A Bisl Klezmer Far Chanukah

Well, if you've read the title of the post, you've had your Yiddish lesson for the day. If you want a great tool for deciphering the nearly forgotten language of Eastern European Jews before World War II, try this dictionary or better yet, consider making a donation or gift membership to the Yiddish Book Center, near me in Amherst, Massachusetts. Where else can you find the full text of nearly 11,000 Yiddish books online? Tonight is the first candle lighting of the eight day holiday, and my son Matt and wife Nancy and I will be celebrating with latkes (potato pancakes) that Matt is making from scratch! For a little jazzy music, here's Don Byron, the brilliant clarinetist who moves from Hip-Hop to Klezmer without a moment's hesitation. "Oi Tata" was contributed to Festival of Lights, a compilation CD from 2000 which featured musicians as varied as the Masada String Orchestra to Marc ("Walking in Memphis") Cohn to the Klezmatics. Byron is aided by Erik Friedlander on cello and Glen Velez on Frame Drum and Percussion. Watch this blog for a podcast interview with Velez, who has a new release with Trio Globo, entitled Steering By the Stars, featuring him, Eugene Friesen (cello) and Howard Levy (piano and harmonica).