Beyond the Shofar: Remixing the High Holidays Through Yiddish Archival Sounds with Chaia

Chaia, a DJ working at the intersection of Yiddish culture and electronic club music, will present a High Holidays-oriented Kleztronica workshop in conversation with Samm Azen, Executive Director of Kehilla Community Synagogue.

What spiritual possibilities lie inside a crackling cassette recording? Chaia will break down how she sorts through Yiddish archives, collecting bits of audio—never-before-heard vocal takes, instrumental fragments, and interviews—that reflect the spiritual experiences of the past.

During this workshop, she’ll perform these audio clips live, weaving them into elaborate electronic pieces for trance-like contemplation. Participants will be invited to reflect on the samples, their histories and meanings, and potential for spiritual reckoning in the present day. Part listening session, part collective reflection, this is a workshop that invites participants to explore the sacred and radical potential of the past and the questions—of collective mourning, spiritual auditing, and utopian envisioning—it poses for us today.

If the ticket price ($36 general, $18 Kehilla members) is cost prohibitive for you, write to jonathan@kehillasynagogue.org.