In collaboration with University of Sussex Students’ Union, with support from The University of Sussex Chaplaincy.

Join a series of three Yiddish singing workshops and help build a choir performance in Refugee Week 2022

Come to the first two-hour workshop from 5.30 to 7.30pm on Monday 25th April 2022, to be held in the Meeting House chapel at the University of Sussex campus. Also probably 25 May and 22 June – Dates and times of the second and third workshops to be confirmed. 

ALL WELCOME. Advance booking essential

All workshop participants will be invited to take part in the Refugee Week performance at Brighton Jubilee Library on 25th June 2022.

No previous singing experience or knowledge of Yiddish required.

According to University of London academic Lily Kahn, Yiddish was spoken by 11 to 13 million people at the start of the Second World War. It is a stateless language, a fusion of old German, Hebrew-Aramaic and Slavic languages. Secular Yiddish culture thrived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yiddish songs have been a central part of the Klezmer music revival since the 1980s. Their diverse range, combining joy, humour, romance, resignation, hope and struggle, includes important resources for these troubled times that are highly relevant to the themes of Refugee Week. For example, Yiddish songs formed resistance anthems for Jews facing pogroms in Tsarist Russia, and young newly arrived US immigrants exploited in New York’s garment industry. Some of the best known Yiddish songs were composed in opposition to fascism in the Nazi ghettoes of the Second World War.

Led by Brighton-based Russian/ Jewish composer, performer and choir director Polina Shepherd. Song sheets will be provided.

Dates and times of the second and third workshops to be confirmed.

Suggested fee: £4
Solidarity fee: £7
Free participation available

Location: The Meeting House chapel is located on the University of Sussex campus. The venue is accessible. Directions can be found here.

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