Program and Schedule

Redn fun arbl: Off the Cuff Improv to Improve your Yiddish
Asya Vaisman Schulman
All levels
Improv games build spontaneity, connection, and creative risk-taking while strengthening your fluency and confidence with Yiddish. In this playful, high-energy workshop, we’ll explore core improv (and language-learning!) principles such as quieting the inner critic, supporting your partner, embracing mistakes as part of the creative process, and then putting them into action through dynamic short-form games in Yiddish. Open to learners with advanced beginner-level Yiddish and above, as well as to Yiddish teachers and anyone who leads a leyenkrayz, club, or study group and would like to bring improv games into their own learning community. No prior improv experience required.

Stay Tuned for SPITZKOPF: Writing a Yiddish Mystery Radio Drama
Mikhl Yashinsky
All levels
The crime-solving capers of Viennese master detective Max Spitzkopf, “the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes,” were written in 1908 by the Galician printer Jonas Kreppel. Though these yarns captured the imagination of their public, they were not translated into any other language until 2025 (when an English-language edition by the instructor appeared) and will finally be turned into a radio drama…this very summer. Join us in this workshop as we take a close look at a Spitzkopf story, and together adapt it into a short, shabby, shocking script for a radio drama, which will then be performed and recorded in the “On Air with SPITZKOPF” workshop (see that course’s description for further details). Participants are encouraged to read the story in advance, available online in both English and Yiddish (a link will be sent in advance). Open to anyone, no matter the level of writing or Yiddish ability. Participants are welcome to attend both Spitzkopf radio drama workshops (one more for writers, one more for performers) or choose only one—either option is perfectly fine.

On Air with SPITZKOPF: Recording and Performing a Yiddish Mystery Radio Drama
Mikhl Yashinsky and Uri Schreter
All levels
In this lively workshop, we will use the script crafted in the “Stay Tuned for SPITZKOPF” workshop (see that course’s description for further details) and take to the microphone with our looniest and most dread-inducing voices, old-fashioned live sound effects we will create and collect from around camp, and music that sets the tawdry scene. Open to anyone who enjoys acting, or devising, or playing music, singing or howling, or otherwise making outlandish noises. Both English-speakers and Yiddish-speakers most heartily invited. The sounds we lay down will, after the retreat, be sewn together into an eminently listenable radio drama that will be disseminated for folks around the world to enjoy. Participants are welcome to attend both Spitzkopf radio drama workshops (one more for writers, one more for performers) or choose only one—either option is perfectly fine.

Lid-Arbeter Varshtat/Song-Worker Workshop
Daniel Kahn
Intermediate-Advanced
Are you a singer, writer, composer, translator, adapter, mixer, collector, tinkerer, maker, faker, taker, or breaker of Yiddish songs? Join a progressive, polyglot, transnational, amalgamated, workshop of contemporary songwork. Tune up your new song, retune an old song, put a tune to a poem or some words to a tune. We'll be taking apart songs, fixing what's wrong, patching them up, and getting them to sing better than ever. Lid-arbeter fun ale lender, fareynikt zikh!*
*Song-workers of the world, unite! (Proficiency in Yiddish not required — but it couldn't hurt.)

Writing the Passion Project: Communicating Your Niche to a General Audience
Faith Nomi Jones
All levels
Musicians, actors, visual artists, graphic novelists, and poets often conduct extensive research when creating art based on historical materials. This research shadows the new artwork, creating rich resonances and inspiring new insights. Sharing your research process can build interest in your work and engage new audiences. In this hands-on workshop, artists will practice making their research accessible to a general audience. Together we will examine ethnographic or old commercial recordings, archival photos, or prior texts that participants have used, and consider the intriguing stories they hold. We will begin the writing process itself and offer feedback to each other that helps us find the framing that serves both the materials themselves and the new audience we wish to reach. Bringing a laptop with your existing research materials is recommended but not required.

