Uriel Weinreich Summer Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture: Alumni Voices

This is the third post in a series about alumni of YIVO’s intensive summer program in Yiddish, offered by YIVO and Bard College. The program, which was established in 1968, is in its 47th year. This year’s session runs from June 23 – August 1, 2014. 

Doing Homework in the Hungarian Pastry Shop: Alicia Svigals, Zumer Program alum, 1980s

In the late 1980s I had recently graduated from Brown University with a major in ethnomusicology and was kicking around NYC being a street musician and experimenting with different kinds of music which at the time were considered quite esoteric. One of those was klezmer, which few people had heard of yet, and I had also recently helped form the Klezmatics (though our first name was Hotzeplotz!). Lorin Sklamberg, my new bandmate and friend (who is still the band's vocalist and works at YIVO as well) told me he was going to delve into our project by studying at the Zumer Program and talked me into it too. I received a scholarship and plunged into a magical world full of like-minded folk of all ages. I have happy memories of braving the sweltering summers together by holing up for hours at the Hungarian Pastry Shop and other locales in the neighborhood, doing our summer program homework... Jenny Romaine, Roberta Newman, Andrew Ingall, and so many others who went on to be important figures in Jewish arts: we were all young people starting out our adult lives bonding over Yiddish!

Alicia Svigals at YIVO in 1991. Photo courtesy of Roberta Newman.

The songs which had spoken to me as a musician and which the Klezmatics were performing were now fleshing out as the lyrics became intelligible, and I made lifelong friends and future artistic collaborators there in Jenny Romaine, Judith Helfand, and others. Most of all I received the highest-quality linguistic and scholarly grounding in my chosen field, studying with the likes of Mordkhe Schaechter, Peysakh Fishman, and Chava Lapin. Much, maybe all, of what the Klezmatics did after that was rooted in this knowledge and our ability to read and speak Yiddish.

The summer program led me to YIVO itself where I got a day job assisting first Adrienne Cooper, who became my dear friend and bandmate in Mikveh, and then Sam Norich (who recently officiated my wedding!). Working at YIVO connected me with other artists there, including Michael Alpert and Henry Sapoznik, which led to my involvement with the new Klezkamp. It was a golden age for the beginnings of the Yiddish revival and klezmer and in hindsight I realize how lucky I was to be right at the center of it.

Visit Alicia Svigals’ website.

Cecile Kuznitz, now a professor at Bard College and a teacher in the Zumer Program, at YIVO in 1991. The Yiddish signs, “Meydele” (girl), “Bakh” (Bach), and “Bing” are examples of YIVO Archives humor of the time. Photo courtesy of Roberta Newman.

Lorin Sklamberg, now YIVO’s Sound Archivist, at YIVO in 1991. Photo courtesy of Roberta Newman.

Judith Helfand at YIVO in the 1980s. Photo courtesy of Roberta Newman.