Yiddish is undergoing a major revival and, this summer, London will be alive with the music and words of the mamaloshen. The Jewish Music Institute's biggest ever summer programme offers everything from dancing up a storm with a freylekhs or a khosidl, intensive language courses, or taking in a film about the literary genius of the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem.
"We've got extra tutors on board to accommodate everybody who'd like to come along," said Ilana Cravitz, director of the Klezfest music course.
"The more that we have, the more fun it is for everybody."
The JMI celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, and started offering a summer programme in the early 2000s, and, except for a brief hiatus in the early 2010s when the Institute was relaunching, it has gone from strength to strength ever since. Previous attendees usually come back the next year, and they often bring newcomers with them.
Gil Karpas, the JMI's events manager, talks about the huge range of people coming, "from Jewish 18-year-olds fuelled by a thirst for knowledge of their origins, to octogenarians wanting to connect with the culture of their home lives."
The growth rate may well be due to the JMI making sure that whether you're a first-timer or an experienced attendee, you're made to feel welcome. But Cravitz suggests, the success that the Institute has enjoyed is also due to the long-term investment it makes in its students.
"I actually started off as a student in 2000," she said. "JMI gave out some millennium awards, which started a lot of us off studying the music, being able to get expert tuition and doing research. That's where my career as a Klezmer teacher actually started.
"I've come up through the ranks as have some of my faculty members, during the Klezmer revival, and here I am now, giving back to that community, trying to involve other people and spread the word."
Ilana also mentions that the Klezfest is learning from its experiences last year and listening to student feedback, creating a specialised dance course, Tants, Tants, Tants!
"There always was an element of the dancing in previous Klezfest years", says Guy Schalom, the programme's director. "But this year is the first time we're doing a dedicated dance stream."
"You'll understand how Jewish dance reflects not only Jewish music but reflects Jewish philosophy, which is inclusive and a way of expressing yourself as an individual, but also as part of a wider community. Jewish dancing is all about community; that is clearly represented in the dance."
"When you understand something through the arts, you can understand it on a deeper level, and you'll see yourself and your community and your life very differently - and you'll have a good time while you're doing it."
While the summer schools are open to the general public, they provide an opportunity for professionals as well.
Bands get a special rate, they can receive tuition and coaching and there is a professional skills class, teaching everything from marketing to presentation to stagecraft.
The Institute will end the summer season with the Jewish Arts and Music Festival in September, offering a number of live events - including the highly popular Klezmer in the Park.
"This year, I'm particularly excited about the line-up", said Sophie Solomon, artistic director of the JMI and internationally renowned klezmer musician.
"We're focusing on cross-cultural collaborations which see stars of the Jewish music scene creating and performing music with folks from other backgrounds, so we have Tantz with Guliano Modarelli on Indian guitar, Don Kipper with The Sabbey Drummers of Ghana and The Turbans with Cantor Steven Leas."
Other highlights of the festival include an event celebrating Yehudi Menuhin, a tie-in with the Jewish Museum and a commissioned multi-media piece from Jocelyn Pook, Drawing Life, a dramatised song cycle with film and video featuring poems and drawings by Jewish children imprisoned in Terezin concentration camp.
Yiddish is often seen as a way for secular Jews to tap into their roots but Gil Karpas is quick to emphasise that the JMI's focus on music as a cultural advocacy, "isn't just restricted to secular events and concerts. We also support cantorial music in our work with our support of the European Cantors Association, EAJL and the Reform Movement musical conferences and events."
At JMI events, he adds, "we have religious people coming to study Yiddish with us, we have secular Jews coming to connect with their identity through the culture and languages of their ancestry and not only the faith.
"There are many reasons that a wide range of people come to connect with the culture, language and history and, just as in the past, we have both secular and religious Jews existing alongside each other."
Yiddish is also interesting for non-Jewish people, he says, because it predates today's national borders. For non-Jewish people, it "offers insight into a civilisation that transcended modern-day boundaries of Europe but was inherently European.
"Public interest has never been greater in the work that we do.
"We feel very humble to have the privilege to work, programme and commission world leaders in Ashkenazi culture to express their love and wealth of talent to such an engaged audience."
