Children's Day

11:00am-1:00pm A morning of activity and cultural immersion for children of all ages Admission: Free

Join us for the YIVO Institute’s annual Children’s Day, where visitors of all ages will enjoy a wonderful selection of Purim-themed activities and performances. This program will have something for everybody: sing-alongs of Yiddish folk staples (led by one of YIVO's own sound-archivists, Eléonore Biezunski), a magic show led by Shane Baker, a puppet show based on a play by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Lyzer the Miser, by Great Small Works, and more surprises to be announced soon! The Gefilteria will be offering delicious Purim-themed treats. Enjoy a festive morning celebrating our wonderful and diverse cultural heritage here on West 16th Street. 

About the Participants

The Gefilteria is a new kind of food venture launched in 2012 with the mission of reimagining eastern European Jewish cuisine, adapting classic dishes to the values and tastes of a new generation. We’re the people with the chutzpah to believe that Old World Jewish foods can be beautiful, inspiring and delicious. We produce limited runs of our signature artisanal gefilte fish in the spring and the fall. While we don’t have a storefront, we’re regularly cooking a wide range of Jewish foods from the Ashkenazi – central and eastern European Jewish – culinary tradition, for unique dining events. Along the way, we’re looking to inspire others to reimagine and rediscover this incredible cuisine in their home kitchens. Oh, and it’s pronounced ge·filte·ria, like a taqueria but with gefilte fish instead of tacos.

Liz Alpern’s career in food is driven by her passion for bringing people together. Based in Brooklyn, Liz travels around the globe as a cook, recipe tester, educator and entrepreneur. Alpern holds an MBA from Baruch College and is a faculty member in the Culinary Entrepreneurship Program at the International Culinary Center in NYC. She been featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for food and wine and was named one of the Forward 50 for 2016.

Jeffrey Yoskowitz fell in love with the art of lacto-fermentation while training as a pickler at Adamah, an organic farm in the foothills of the Berkshires. He has since worked in the food world as an entrepreneur, consultant, cook, and a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and Gastronomica, among other publications. He was named to the Forward Newspaper’s list of 50 influentials and also named to the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in food and wine.

Eléonore Biezunski is a singer, violinist and archivist. She was trained in classical violin, klezmer music, Yiddish song and voice. She has collected Yiddish songs and melodies between Paris and New York, where she has founded or joined groups (Shpilkes, The Klezmographers, Shtetl Stompers, Les Égarés and Yerushe), written plays (“La Complainte du Balluchon”, “Le Petit Peuple de Ruth Rubin”) or joined theater companies, to which she lends her voice and her bow and plays a little comedy (Cie La Courte Échelle; Der Lufteater; Cie 0,10). She released her second album "Yerushe" in 2016, drawing from the Ruth Rubin Collection and other Yiddish music archives. Her first album “Zol zayn” came out in 2014 with the band Shpilkes. When she is not on stage, she teaches (Maison de la Culture Yiddish, Workmen's Circle, Institut Européen des Musiques Juives), hosts a radio show about “Zing!” on the online Radio "Yiddish Pour Tous” and serves as Sound Archivist in the the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of YIVO Sound Recordings at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (NYC), where she prepares, alongside Lorin Sklamberg the publication of the Ruth Rubin Collection online. She is a 2017 recipient of the New York State Council on the Arts' Folk Art Apprenticeships (for the study of Yiddish Folksongs with Josh Waletzky) through the Center for Traditional Music and Dance. She published an article about Yiddish Songs about New York "East Side Story. Mémoires sédimentées de l’expérience migratoire juive à New York à travers une chanson yiddish", in. Marianne Amar, Hélène Bertheleu, Laure Teulières (dirs.), Mémoires des migrations, temps de l'histoire, Presses Universitaires François Rabelais, Paris, 2015. When she was in Paris, she was the Assistant of Hervé Roten at the European Institute for Jewish Music, where she participated in the publication of a 6-CD set "Jewish Music in Paris in the Aftermath of WWII", Eds. E. Biezunski, L. Couderc & H. Roten, Éditions de l'Institut Européen des Musiques Juives, Paris, 2015. Her website: www.eleonorebiezunski.com

Shane Baker is the best-loved Episcopalian on the Yiddish stage today. As director of the Congress for Jewish Culture, he is helping to produce events marking Sholem Aleichem’s 100th yortsayt around the world and he comes to the YIVO directly from one such performance in Tel-Aviv, his Israeli debut. He also recently starred as Vladimir in his own Yiddish translation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, produced Off Broadway and internationally by the New Yiddish Rep. The New York Times pronounced Baker’s translation ‘even more depressing than Beckett’s original.’ Upcoming appearances include dates in Los Angeles and San Francisco this June with frequent stage partner Miryem-Khaye Seigel. Mentored by the last great stars of the Interwar European Yiddish stage, Baker is renowned not only for his translations and acting, but also for his recitations of Yiddish poetry.

Great Small Works is a visual theater collective created in 1995 in New York City, whose six members create original performance aiming to keep theater at the heart of social life. Drawing on folk, avant-garde and popular theater traditions, Great Small Works addresses contemporary issues in productions which vary in scale from huge outdoor community-based pageants to miniature Toy Theater shows in living rooms. The company received a 1997 Obie Award, 1997 and 2008 UNIMA-USA Citations for Excellence, and the 2006 Puppeteers of America Jim Henson Award.