Fartaysht un farergert? Translating Yiddish Poetry
Corbin Allardice
Intermediate-Advanced
In this workshop we will read Yiddish poetry closely with an eye towards translation and translate it with an eye towards the original. In the first half of the workshop, we will read and discuss modernist Yiddish poetry in Yiddish, paying special attention to how the language is working to produce meaning(s). In the second half, we will use these close readings as a base to generate and workshop our own original English translations. The first half of this workshop will be conducted (mostly!) in Yiddish, and the second half (mostly!) in English. Upper intermediate or advanced Yiddish recommended, but people newer to Yiddish are warmly to encouraged to attend.

2026 KlezKanada Zine: ahin/aher (look both ways)
Compiled and Curated by Jake Schneider
What should we preserve from this whirlwind week? After this year's retreat, we will be compiling a new digital, multilingual zine of this year's creations. Inspired by the Backwards March and KlezKanada's ethos of looking backwards and forwards at once, we will preserve some of our fresh and remixed art from the retreat for posterity. New writing in Yiddish and other languages, lyrics, translations, music, photographs, visual art, and more, are all welcome! Jake Schneider will collect these materials during the retreat and the zine will be distributed digitally in the fall.

Stay Tuned for SPITZKOPF: Writing a Yiddish Mystery Radio Drama
Mikhl Yashinsky
All levels
The crime-solving capers of Viennese master detective Max Spitzkopf, “the Yiddish Sherlock Holmes,” were written in 1908 by the Galician printer Jonas Kreppel. Though these yarns captured the imagination of their public, they were not translated into any other language until 2025 (when an English-language edition by the instructor appeared) and will finally be turned into a radio drama…this very summer. Join us in this workshop as we take a close look at a Spitzkopf story, and together adapt it into a short, shabby, shocking script for a radio drama, which will then be performed and recorded in the “On Air with SPITZKOPF” workshop (see that course’s description for further details). Participants are encouraged to read the story in advance, available online in both English and Yiddish (a link will be sent in advance). Open to anyone, no matter the level of writing or Yiddish ability. Participants are welcome to attend both Spitzkopf radio drama workshops (one more for writers, one more for performers) or choose only one—either option is perfectly fine. Participants are welcome to attend both Spitzkopf radio drama workshops (one more for writers, one more for performers) or choose only one—either option is perfectly fine.

Ink and Oysyes: Printmaking for a Visual Yiddishkayt
Etai Rogers-Fett
All levels
In this four-part workshop, we will look briefly at the history of Yiddish typography in print and how artists have playfully expanded the expressive visual language available to us in yidishe oysyes. Drawing inspiration from these examples, class participants will work together to create a hand-carved, relief-printed alef-beys banner. Class instruction will cover the basics of composition design, block preparation, image-transfer, and carving and printing techniques. Participants can expect to come away with new skills and ways of relating materially to the alef-beys, paper proofs of their print, and a carved block to continue printing at home. Basic knowledge of Yiddish can be helpful, but is not required.

Printmaking Open Studio
Etai Rogers-Fett
All levels
An open and unstructured studio where you can continue to work on your printmaking projects from the "Ink and Oysyes" workshop. Other art-making is welcome at this time as well.

Two Cents Plain: A Jewish Soda Parlor Party
Leah Koenig
All levels
Quench your end-of-summer thirst with this hands-on cooking workshop focused on sweet fizzy drinks and ice creams inspired by the Jewish soda parlour. Dive into the history of seltzer, tonics, and syrups in Europe and New York City, then whip up a party's worth of treats, including homemade coffee, concord grape, apricot soda syrups, a shtetl-inspired fruit sorbet, and an egg cream float—a decadent twist on the classic. All recipes are sourced from Leah Koenig's newest cookbook, The Dessert Table: 100 Joyful Jewish Sweets.

Summery Sweets: Jewish Custards and Puddings
Leah Koenig
All levels
Global Jewish cuisine is filled with custards and puddings that offer a light and delicately sweet end to any summer meal. During this hands-on class, you'll have the chance to make (and learn the histories of) rose water-scented Persian rice pudding, Middle Eastern malabi custard topped with strawberry-rhubarb compote, and a jumble of berries with honey and sour cream that your bubbe would plotz over. All recipes are sourced from Leah Koenig's newest cookbook, The Dessert Table: 100 Joyful Jewish Sweets.

