Artists

Meet this year's performers, teachers, and presenters.

Strauss/Warschauer Duo

Deborah Strauss and Cantor Jeff Warschauer have been at the forefront of the international klezmer and Yiddish music scene for more than 30 years. They are sweet and soulful performers who draw from klezmer, Yiddish, Hasidic and liturgical music and culture, adding their own original compositions and song settings. Their music is grounded in tradition, yet thoroughly contemporary.

Deborah and Jeff were both longtime members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band and have performed with violinist Itzhak Perlman on film, recordings, and in concert. They are mainstays at the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, Poland, Yiddish Summer Weimar, and KlezKanada, and have performed and taught at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Great Britain’s Fiddles on Fire, and the Art of Yiddish in Los Angeles with late actor and singer Theodore Bikel z”l.

They appear on numerous recordings including two Duo CDs, Rejoicing and Once I Had a Fiddle, and Jeff’s widely acclaimed solo CD, The Singing Waltz: Klezmer Guitar and Mandolin.

Cantor Jeff Warschauer

Jeff, guitar, mandolin, cobza, and vocals is renowned as one of the foremost klezmer mandolinists, as an innovator in the development of a klezmer guitar style, as an expressive Yiddish singer and as a skillful and inspirational educator. He speaks Yiddish, and has researched and collected Yiddish songs and instrumental melodies since the mid-1980s. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory and the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Jeff serves as Cantor at Congregation Or Chadash in Flemington, NJ. He is a featured member of the supergroup Ger Mandolin Orchestra, is a Founding Artistic Director of KlezKanada, and teaches at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Deborah Strauss

Since the mid-1980s Deborah Strauss has found her life’s passion in the world of Yiddish music and culture. Raised in a traditional home filled with European cantorial music, family melodies, Ashkenazic liturgy, Hasidic nigunim, and Jewish art song, Strauss’ childhood paved the way to a deep and compelling connection to klezmer and Yiddish music.

Deborah is one of the leading klezmer fiddlers of her generation and is also a highly regarded Yiddish dancer and award-winning educator who taught for 20 years at Yiddish cultural schools in New York City. She is Yiddish Culture Organizer for Zol Zayn Yidish, a Workers Circle initiative for adults 60 and beyond, and is co-coordinator of the instrumental program at Yiddish New York. Deborah is the 2024 recipient of the Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Award and, with Alan Bern, is the author of Klezmer Duets for Violin and Accordion published in 2017 by Universal Edition, Vienna. Deborah studied violin at Rutgers University and ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago.

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Adah Hetko

Adah Hetko is a Yiddish singer, songwriter, and dance leader active in the international Yiddish culture scene. She has studied since 2013 with celebrated Yiddish singers including Judy Bressler and Ethel Raim, and received songwriting mentorship from Daniel Kahn and Josh Waletzky. She holds an MA in Jewish Studies from Indiana University and teaches Yiddish language and culture to audiences throughout the Boston area and beyond, with support from organizations including the New Jewish Culture Fellowship and the Yiddish Book Center.

Lysander Jaffe

Lysander Jaffe is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist known for building community through collaborative music-making. He serves as violist and co-artistic director of Palaver Strings and sits on the board of Village Harmony. He studied klezmer violin as part of a master’s degree in Contemporary Improvisation at New England Conservatory.

Veretski Pass

Taking its name from the mountain pass through which Magyar tribes crossed into the Carpathian basin to settle what later became the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Veretski Pass offers a unique and exciting combination of virtuosic musicianship and raw energy that has excited concertgoers across the world. The trio plays Old Country Music with origins in the Ottoman Empire, once fabled as the borderlands of the East and the West. In a true collage of Carpathian, Jewish, Rumanian and Ottoman styles, typical suites contain dances from Moldavia and Bessarabia; Jewish melodies from Poland and Rumania; Hutzul wedding music from Carpathian-Ruthenia; and haunting Rebetic aires from Smyrna, seamlessly integrated with original compositions. Their CDs have repeatedly been on the 10-best recording lists of journalists since 2002.

Joshua Horowitz

Joshua Horowitz, chromatic button accordion, cimbalom and piano, received his Masters degree in Composition and Music Theory from the Academy of Music in Graz, Austria, where he taught Music Theory and served as Director of the Yiddish Music Research Project for nine years. He is currently adjunct Professor at Sonoma State University. Joshua is the founder and director of the ensemble Budowitz, and a founding member of Veretski Pass. He has performed and recorded with The Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Theodore Bikel, and Brave Old World, and was a featured accompanist for Itzhak Perlman on PBS. He received the Prize of Honor from the Austrian government for his orchestral composition “Tenebrae,” and his musicological work is featured in four books, including The Sephardic Songbook and The Ultimate Klezmer. Joshua lives in Berkeley, California.

