attending the collectively run Yiddish Kindershule and Mittelshule in Van Nuys. “We want to prove that it provides a foundation of ideas and creativity that artists can draw on today.”

A case in point is Sara Felder, San Francisco’s favorite Jewish lesbian juggler-performance artist, who will present her comic monologue, “Shtick!” about a cross-dressing immigrant vaudevillian and a modern performance artist who connect from opposite ends of the 20th century (see sidebar). Acclaimed choreographer John Malashock, once a principal dancer with Twyla Tharp, is the co-creator of “Blessings & Curses,” about a contemporary artist who weaves old and new stories into cloth.

On a more traditional note, Yiddishpiel, Israel’s only professional Yiddish repertory theater, will perform a medley of songs and dialogues. And the West Coast Jewish Theatre will present “Der Onshtel Makher” (“The Make-Believe Maker”), which starts as a stranger knocks at the door of an inn on the outskirts of Bilgoray, Poland, on a foggy, frozen night in 1858.

If Yiddish has a theme tailor-made for multicultural Los Angeles, Paley says, it is how to survive as a minority culture in the larger society. Yiddish is, by nature, multicultural, the living product of Jewish expulsion and migration, always borrowing words from host languages.

“YK2,” therefore, highlights Yiddish in relation to its most significant host culture, that of Eastern Europe, Paley says. Brave Old World, hailed by The Village Voice as a “klezmer supergroup,” for example, will perform with the Canadian-Ukrainian band Paris to Kyiv. Boris Sandler, editor of the 103-year-old Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts (The Forward), will describe how Yiddish survived the Stalinist purges of the former Soviet Union. Performances celebrating Eastern European culture will take place in Plummer Park, the heart of Eastern European L.A. And an exhibition organized by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will tell of the Jewish Labor Bund from its early days in the old country to the late 1990’s. “One Hundred Years of the Bund” begins with the story of how, late one evening in October 1897, 13 people gathered at a safe house in a secret location in Vilna, bent on establishing a group dedicated to the political liberation of Jews throughout the Russian empire. The exhibit tells the rest of the story through documents ranging from clandestine Bund brochures to present-day photographs.

The Bund, like other aspects of Yiddish culture, defied the odds and survived the 20th century. And that, Paley says, is the point of “YK2.” “We’re still here at the beginning of the new millennium,” Paley explains, “and that is worth celebrating.”

“YK2” runs through May 21. For a schedule and other information, call (323) 692-8151.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Difficult Choices

Jews have always believed in the importance of higher education. Today, with the rise in antisemitism across many college campuses, Jewish high school seniors are facing difficult choices.

All Aboard the Lifeboat

These are excruciating times for Israel, and for the Jewish people.  It is so tempting to succumb to despair. That is why we must keep our eyes open and revel in any blessing we can find.  

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.