Unknown Sholem Aleichem

On January 30, the Jewish Community Center of St. Petersburg hosted two events at once: the opening of an exhibition of Anatoli (Tankhum) Kaplan’s graphic works, dedicated to the artist’s 120th birth anniversary, and the presentation of Alexander Frenkel’s Russian book “The Unknown Sholem Aleichem”. The exhibition presents Kaplan’s illustrations for the works of this great Yiddish classic. Another exhibition of works by the same artist, dedicated to the liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade, opened on January 26 at the St. Petersburg State Museum of History.

Alexander Frenkel is the director of the St. Petersburg Jewish Community Center, a literary critic, historian and translator. In addition to a number of academic studies, his book contains several of Sholem Aleichem’s works translated by the author for the first time into Russian. In his speech at the presentation, Frenkel emphasized that despite Sholom Aleichem’s worldwide popularity, much of his work still remains little known and unexplored.

Boris Sandler: Music

Songs performed with lyrics written or translated into Yiddish by Boris Sandler

Velvl Chernin: Theater

The Yiddishpil Theater (Tel Aviv) performs Nikolai Gogol’s play The Government Inspector, where all the songs are written by Velvl Chernin

Velvl Chernin: Music

Listen to some of the songs put to lyrics written or translated into Yiddish by Velvl Chernin

Moisei Beregovsky’s Works

Moisei Beregovsky

Jewish Folk Songs

Jewish Instrumental Folk Music

Jewish Folk Tunes Without Words

Jewish Musical Folklore (v. 1, Yiddish)

Jewish Musical Folklore (v. 1, Russian)

Contemporary Yiddish Music

Among the many modern writers and performers of Yiddish songs, there are people of a wide variety of views, artistic preferences and backgrounds. Yiddish attracts not only musicians of Jewish ancestry, but also ethnic Germans, Russians, African Americans, Chinese performers, etc.

Here is one outstanding example.

Psoy Korolenko (real name Pavel Lion) is a performer from Jewish background born in 1967 in Moscow. Having a PhD in philology, he is a musician, songwriter and a polyglot who sings in Russian, Yiddish, English and French, often mixing these languages together, experimenting with different song traditions. From the playful use of Yiddish as a “glue” for connecting the heterogeneous elements of his work, Korolenko gradually moved on to performing songs from the archives of Moisei Beregovsky and other collectors of Jewish folklore. Korolenko often uses previously forgotten texts discovered in Kiev by the Canadian researcher Anna Shternshis.