Creating Songs in Boiberik: Singing Peace at “Felker Yontev”
Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellowship in East European Jewish Music, Theater, and Arts
Each year from 1922 until 1978, when it closed, the secular Yiddish summer camp Camp Boiberik hosted the “Felker Yontev” (Holiday of Nations) Yiddish pageant, enacting Isaiah’s prophetic vision of world peace. This lecture, which draws on the Boiberik archives held at YIVO and interviews with former campers, examines the structure of these pageants, their music, texts and context, and how they continue to influence the Yiddish music scene today. Special attention will be paid to the work of Josh Waletzky and Chana Mlotek, who were music counselors at Boiberik and key figures in the mid-century Yiddish revival.
About the Speaker
Eléonore Biezunski is a PhD candidate at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) studying new Yiddish music. She is Assistant Director of the European Institute for Jewish Music in Paris and has taken part in several research projects, including at the Sciences Po Paris and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche. Biezunski is currently a YIVO fellow (Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellowship) and has received support from the: Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (FMS), Fondation Alice et Fernand Halphen (Bourse Yuval), Commission de la Scolarité (EHESS), Formation doctorale “Histoire” (EHESS), the “Other Music Academy” (Yiddish Summer Weimar), and the Jewish Music Forum.
Biezunski is also a Yiddish singer and violinist. She performs in Europe and the United States with her bands, including the Klezmographers with Pete Rushefsky in New York and Shpilkes in Paris, which recently released its first album Zol zayn. She has also worked as a musician on several theater productions and has recently created Le petit peuple de Ruth Rubin, which features Yiddish songs and klezmer music from various folklore collections, including the Ruth Rubin archives held at YIVO. www.eleonorebiezunski.com