A beautiful evening of Torah study with representatives from the groundbreaking Israeli organization BINA: the Jewish Movement for Social Change is coming to Der Nister!

We will make connections between the biblical story of Sarah's life (from Chayei Sarah, the Torah portion of the week) and Thanksgiving, and examine how gratitude, faith, and resilience emerge through Sarah's journey and how they resonate with the themes of the American holiday.

We'll also be joined by a pair of singer-songwriters who will connect the themes of the parshah in their music: Shep Rosenman and Nachum Peterseil, two soulful and poetic voices.

Wine and snacks will accompany the music and conversation.

Register here.

More about BINA:
For over 25 years, BINA has worked to advance Jewish pluralism and democracy in Israel and the Jewish world. We design and implement social and educational programs. These include year-long study and volunteer programs, workshops and seminars, life cycle ceremonies, and public events that empower Jews to take ownership of their Jewish identity and make a positive difference in their local community, in Israeli society, in the Jewish world, and beyond. You can find more about BINA on https://www.bina.org.il/en/

About Shep Rosenman:
Shep Rosenman is a singer-songwriter known for his engaging storytelling and heartfelt lyrics, blending personal experiences with universal themes. He is writing a song cycle inspired by the Psalms, which he releases as the host of the podcast, The Rest Is Commentary, where he dives into thought-provoking discussions on culture and creativity, inviting listeners to explore the deeper meanings behind art and life. 

About Nachum:
Nachum is an internationally touring Jewish singer/songwriter, song leader, and performer. His live performances bring communities together. 

Welcome to The Primordium book launch! Join Panui and Der Nister-LA for an exciting online event where we will unveil our latest masterpiece. Dive into a world of adventure, mystery, and magic as we celebrate the release of this epic masterpiece of Yiddish mystical modernism, Der Nister’s The Primordium (Der Kadmen, 1910) which takes the reader deep into the mind of God. Translated, Introduced and Annotated by Nathan Wolski With original Art by Tunni Kraus.

A kabbalistically-suffused, hyper-anthropomorphic myth about creation by a master of Yiddish modernism, Der Nister’s Primordium (Der Kadmen, 1910) takes the reader deep into the mind of God preceding creation, and narrates his precarious and tortured quest for self-consciousness and expression. Tracing the Primordium’s maturation across cosmic eons in the face of his own doubts and fear, and in the face of cosmic silence and nothingness, Der Nister’s Der Kadmen is a meditation on the dialectics of being and nothingness, and one of the boldest experiments in writing Jewish
myth in modernity. Critically annotated, adorned and unveiled by ten paintings, this bilingual edition will delight scholars of Kabbalah and Yiddish alike.

Reserve here

What experts are saying about The Primordium:

"A modernist Yiddish creation myth which feels equally Zoharic and Kafkaesque. A wild avant-gardetrip into the tortured mind of God. Wolski’s translation of Der Nister’s astonishing Yiddish proseand Kraus’s visual midrash are exquisite"--Melila Hellner-Eshed, author of A River Flows from Eden: On the Language ofMystical Experience in the Zohar, and Seekers of the Face: Secrets of the Idra Rabba

"A profound myth of Divine unfolding, of the dialectical interplay between Being and Nothingness.In his wondrous, sparkling translation, Nathan Wolski has made this gem of Yiddish literatureavailable to the wider world. Reading this short story takes you on a spiritual journey to the beyond".—Daniel Matt, author of Becoming Elijah and the multivolume,annotated translation, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition

Join us as we celebrate Simchat Torah with our friends at Temple Beth Israel at Highland Park. We’ll be dancing with the Torah and taking in the dramatic moment where we read the very end and the very beginning of the Five Books. No registration necessary.

Torah study, poetry and theater - followed by a festive musical gathering in Der Nister’s Sukkah!

