T

he New Klezmorim is one of only two feature films produced about the late twentieth century revival of Yiddish instrumental, or Klezmer, music, and the resurgence of interest in Yiddish culture. Videotaped in 1998, the film captures this cultural movement during its most vibrant period of musical creativity and at a time when its stars were shining most brightly.

The Klezmer revival, as its known, began in the mid-1970s with a handful of young musicians, some in Berkley and others in New York and Boston, who studied the European Klezmer repertoire of the late nineteenth century and American Yiddish music of the early twentieth century, and formed new groups to present this music. The revival soon drew in dozens of Jewish, and some non-Jewish, players who found this new genre offered them great creative opportunities and a way to express something of their own distinctive culture within the homogenized landscape of popular music.

The film footage was shot entirely at the annual six-day KlezKanada Festival held in late August at a summer camp north of Montreal. The film features stellar performances by some of the greatest talents in Yiddish music: Adrienne Cooper (1946-2011), considered the finest female Yiddish singer of the time; Brave Old World, the klezmer revival’s first supergroup; Joshua Waletzky, perhaps the most gifted contemporary Yiddish songwriter, accompanied by Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss; and the late Bruce Adler, a superb singer and comedian presenting material from the Second Avenue era of American Yiddish vaudeville. In interviews with some of these and other performers, The New Klezmorim explores the history of the Klezmer revival and also examines the reasons for Klezmer music’s surging popularity with young people.

The film was the closing night pick at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in 2000 and was screened at a dozen other festivals. The New Klezmorim was broadcast on television on Bravo! Canada and on a number of PBS stations in the United States, including WGBH in Boston.