What makes a hero? Hear the tales of legendary Jewish heroes and villains. Honorable, horrible, fabulous, and fierce - from David and Goliath to Esther and Haman. Choose what role you want to play and craft a mask. Part of our Preservation Detectives Family Program
Poll any Jewish music lover about who the “father” of klezmer is, and hands-down clarinetist Dave Tarras (1895-1989) will be the answer. This Ukrainian-born virtuoso was the unrivaled leader in the creation of a uniquely American klezmer sound. Join us for a multi-media presentation and concert featuring internationally renowned clarinetist and ethnomusicologist Joel Rubin with band, and rare video footage and photographs of Tarras from the Center for Traditional Music and Dance’s Archive.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Traditional Music and Dance.
Celebrate freedom. Find out why so many immigrants came to America in a fun-filled scavenger hunt. Clues throughout our great house of worship will lead our detectives to a special Passover Freedom party complete with holiday food, music, and art making. Part of our Preservation Detectives Family Program
There are many ceremonial objects associated with the observance of Judaism in the synagogue from the Torah scroll with its beautiful textiles and silver to ritual furniture, including the ark and the reader’s desk. But these elements, so intrinsic to Jewish practice today, did not always exist. In an illustrated lecture, Dr. Vivian Mann (Jewish Theological Seminary) describes how these basic elements emerged, and how their design evolved over time to reflect the period and region in which they were created.
Part of our Ways We Worship initiative.
Find sanctuary in the city. Visit synagogues, churches and temples encompassing 200 years of religious life in America, from early structures built by wealthy English landowners to houses of worship encompassing the Jewish, African American, Italian, Hispanic and Chinese immigrant experience.
Join us for a screening of this remarkable film examining the life of Rezso Kasztner. Known as the Jewish Schindler, Kasztner negotiated face to face with Adolf Eichmann, rescuing 1,700 Jews on a train to Switzerland. Yet he was condemned as a traitor in his adopted country of Israel; accused as a collaborator in a trial and verdict that divided a nation and forever stamped him as the "man who sold his soul to the devil." Director Gaylen Ross talks about the project and her interviews with survivors, historians and Kastzner’s assassin.
Explore our brilliant stained glass. Can you figure out which is old and which is new? Find shapes, patterns and symbols and try your hand at the artisan techniques while you make your own stained glass decoration.
Part of our Preservation Detectives Family Program
Judaism is characterized by ceaseless debates and arguments. Dr. Allan Nadler (Drew University) will explore the long-term effects of this contentiousness on the very nature of Jewish discourse and on the Yiddish-speaking community in America as it encountered Western conventions of politeness. Beginning with samples of remarkable rudeness in Hebrew rabbinical writings, Nadler focuses on the origins, contexts and uses in daily life of the vast array of insults and curses in the Yiddish linguistic arsenal.
Part of our Ways We Worship initiative.
Celebrate the Golden Age of American cantorial music at this concert by the Belz School of Jewish Music, conducted by Cantor Eric Freeman. Hear a repertoire of classical liturgy and Shavuot-themed songs, music which stirred the souls of thousands that thronged to the Eldridge Street Synagogue and other venerable Lower East Side houses of worship at the turn-of-the-last century. Cantor Bernard Beer provides commentary.
Part of our Lost & Found Music Series.
The roots of the community that would one day build the Eldridge Street Synagogue lie in the former Five Points area and today’s Chinatown. Stroll the streets of these historic areas, discovering traces of Jewish immigration at every turn. Visit former synagogues, an early collect pond and a cemetery right in Chatham Square.
Our annual festival celebrating the Chinese and Jewish communities of our neighborhood turns 10! Come celebrate at our biggest, best and most eggs-traordinary Egg Rolls & Egg Creams ever. Music, Chinese opera and acrobatics, vaudeville performances, Yiddish and Chinese language lessons, scribal arts, food and folk art demonstrations, storytelling, crafts, and synagogue tours. And more! Find out why we’ve been called the “Best Block Party in New York City” by the Village Voice!
The 10th Anniversary Egg Rolls & Egg Creams Festival is supported, in part, by The Manhattan Borough President’s Office/The Honorable Scott Stringer, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts – Folk Arts Program and NYC & Co. Foundation, Inc. Roster as of February 15, 2010.
Find sanctuary in the city. Visit synagogues, churches and temples encompassing 200 years of religious life in America, from early structures built by wealthy English landowners to houses of worship encompassing the Jewish, African American, Italian, Hispanic and Chinese immigrant experience.
How does a building become a community center? Investigate the many ways Eldridge Street’s magnificent space was utilized throughout the last 100 years. Explore architecture and design your own unique three-dimensional community space. Part of our Preservation Detectives Family Program
Gangster Big Jack Zelig, writer Sholem Aleichem and Rabbi Jacob Joseph all lived and died on the Lower East Side, and all three attracted thousands to their funeral processions. Follow the path of these solemn marches, and learn about the political, cultural and religious legacies of these larger-than-life figures.
Ways We Worship is supported, in part, by The Bernice and Albert B. Cohen Family Charitable Trust, The Edouard Foundation, The Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation, Stella and Charles Guttman Foundation, Jewish Community Youth Foundation, New York Humanities Council, the Leo Rosner Foundation, and the Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation. Roster as of February 15, 2010.