Adah Hetko! April 22, 6-7:15pm ONLINE concert and workshop!

Hey, Y’All!

So many of us play instruments, listen to music, love to read good writing, and are writers and storytellers ourselves. Maybe these are some of the ways we are holding onto our footing right now. 

Merchav has a really amazing opportunity to host professional singer/songwriter Adah Hetko for an ONLINE concert and workshop on Tuesday April 22 6-7:15pm. Register to get the link right here: https://forms.gle/8mcnaDZZYjRCmSpM7 

Adah has a Yiddish song ensemble called Levyosn.
Levyosn means big sea serpent demon in Yiddish!
Check out this song, “Watermelon” and this one in Hebrew and then in English, “It’s Dark Outside”. And her album Levyosn’s Lullaby.  There is also a video of Adah at the Boston Music Festival.

Yiddish is a very cool language with a really important history. It’s a combination of Hebrew, German, and Aramaic. It’s one language, and it also has a lot of varieties that include bits and pieces of Slavic languages (think languages like Russian and Ukrainian) and Romance languages (think languages like French and Italian and Spanish). Yiddish is written with the Hebrew aleph-bet. Mostly, Yiddish is an Ashkenasic language and many of our Jewish ancestors probably spoke it. If you’ve read When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb, it is one of the languages Little Ash (the demon) and Uriel (the angel) and Rose speak to one another. I don’t know or understand much Yiddish - just a word here and there. But here’s what I do know:

Yiddish is one of the sounds of Judaism. 

Here is a 1.5 minute video of children making hamantashen in Yiddish.
And a clip from Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish.

Before World War II, there were 11-13 MILLION of our people who spoke Yiddish. About 85% of the Jewish people who were murdered during the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers. Today only 500,000 or maybe as many as one million people still speak Yiddish. Our people have been through a lot. The Yiddish language has been through a lot. 

Singing contemporary songs in Yiddish is radical.
Listening to Yiddish music is radical, too! Especially the day before Yom HaShoah. And WE get to enjoy and learn about and be part of the LIFE of Yiddish language and song with Adah Hetko. 

To be able to pay Adah, I need to charge for tickets.
However, I also want everyone who wants to join to be able to join.
If the price range is too high for you, please fill out the form anyway and be part of this night together. I will send the link to join to everyone who registers. https://forms.gle/8mcnaDZZYjRCmSpM7

Fill out the form and let me know to save a שטול for you! 
A bisl shpatser!
(literally, a little walk, my brief research tells me this means “see you soon”!)
Rabbi Ariel