Music lecture and performance by Cookie Segelstein

In this lecture and demo, Cookie Segelstein will discuss the use of instrumental music in Jewish life before the Shoah. Using sound recordings dating back to the early twentieth century and earlier, she will talk about the event that brought communities together, the Jewish wedding, and the roll of the klezmorim, the musicians who facilitated the many rituals important in merging families and communities. Hear old melodies used for making the bride cry, escorting guests to the wedding canopy, accompanying a special dance for the mothers-in-law, among other examples, all played on one of the rescued violins. A child of survivors, Segelstein’s insight into these rituals come from not only her research and that of her colleagues in Veretski Pass, but from her own family traditions.

At JCC San Francisco, SF.

Part of Violins of Hope.