The Yiddish Book Center’s Yidstock brings unique new Yiddish music to live or online audiences this weekend

The Yiddish Book Center is hosting its Klezmer and New Yiddish Music Festival this weekend, July 11-14, on its Amherst campus. Now in its 12th year, Yidstock is a long weekend of concerts, lectures, and music and dance workshops celebrating the diverse world of new Yiddish music. Tickets are still available for some concerts and most other events, but livestream concert passes can be purchased, allowing access to all seven concerts via livestream.

When executive director Susan Bronson came to the Yiddish Book Center 14 years ago, she founded the festival in the hope of “creating a real energy” and supporting musicians “who are trying to celebrate Yiddish music and do new things with it.” She knew Seth Rogovoy, author of “The Essential Klezmer,” and brought him on as artistic director.

The festival grew and in recent years its scope has expanded, inviting international artists from Israel, Europe, Canada and, at times, Russia. Musicians often meet and play together, Bronson says, leading to new collaborations that are exciting for both the artists and the audience.

The music itself is also a mix of styles and influences, ranging from the more traditional to the more experimental. As Bronson points out, Yiddish is “inherently a fusion culture because Jews all over the world spoke Yiddish. And their culture was influenced by so many other cultures.”

Yidstock begins with The Klezmatics, who “brought the klezmer revival into the rock era and paved the way for the klezmer renaissance.” A new quartet, Levyosn, “a younger group of musicians,” Bronson says, performs Friday, playing both Yiddish songs and klezmer.

Canadian Josh Dolgin (aka Socalled) brings “all kinds of influences into his music,” Bronson says, “traditional, funk and hip-hop. It’s kind of a jam band experiment with Yiddish funk.” Tickets are still available for his concert Saturday night with his current project called Gephilte.

Socalled “has a deep, deep knowledge of all kinds of Yiddish music,” Bronson says. He started out playing a lot of Yiddish hip-hop music. “Every time he comes here, he looks at all the sheet music. From his extensive understanding of that music, he’s created a lot of new fusion music. He’s just so talented and exciting, and this is going to be a great show.”

Daniel Kahn, who lives in Germany, plays a sold-out show on Sunday with master violinist Jake Shulman-Ment and legendary klezmer percussionist Richie Barshay. “Yiddish has a real tradition of protest song,” Bronson explains, “and he takes that and makes a lot of social justice music in Yiddish.” The group offers “radical treatments of modern Yiddish songs” and Yiddish translations of American songwriters.

There are still a few tickets left for Basya Schechter and Avi Fox-Rosen on Sunday. They will perform their musical settings of the works of the Yiddish poet Itzik Manger, particularly his retellings of Biblical stories. Their music combines a singer-songwriter’s aesthetic with various other musical influences.

The music, Bronson says, “is really fun and engaging, and I think most people come and enjoy it. There’s a great energy, and the music itself is accessible to everyone.” Bronson says the Yiddish Book Center has a lot of Jewish members who really love Yidstock and come from all over the country, but it also has a younger audience that “is just inherently more diverse.”

“Some of the new pieces are based on traditional religious music, but you don’t need any knowledge of Jewish life or religion to enjoy this music. It’s just a very fun, exuberant style of music,” Bronson says.

Concerts will take place in the Yiddish Book Center’s large concert hall, while artist talks and workshops will take place in the smaller theater. There will also be a food truck. The campus is located in an old apple orchard next to Hampshire College and features walking trails and a “Yiddish writers’ garden.”

Bronson, who lives in the Berkshires, points out that the festival in Amherst is still accessible to people in the Berkshires, not much different than driving to Williamstown. There is a new permanent exhibit in the Yiddish Book Center’s museum space called “Yiddish, a Global Culture.” “So if you come to our concerts, you can also see the exhibit. It’s really easy to make a whole day out of it, even if you just go to one concert.”

The Yiddish Book Center also hosts other programs, and Bronson hopes people will come to learn more about the activities there. All Yidstock events can be found here. You can purchase tickets or a livestream concert pass here.