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<\/p>\nDaniella Rabbani believes in the power of Jewish joy. And what brings more joy than a celebration of Yiddish culture through music?<\/p>\n
On her new album, Klezmerette, Rabbani brings new life to old Yiddish standards, classic cultural tunes and traditional theatrical sounds. A New York City native, Rabbani\u2019s music video for \u201cKetzele Broygez\u201d (\u201cLover\u2019s Tiff\u201d), the first song on the album, was filmed all over the city. Her goal is to show her city, and the world, that Yiddish music is beautiful, poetic and deserves to be heard.<\/p>\n
Klezmer music originated in Eastern Europe in Ashkenazi Jewish communities as the music of celebrations, often played at weddings and joyous holidays. Klezmer music is traditionally instrumental. The word \u201cklezmer\u201d is Yiddish derived from Hebrew meaning \u201cinstruments of music,\u201d but it has come to refer to the Jewish musicians themselves. With changing European borders, klezmer traveled the continent, and when Jews immigrated to the United States, klezmer music found a new stage. Through its evolution, klezmer music took on new styles\u2014the original instrumental, celebratory tunes merged with the genres of new cities and cultures.<\/p>\n
Since starting her podcast Mom Curious seven years ago, Rabbani has gained a following on social media, not only for giving advice on motherhood but also on how to be a Jewish advocate and activist. Especially after the attacks of October 7, 2023, Rabbani has been a strong voice against antisemitism and hate. But after years of fighting, Rabbani, who trained at NYU as an actress and singer, is ready to return to joy.<\/p>\n
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Photo by Nadia Leon<\/p>\n
What made you decide to record this album?<\/p>\n
I have been singing Yiddish for nearly 20 years. I started out touring with a little troupe at old-age homes and JCCs, and then I started singing internationally and on fancier stages here, like Jazz at Lincoln Center. I did a lot of work with the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, and I always wanted to concretize the work in an album, but it turns out being a recording artist is wildly different from being a concert singer. So I put it off for a while. Then, in 2023 I recognized that people would look to me for chizuk, a little bit of strength, and for an understanding of our history and our people\u2014because of the work that I do, delving into Yiddish texts. The album became my offering.<\/p>\n
Do you have a personal connection to Yiddish?<\/p>\n
I was raised Modern Orthodox here in New York. My parents are Israeli. My grandparents on my mother\u2019s side were Holocaust survivors, and my grandfather spoke Yiddish. I didn\u2019t speak it growing up, but after I graduated from NYU, I got a scholarship to study Yiddish and gravitated to it very quickly. It\u2019s a bunch of languages mixed together, primarily Hebrew, which I was raised speaking, and German, which is much like English, so it worked out well for me.<\/p>\n
Can you talk about some of the specific songs you choose to include? What are the stories behind them?<\/p>\n
A lot of them are Yiddish standards because a lot of people have no idea what Yiddish music is. I felt like we had to start at the beginning. \u201cOyfn Pripitchek\u201d (\u201cAt the Hearth\u201d) is probably the most famous Yiddish song I included. It\u2019s been recorded a million times, and I put my stamp on it too. Then there\u2019s \u201cA Yiddishe Mama\u201d (\u201cA Jewish Mom\u201d). There\u2019s a song that\u2019s never been recorded ever, to my knowledge, \u201cNor a Stral Fun Glick\u201d (\u201cJust a Strand of Luck\u201d), which is just a silly song about a lesson the writer\u2019s father gave him, which is: All you need is a little bit of luck, and you could be happy; you don\u2019t need the whole world. It\u2019s an up-tempo, fun, cute song.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are some more serious pieces like \u201cFriling\u201d (\u201cSpringtime\u201d). It\u2019s the most accurate depiction of grief that I have ever heard. It was written by Shermke Kaczerginski, who survived the war, but his wife did not. He never once mentions the Holocaust in the song, but the poetry is out of this world. He sets the music to a tango beat, which was very popular at the time, but it also says a lot about the love and lust and longing that never went away\u2014doesn\u2019t go away\u2014when someone dies. She just disappeared, and he questions, \u201chow is it possible that the world is going on and you\u2019re not here?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s this great song called \u201cDer Nayer Sher\u201d (\u201cNew Dance Tune\u201d), and it was written right after the Holocaust. What\u2019s so crazy about it is it wanted to be the hora. It just asks people to dance. It asks the klezmer (musician) to play music. It says all of our haters can go fuck themselves. It just feels so indicative of the Jewish spirit. We can have a crazy person storm into Central Synagogue in New York City, and the next day it\u2019s packed. It says, \u201cyou\u2019re not going to stop us.\u201d I love that, and I hate that we need it so much right now, but we do, and so I\u2019m here to provide.<\/p>\n