Life By Chocolate: Jewish Cocoa Confections
Leah Koenig
All levels
Death by chocolate? Nah, chocolate = life. This class will celebrate all things cocoa adjacent within Jewish cuisine. Learn to make melt-in-your-mouth chocolate tahini truffles, wine poached pears with chocolate sauce, and a chocolate "salami" destined to become your new favorite party dessert. You will also learn the fascinating history about the historic role that Sephardi Jews played in the global chocolate trade. All recipes are sourced from Leah Koenig's newest cookbook, The Dessert Table: 100 Joyful Jewish Sweets.

Rosh Hashone Desserts Across the Diaspora
Leah Koenig
All levels
Rosh Hashone is coming—time to get your dessert menu sorted! With all due respect to the classics, this hands-on cooking class will go beyond the typical honey cake. Together, the class will make an airy apple sharlotka, a lightly spiced Venetian-Jewish pumpkin cake, and a "cheater's" version of teyglekh that is so simple and delicious, you'll wonder why you ever made it any other way. All recipes are sourced from Leah Koenig's newest cookbook, The Dessert Table: 100 Joyful Jewish Sweets.

Exploring Women's Playwriting: New Translations of Little-Known Yiddish Works
Faith Nomi Jones
All levels
The idea that Yiddish-speaking women did not write plays was widespread for decades, but turns out to be untrue. Researchers have unearthed dozens of plays leading to recent Yiddish-language performances and new translations. In this lecture series, we will consider one-act plays by authors Kadya Molodowsky, Esther Shumiatcher, and Leah Hofman. Participants will have the opportunity to explore new, unpublished translations and consider the writers' artistic practices and philosophical orientations that gave rise to these very different scripts.

Lorin's Listening Lounge
Lorin Sklamberg
All levels
Join The Klezmatics’ singer Lorin Sklamberg for his uniquely personal guided audio tour through the galaxy of Yiddish-language recordings, curated from his 25+ years as YIVO’s sound archivist and his lifelong love of collecting audio on shellac, vinyl, tape, and digital formats. From Ashkenazic humour through radio, theater, film, operetta, folk song, and beyond, Lorin’s playlist will be drawn from vintage to contemporary commercial and private recordings, including recently unearthed gems unheard for generations. He looks forward to the delight of sharing this amazing aural world with you.

Apikorsim and Others: The Forgotten Fiction of M.B. Yustman/B. Yeushzon
Michael Wex
All levels
If M.B. Yustman, who also published under the pseudonym B. Yeushzon, is remembered at all these days, it’s as the compiler of Fun Undzer Altn Oytser, an anthology of comments on the weekly Torah portions. Sometimes called “The Darshan’s [Preacher’s] Friend,” it remains the first resort of those forced to speak about Torah portions that they might never have read. Yustman was also a popular feuilletonist and writer of fiction. The lecture will discuss why his fiction, which deals with more than usual insight and detail with the tension between tradition and modernity in the earlier part of the twentieth century, deserves rediscovery.

Vuddehel Ya Talkin': The Rise and Decline of Yinglish
Michael Wex
All levels
We’ll look at the Yiddish-inflected English dialect, from its pre-World War II North American heyday through comedy records of the sixties and seventies in an attempt to uncover how it developed, how it was used, and why it was once so popular among both Jews and gentiles.

Jews, Germans, Jesus and Jehovah: Yiddish as a Language of Resistance
Michael Wex
All levels
As a language devoted to the promotion of a worldview and way of life designed to prevent assimilation, Yiddish has helped its speakers remain distinct even when their commitment to religious and traditional culture might have waned or even vanished entirely. We’ll look at the nature of this disaffection, at Yiddish’s embrace of alienation, and at what happens to a language and culture that turns these modalities of estrangement upon itself.

The Yiddish Unconscious
Naomi Seidman
All levels
Among the lesser-known facets of the international reception of psychoanalysis is the translation and reception of Freud's works in Yiddish. These held a special place in Freud's heart: He worked closely with Max Weinreich, the founder of YIVO and his authorized Yiddish translator, corresponded with him over the years, and followed ""the Jewish branch of the science"" of psychoanalysis, as he described the psychoanalytic research being conducted at YIVO. This lecture series will describe what Freud looked like in Yiddish translation and trace the research into the unconscious transmission of Jewishness that Weinreich did first in Vilna and then in New York.

