Jeanette Lewicki, who lives in Oakland, is a long-time singer of Yiddish songs as well as an accordionist, artist, writer, and klezmer musician. She leads her own band “the gonifs” and she loves to teach. Jeanette first picked up the accordion in the vegan commune where she started living at...
Lecturers, Performers, Yiddish Choruses, Singers and Song Leaders / East Bay
This six-member band formed in 2013. The band studies music by ear, learning melodies in the Ashkenazi traditions of North Eastern Europe with a distinctly modern sensibility. A strong rhythmic brass band feel paired with a joyful and bittersweet melodic sensibility.
Mike Perlmutter has been performing klezmer, Balkan, and ceremonial Jewish music on saxophone and clarinet for over twenty years with groups such as Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band, Inspector Gadje, Zoyres Eastern European Wild Ferment, and the Chochmat Halev Sacred Music Ensemble. He organizes periodic street music parties at Saul’s Deli...
Badkhn Duvid is the Bay Area’s badkhn (wedding emcee), who provides the theatrical flair at weddings. Comic relief, acrobatics, and profound poetic/musical improvisations are his specialty – along with dance leading, juggling, and general antics. His services work best with a klezmer band, but he can also provide an old...
Cantor available for wedding ceremonies, synagogue services (High Holy Days and other events), composing and arranging for a wide variety of ensembles and situations.
Performers, Yiddish Choruses, Singers and Song Leaders / East Bay
Cookie Segelstein received a Bachelor’s Degree in Music, Viola Performance from the University of Missouri in 1981, and a Master’s Degree in Viola from Yale University in 1984 where she studied with Raphael Hillyer (founding member of the Julliard String Quartet) and the late Jesse Levine. In 1984, Cookie joined...
Traditional East European klezmer music, Klezmer Shul project, many lecture/demonstrations, dance parties (available with Steve Weintraub). Fidl, viola, accordion, tsimbl, tilinca, baraban, cello, bass. Cookie Segelstein, Joshua Horowitz and Stuart Brotman form a trio of veteran musicians, known throughout the world for energetic concerts, informative lectures, and tireless teaching. From...
Vocolot, led by Linda Hirschhorn, brings a joyous fusion of folk, jazz and cantorial vocal traditions into the contemporary a cappella world. Their music, rooted in universal heart, social conscience and Jewish soul, communicates a powerful vision of world peace and reconciliation. Vocolot sings in English, Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, and...
Performers, Yiddish Choruses, Singers and Song Leaders / East Bay
Ken Blady is a Jewish educator, Yiddish teacher, author, and translator of seven works from Yiddish. YIDDISH COURSES See Ken's current Yiddish courses at https://klezcalifornia.org/listing-category/yiddish-classes-in-the-bay-area/ or contact Ken directly. LECTURES Offers lectures on: History of the Yiddish Language Give Me Your Huddled Masses: Jewish Immigration to New York City...
Lecturers, Yiddish Language Teachers and Translators / East Bay
Yael Chaver is a native of Israel and a long-time resident of Berkeley. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish from U.C. Berkeley, and recently retired from that institution after seventeen years as a lecturer in Yiddish language, literature, and culture for the Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of...
Lecturers, Yiddish Language Teachers and Translators / East Bay
Professor (retired), Department of Near Eastern Studies, U.C. Berkeley.
Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor of the Arts in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016, and a National Jewish Book Award in 2019. Her books include...