Yiddish concert embraces 'the lost language in all of us'

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It’s true that audiences around the world have been responding to Yiddish performances. A Yiddish-language production of Waiting for Godot opened up a Samuel Beckett festival in Ireland in 2014, and appeared in New York again recently. Composer Josh Abrahams (Addicted to Bass) performed Yiddish songs with the band Yid! at WOMADelaide last year. “The heat was incredible,” he recalls, “yet thousands of people were giving the horah [an Israeli group dance] a red hot go. It was amazing.”

In Play Me A Poem, musicians will put Yiddish poetry to unlikely tunes. Abrahams’ song is reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, while reggae, jazz and Afro-Brazilian vibes will also be in the line-up. Simon Starr, musician and founder of the band Yid!, is expecting “an emotional response”. He believes people who think of Yiddish as an old-fashioned language will be unprepared for how avant-garde some of the chosen poetry and lyrics are, despite some being written early last century.

“It is still pretty radical for today,” Starr says. “Even if someone isn’t connected to it ethnically, it’s still deep and passionate and provocative. There are audacious commentaries on the Bible and current affairs, and also heartfelt, harrowing tales of suffering and longing and separation that mirror the migration patterns that were both a result of persecution and economic aspirations. It’s a very rich source of material.”

For this show there will be surtitles, so that audiences aren’t merely listening to an orchestral piece but will have an understanding of the lyrics. “What’s really fascinating is to see these amazingly modern responses to what are largely pre-Holocaust poems,” says Krape, who co-directs. “We want to say to the audience: Listen – you’ll hopefully be knocked off your feet. You might think this is old, but it’s not old-fashioned.”

Although many in the audience won’t be familiar with Yiddish, others will have heard it spoken by an older generation at home. “I don’t know what’s going on in the ether,” says Krape, “but it feels like people are searching for connections to community and heritage, in a way that is heymish [the Yiddish word for warm/ homey], but is [also] dynamic, innovative and contemporary.” Krape’s parents and grandparents spoke Yiddish, but she only came to it as an adult, and now attends classes in Brunswick.

Article source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/1137277.html?CMP=OTC-RSS