Rokhl Kafrissen is a New York-based cultural critic and playwright.
Songs to know by the most influential band of the ‘klezmer revival’
‘Mrs. Santa Claus’ makes its way to the stage
From Celia Dropkin to Sholem Aleichem, Yiddish writers weren’t afraid to scare readers
In Warsaw, creating something new out of the remains of something old
A new exhibit sheds new light on husbands who abandoned their wives a century ago
It’s a great season for new Yiddish music
How Chelly Wilson realized her American dream—in adult theaters
Shavuot is about more than cheesecake and the Ten Commandments. It’s also about dybbuks.
A new collection of Yiddish plays sheds light on the plight of the ‘agunes’
A Judy Chicago retrospective and a new book about ultra-Orthodox artists explore women who push boundaries
Yiddish music that casts a spell
Before modern medicine became widely trusted, Eastern European Jews turned to folk remedies to fight sickness of every kind
The Yiddish Book Center’s new exhibit goes beyond the ‘great men’ in our cultural history
A new opera recalls a Sholem Aleichem tale that was left out of ‘Fiddler,’ and opens up a world of women’s prayers called ‘tkhines’
Stories of mourning by Isaac Bashevis Singer make perfect reading in this darkly anxious season
Isaac Bashevis Singer, evil spirits, and the injustice of ‘chained women’
A new translation of Itzik Manger’s 1939 Yiddish novel illustrates the author’s connection to Jewish folklore
Poetry and music to start the new year