The Yiddish Unconscious is a three-part series. Attend one or all three.
Session I: Max Weinreich as Freud's Authorized Translator
Session II: Weinreich on the Transmission of Jewishness Among Ashkenazic Jews
Session III: YIVO, the Archive, and the Jewish American Psyche

When Jesus Spoke Yiddish
Naomi Seidman
All levels
A translation of the New Testament was among the first five Yiddish works ever printed, only twenty years after Martin Luther completed his German version. Over the centuries, the New Testament has been translated into Yiddish many times, generally as part of a mission to the Jews. The translation style, however, dramatically changed in the twentieth century, as part of new conceptions of conversion to Christianity and the Jewishness of Jesus alongside new attitudes toward Yiddish as a legitimate language.

Dreaming of Ancestors: Tevye and the Move from Arranged Marriage to Modern Romance
Naomi Seidman
All levels
This lecture will use Sholem Aleichem's Tevye stories and their Americanization in Fiddler on the Roof to explore a crucial aspect of Jewish modernization: the move from arranged marriage to modern romance. Reading Sholem Aleichem closely will allow us to see how readings of the stories, including Fiddler on the Roof, misconstrue the character of Jewish approaches to marriage and misunderstand what Sholem Aleichem was saying about the relationship between traditional and modern approaches to romance and marriage.

Salud i beraha! An Introduction to Ladino Language and Culture
Sebastian Schulman
All levels
This presentation provides an overview of the history of the Ladino language and its speakers over the course of the past six centuries. Tracing the contours of Sephardic history, we'll address (and debunk) the main myths and misconceptions about Judeo-Spanish culture. Along the way, we'll explore the major centres of Ladino life across the former Ottoman Empire and examine the language's major influences from Iberian languages, Italian, French, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, and southern Slavic. Beyond the simple framing of Ladino as "Sephardic Yiddish," we will attempt to understand Ladino as a cultural universe in its own right, interrogating the perils of comparison and grasping opportunities for solidarity and exchange.

Little Jerusalem: Sarajevo in Sephardic Life
Sebastian Schulman
All levels
A Ladino proverb states that the Jews of Bosnia are like "salt for bread," an integral ingredient in the country's social life. Nowhere has this been more true than in Bosnia's capital, the city of Sarajevo. At the literal meeting point of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, Sarajevo has been called "Yerushalyaim chiko," or "Little Jerusalem," both for the deep rootedness of its Jewish community as well as for its astounding and sometimes violent religious diversity between Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Catholics. An examination of its Jewish history from the arrival of the exiles from Spain in the 15th century to the 1990s Bosnian War points to new ways of understanding Jewish integration and belonging in the diaspora.

Keepers of the Flame: Three Women in Bosnian Ladino Culture
Sebastian Schulman
All levels
Sephardic women have been at the forefront of Ladino cultural preservation and recreation in the modern period. This talk focuses on the life and work of three towering figures from the Bosnian Sephardic tradition in the 20th century, namely: the playwright, essayist, and pioneering feminist intellectual Laura Papo (also known by her pseudonym Bohoreta; 1892-1942); the French novelist, art historian, and Ladino poet Clarisse Nicoïdski (1938-1996); and the folksinger and songwriter Flory Jagoda (1923-2021). Taken together, these three examples provide distinct insight into modern Ladino approaches to issues such as gender, tradition, memory, and what it means to enact and embody our supposedly threatened cultures.

What about Ladino? Judeo-Spanish 101 for Yiddishists
Sebastian Schulman
All levels
Bre! Ke haber? Come learn basic phrases and vocabulary in that "other Jewish language," the rich vernacular of Eastern Sephardic Jews known by many names, but most commonly called Ladino. With an emphasis on communication, by the end of this one-off class, students will be able to greet others and introduce themselves in Judeo-Spanish and will be introduced to the basics of Ladino orthography in its distinct solitreo (cursive), rashi (print), and romanized scripts. We'll also learn a few of Ladino's thousands of dichos i refranes, or sayings and proverbs, and engage briefly with other short cultural texts.