Stuart Brotman

Stuart Brotman, bass, basy (cello), tilinca (shepherds’ flute) and baraban (bass drum), has been an accomplished performer, arranger and recording artist in World Music for over 50 years. A founding member of Los Angeles’ Ellis Island Band, he has been a moving force in the klezmer revival since its beginning. He holds a B.A. in music with a concentration in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, and has taught at Klez Kamp, Klez Kanada, Klez California, and numerous European festivals including Klezfest London and Klezmer Festival Fürth. Stu has been recording, touring, and teaching New Jewish Music with Brave Old World since 1989, and is featured in the PBS film and CD, “Itzhak Perlman, in the Fiddler’s House.” He has also toured and recorded with Canned Heat, Kaleidoscope, and played cimbalom on Ry Cooder’s “Jazz.” Stuart lives in Berkeley, California.

Avia Moore

An internationally-acclaimed teacher of Yiddish dance, Avia Moore leads Yiddish dance workshops for festivals and events around the world, coaches emerging dance leaders, and works as a consultant for choreographers, directors, and teachers seeking to engage with Yiddish movement. Avia Moore is the Artistic Director of KlezKanada and has worked extensively as a creative producer with festivals, cultural organizations, and artistic projects across North America and Europe. Avia holds a PhD in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies from York University.

Der Goylem

Lipe Boim

Lipe Boim is a golem made of mud, stones, catalytic converters, rosemary, garlic, and sweat. He hails from the North Bay and dwells in the East Bay. She is a lifetime sculptor, and recent puppet maker and puppeteer. He makes diasporic Jewish ritual objects to be used in prayer and protest. He creates in order to compute the world swirling around him, in order to celebrate transexuality, dykes, and fags, in order to honor ancestors of blood and chosen lineage, in order to tend and talk to the land, in order to curse and weaken empire. Beyond puppets, Lipe works across media–from drawings to basketry to garments to sculptures to comics, using varied materials such as trash, ink, clay, paper mache, paint, willow, wood, and leather. She is a lover and co-creator of Yiddish culture and counter-culture.

chaim kokhleffel

chaim kokhleffel (they/them) is a performance artist with 20 years of experience working at the intersection of creativity, community building, and liberatory practice. Their art life is rooted in the Theater of the Oppressed, community-based approaches, and physical theater. Their work has included both solo acts and collaboratively devised ensemble pieces, drawing from clown, puppetry, mask, burlesque, drag, storytelling and experimental movement. chaim has graced many a stage both traditional and not within the queer/DIY theater scenes of Minneapolis, and are incredibly blessed to have made their Bay Area debut amidst the redwoods with “Der Goylem.” They like to ask inconvenient questions and stir the pot.

Ellie Shapiro

Eleanor Shapiro, PhD, produced the Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley for almost two decades. Prior to that she was based in Jerusalem as a teacher and journalist for nine years. More recently, her scholarship has focused on Jewish-Polish relations, expressed through Jewish culture festivals that take place currently in Polish small towns.

Mike Perlmutter

Mike Perlmutter will co-teach a sauerkraut workshop, and then lead a klezmer jam. Mike loves sharing the flavors, fun, and folklore of age-old, delicious and nutritious fermentation traditions. He’s taught and tasted sauerkraut since the early 2000s and was often sharing sauerkraut and pickling skills alongside the music of Zoyres Eastern European Wild Ferment. His workshops have inspired and empowered many to take up fermentation in their own kitchens.

Mike has been performing klezmer, Balkan, and ceremonial Jewish music on saxophone and clarinet for over twenty years with groups including Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band, Inspector Gadje, Zoyres, Chochmat Halev, and the Kehilla Klezmer Band. He’s a longtime community music organizer, past KlezCalifornia boardmember, and current director for the Joy of Jewish Music and Dance.

Sasha Waniewski

Sasha Waniewski is an internationally known sauerkrauteur. She grew up hearing about the fermentation barrel that stayed on her grandparents’ Kiev balcony through the winter and happily preserves family fermentation traditions. She loves all vegetables, but cabbage is in her heart of hearts. She also plays accordion.

Zina Pozen

Originally from Ukraine, Zina Pozen grew up in a family of classical musicians, playing piano from a young age. In her house, salty Yiddish sayings, contraband Barry Sisters, Stravinsky and Poulenc, traditional Ukrainian and Moldovan tunes, Utyosov and Dunaevsky weaved their sounds together. After moving to the U.S., Zina fell under the spell of the Eastern European Folklife Center Balkan Music Camps and picked up the accordion to play traditional music. Zina plays klezmer, Moldovan, Ukrainian, Turkish, Armenian, Greek rebetiko, and other styles.

She was a founding member of Seattle’s infamous (and famously fun) Bucharest Drinking Team. In the Bay Area, she plays with Saul Goodman Klezmer Band, Orchestra Euphonos, Metanastys, Yeraz Ensemble, Cabin 19, Moonshine Jelly, Jonnie Pekelny and friends, and sits in with Balkan Sunday jams.

Ilana Sherer

Ilana Sherer is a classically-trained violinist who began to perform klezmer as a member and then band leader of Yarmulkazi while at Brown University. She spent many years in Philadelphia where she played with various East Coast groups and organized a monthly community klezmer jam. In the Bay Area, she mostly performs with Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band and the Kehilla Klezmers.

She spends her days (and nights) as a pediatrician who specializes in transgender youth.