Celebrating Hanukkah: Jewish-Themed Events in NYC
By Troy Segal
Jews around the world are in the midst of the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah. To commemorate the Festival of Lights, we thought we’d shed some light on Jewish-themed talks, activities and performances around New York in the upcoming weeks. In their various ways—some overt, some subtle—all testify to the culture, talent and outlook of the Chosen People. (You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy.)
Image: Scott Ableman/Flickr
Traditional songs of celebration are performed in the new, old-fashioned way—with cantors’ voices combining with clarinet, drums, and the lute-like oud—in a Chanukah concert. The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, Thursday, Dec. 10.
Israeli pianist Daniel Gortler, joined by a pair of singers, offers up a chamber performance emphasizing 19th-century German pieces for voice and piano (think Brahms, Schubert and Tieck). The Jewish Museum, Thursday, Dec. 10.
Why is Jewish humor different from all other kinds of humor? Folklorist and poet Steve Zeitlin attempts to answer the question without breaking up too often. Museum at Eldridge Street, Sunday, Dec. 13.
Gather round for some coffee and conversation on the Yiddish theatre, especially in the U.S., where it flourished for decades in the 20th century. Led by academic historians, the kaffeeklatsch ties into the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s current revival of Di Goldene Kale (The Golden Bride), a 1920s operetta (thru Jan. 3). Museum of Jewish Heritage, Sundays, Dec. 13, 20 & 27.
Raised on the Lower East Side, having fled the pogroms in his native Russia, Irving Berlin grew up to write some 1,500 songs (including those classic hymns to holidays, “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade”). A few of the most special are performed, and tales about the songwriter are spun, at A Special Irving Berlin Holiday Program…On a more somber note, author Bernard-Henri Lévy—an eloquent, expert voice on the subject of anti-Semitism—discusses with Forum on Law, Culture & Society director Thane Rosenbaum recent acts of terrorism, and their impact on people of all persuasions. Both, 92nd Street Y, Thursday, Dec. 17.
Novelist Jami Attenberg—her best-sellers include The Middlesteins, about a suburban Chicago Jewish family in crisis, and Saint Mazie, based on an actual Lower East Side good-hearted good-time gal—talks about fiction and writing, followed by readings from winners of Moment magazine’s short story contest. The Jewish Museum, Thursday, Dec. 17.
An authority on Yiddish describes how Ashkenazi Jews developed the language (traces of it go back to the 1100’s), basing it on German, but—as the author argues—using it to slyly subvert German cultural ideals and beliefs. New York Public Library—Mid-Manhattan Library, Wednesday, Dec. 23.
A bevy of young comedians and actors got their start on the Borscht Belt, the entertainment circuit of Catskills hotels (aka the Jewish Riviera) that flourished in the mid-20th century. Take a virtual tour of those days from the Dirty Dancing era at this lecture. New York Public Library—Mid-Manhattan Library, Monday, Dec. 28.
The musicals songwriting team of Bock & Harnick is best-known for Fiddler on the Roof. But a year before that blockbuster debuted in 1964, the duo had another show on Broadway: She Loves Me, a sweet little piece about two feuding shop employees who unknowingly are amorous pen pals. A new production is about to open on the Great White Way, sparking a gathering of the cast, lyricist Sheldon Harnick and Barbara Cook (who starred in the original) to swap stories. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Monday, Jan. 11.
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