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Yiddish Song and Story Captivate TI Audience.........posted Mar 7, 2007

Does Yiddish live? A most affirmative answer was served early and often at Tikvat Israel on the evening of March 6 after Yiddish cultural expert Zalmen Mlotek announced: "We're going to challenge you with songs that'll make you want to sing or clap your hands or stomp your feet."

He was right, and for more than two hours, a couple of hundred audience members at the annual TI cantor's concert delighted in Yiddish music and stories from the past 100 years.

"Yiddish Lives! Songs from a Vibrant Musical Heritage" was the theme of the four-performer show headlined by Mlotek, whose explanation of lyrics and stories behind the songs were delivered from his piano bench. Mlotek is a leading cultural historian and musicologist as executive director of the National Yiddish Theater-Folksbiene in New York.

Meanwhile, TI's own cantor, Rochelle Helzner, demonstrated once again her remarkably versatile voice with a dazzling aria titled "Mayn Shvester Khaye." Mlotek told the audience he brought the work to TI's cantor, calling it a "special treat" to share the stage with her.

"I go back with the Helzners before they knew me and I knew them," he said, explaining that he befriended a cousin of Manny Helzner, Rochelle's father, years ago in Philadelphia.

Mlotek seemed to delight his fellow performers, who included two other area cantors, Jerome Barry and Elisheva Dienstfrey., throughout the evening with his own delivery of Yiddish radio jingles from WEVD in New York City and a Yiddish version of a number from the "Pirates of Penzance."

The three cantors waited their turns to perform songs that ranged from carefree times in pre-war Poland to the darker days of the Vilna ghetto to joys of summer camping for youngsters. They traded spots delivering alone and in various combinations. Their 16-song set concluded with an encore about hamentachen.

TI's show was the second in a two-part series. The opening concert took place at Dienstfrey's shul, Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Va.

The concert committee chair was Hillary Berman.