Panel: Raising Yiddish(ists)
Perl Teitelbaum, Leah Whiteman, Sebastian Schulman, Tzina Schulman
Outside the Hasidic community, raising one's children speaking Yiddish is considered a rarity. And yet this conversation will bring together two non-Hasidic families that have done just that. Touching on topics both personal and professional, Perl Teitelbaum and her daughter Leah Whiteman alongside Sebastian Schulman and his daughter Tzina Schulman will discuss the challenges and joys of the sometimes quixotic endeavour of raising Yiddish-speaking children and what it is like to be brought up in a contemporary Yiddish-speaking household. Perl and Seb will reflect on how their work as Yiddish teachers, translators, and culture makers have impacted their role as parents, while Leah and Tzina, both active Yiddish artists themselves, will share how growing up in the extended Yiddish culture family has shaped this next generation. Throughout, the speakers will compare and contrast the environments (including Poland, Moldova, Canada, and the US) where they have lived, studied, taught, or grown up with Yiddish, and unpack just what it means to live vernacularly in the post-vernacular era.

The Klezmer Tsimbl: Roots, Revival, and New Directions
Daniel Kunda Thagard
All Levels
Once a central voice in klezmer music, the tsimbl nearly disappeared in the early 20th century before re-emerging during the klezmer revival of the 1970s. This session traces the instrument’s role in the historical klezmer tradition as well as its place in today’s klezmer scene. We will explore how successive waves of tsimbl revivalists have reconstructed and experimented with technique, sourcing instruments, tuning, the study of early recordings, and engagement with co-territorial traditions, as well as how this work has shaped the contemporary klezmer landscape.

Isa Kremer: A Yiddish Diva in Istanbul
Alevtina Parland
Isa Kremer was among the first women to bring Yiddish song to the concert stage. After rising to stardom in Odessa in the 1910s, she fled the city just days before the Bolshevik invasion. In February 1920, she arrived in Istanbul, where she continued performing Yiddish repertoire and collaborated with a host of international and local artists. Despite becoming one of the city’s most celebrated performers, this period of her career has been largely overlooked. In this talk, scholar-performer Alevtina Parland will share new research on Kremer’s life and work, conducted in collaboration with Cenkar Sarikaya and supported by the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. Drawing on newly uncovered sources, Parland will explore Kremer’s role in Istanbul’s artistic circles, her lost recordings, and the political forces that shaped her remarkable success. The presentation will include live musical demonstrations.

KlezKanada Youth Program: א, Architexts, ale!
Ages 5-12 (Youth Program) and–NEW ADDED–ages 12-17 (Teens)
With Ozzy Irving Gold-Shapiro, Sonia Bloom, Daniel Kahn, and special guests
In 1938, Kadya Molodowsky, a Yiddish poet and writer, penned the play Ale fenster tsu der zun (Every Window to the Sun) which explores a truth-telling tower that communicates across time. Throughout the text, she poses the question of what it would mean to have a structure where all windows faced the sun. With the help of instruction manuals, cyanotype, the Yiddish alphabet, accordions, dictionaries, surrealist poetry, ukuleles, wire, papier mâché fragments, shards, maps, repetitions, and empty spaces, we will seek to build our own structures (physical, sonic, or otherwise) in response to Kadya’s inquiry. We will ask: How is language like architecture? How many alphabets do we need to build infrastructure? Is an alphabet a blueprint? Can a circle have a kuk-vinkl? And just what is the plumbing of an alphabet?

Schedule

• Morning: The morning, divided up into four shorter blocks with a break that lines up with the full camp transition between AM1 and AM2, will feature Yiddish cultural programming led by Ozzy Gold-Shapiro, with guest artists Sonia Bloom, Daniel Kahn, and many more.
• Afternoon: PM1 and 2 will be filled with camp activities like swimming, hiking, and outdoor games.
• This year there will also be a special AM2 program just for teens, led by Daniel Kahn.

Ages
Ages 5 to 12 for the youth program, and ages 12 to 17 for the teen program (twelve year olds are welcome to participate in whichever program calls to them)