Michael Winograd is this virtuosic klezmer, and he plays the clarinet, he arranged the music and he produced the album with Joanie Leeds. Michael put a new spin on each of the songs, but they\u2019re not modern; he didn\u2019t change them. For the most part, the ten songs are meant to be an appetizer to lure the fans in to enjoy klezmer.<\/p>\n
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Photo by Nadia Leon<\/p>\n
Just an appetizer? Are there plans for more?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s see how this one goes, but I do think that there is an appetite for Yiddish. I\u2019ve been on Instagram for ten years or more, and in the past two months, I\u2019ve nearly doubled my following, and that\u2019s because I\u2019ve been sharing more Yiddish. People like it. People are curious about Yiddish. They think it\u2019s a fun language.<\/p>\n
A lot of older generations ask me, \u201cDo you think the young people will like it?\u201d And I say, \u201cThey already do. They like it a lot. Good music is good music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why did you choose the New York setting for your music video?<\/p>\n
Klezmer music doesn\u2019t need me to dress up in shtetl garb. I don\u2019t have to pretend that I am anything but myself, which is a New Yorker. I think of klezmer music as world music, and I think of New York, which I\u2019m native to, as a melting pot of all of these amazing cultures and sounds. I don\u2019t speak any Spanish, but I love Bad Bunny; I don\u2019t speak any Hindi, but I love Bollywood dance and music. That\u2019s because I\u2019m a New Yorker, and I get to enjoy people\u2019s cultures, and I wanted to say that in the music video. I think New York Jews could use a little bit of a reminder that this is our city too, and that we are part of the fabric of the many cultures that exist side by side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Photo by Nadia Leon<\/p>\n
Did you always want to be specifically a Jewish performer?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t really think of them as different career paths. I think it\u2019s the same. It\u2019s often Jewish people who see them as separate. I always wanted to be an actor, and I\u2019m Jewish, so I wanted to tell Jewish stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I started Stella Adler, which is one of the acting studios at NYU, I found out that Stella, who taught Marlon Brando and all these incredible icons of American acting, was raised on the Yiddish stage. Her father Jacob P. Adler brought his Yiddish theater from Russia after being closed down due to antisemitism, and he became like a king, like a rabbi, this huge figure on the Yiddish stage, and she was raised there. So, I studied Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen. And after one of the Shakespeare plays that I did, Stella\u2019s grandson, who directed me, said, \u201cYou act like my family. Will you carry on the legacy of the Yiddish theater?\u201d And that lens made it so that I never for one second thought that because it\u2019s in a different language or because it\u2019s a niche or audience that it\u2019s not within the realm of classical acting and great theater work. At 21, I was just grateful to have a job. I had no idea that I would fall in love with it.<\/p>\n
What are your hopes for the album?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m really hoping that we can make a mark with klezmer music as world music. Obviously, the people who will buy the record or listen to the record are probably Jews, but Jews are just people too. My producer, Joanie Leeds, won a Grammy. She\u2019s wonderful, and she has a Grammy initiative to create a Jewish music category. It\u2019s a little tough because the Jewish community is small, and within the Jewish community, it\u2019s a smaller subset of people who listen to Jewish music. If we can enter the world music conversation, I really do think that would be great for the Jews. I think that would be great for the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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