Join us for an afternoon of Torah study, poetry, and theater at Der Nister, as we continue our journey through the poetry of the Five Megillah readings. Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), read in Ashkenazi tradition during Sukkot, is one of the most philosophical books in the Hebrew Bible, and its philosophy is rather shocking.

Hadar's Rabbi David Kasher will share his thoughts on Ecclesiates; Julia Knobloch will help us look at the poetry of the book. Rabbi Ye'ela Rosenfeld will direct a scene from Waiting for Godot — a fitting exposition of Kohelet's dreary themes.

Bring your lulav and etrog for our gathering in the Sukkah.

Take the subway to Pershing Square, or park near the LA Cafe on Spring.

RSVP HERE

On Monday, October 7th, TBI LA in collaboration with Der Nister Downtown Jewish Center will be holding a memorial service.

We will be lighting candles and offer prayer, music, poetry and room to be together.

Prayer and words by Rabbi David Kasher and Rabbi Ye'ela Rosenfeld.

Poetry by Julia Knobloch

Music by Judith Berkson, Gidon Shikler, Lihi Shadmi, Dave Wilder and more.

For security, registrations are required to attend.

RSVP HERE

Welcome to Kleztronica

Kleztronica, a place where archival samples of klezmer and Yiddish music combine with racing electronic grooves.

In this night of dance and song, we trace Yiddish radical history and culture, tied together by electronic frenzy.

Come sing in Yiddish, dance Yiddish dances, learn about klezmer history, and meet new and old faces!

This event is all ages and open to anyone.

Get your tickets here. Use code DERNISTER926 for a discount.

JewFace is the experimental, new play development wing of non-profit theater company ShPIeL Performing Identity based out of Louisville, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

Our Short Play Lab has developed 3 new plays by writers Lee Goffin-Bonenfant, Yvonne Cone, and Emily Nash. In a series of writing workshops, these playwrights developed extraordinary new short works based on the theme of Jewish horror.

Come enjoy witches, cleansing rituals, and soldiers at our second annual night of staged readings at everyone's favorite Yiddish bookstore/cultural center, DER NISTER on Sunday September 8th. The plays will be directed by Emily Chase.

There will be a reception before the readings from 7PM-7:45PM, with the performances starting at 8PM.

Tickets are $18 online and pay-what-you-can tickets will be available at the door.

Get tickets here

Are we possessed? In Yiddish folklore tradition, we release ourselves from possession by exorcizing the “dybbuk”, a wandering spirit that clings to our bodies and communicates messages from the dead. During this hour-long workshop, performance artist Julie Weitz will share stories about the dybbuk and introduce simple movement techniques inspired by Yiddish dance, as well as mystical rituals of exorcism. Participants are encouraged to dress comfortably and all are welcome!

The workshop shares research from Weitz's “Holy Names for Our Dybbuk,” a performance art project that reimagines a dybbuk exorcism as a movement-based ritual at sites of Jewish memory in Poland. The performance represents the culmination of Weitz’s extensive research during her tenure as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. Centered on revitalizing Yiddish folklore in Poland, Weitz employs collaborative performance strategies that intricately weave together Yiddish dance, song, mask, and storytelling at sites of Jewish memory. "Holy Names for Our Dybbuk" premiered at the 8th annual FestivALT in Kraków on June 30, 2024 and will be presented at The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw on September 25, 2024. 

For centuries, the dybbuk populated the Yiddish folktales of Eastern Europe, animating the dreams and waking life of daily Jewish existence before the Holocaust. During the interwar period in Poland, the dybbuk gained widespread attention after the myth was adapted into a play by S.Anski and produced by multiple theaters in Warsaw. Two years before the Nazi occupation of Poland, the play was turned into a Yiddish-language film by Michal Waszynski, which is considered the most important Yiddish film ever made. The Dybbuk featured original choreography by Jewish performers Judith Berg and Felix Fibich, who fled Warsaw at the start of the Nazi occupation in 1939. Almost a century later, Weitz picks up where these great Polish Jewish artists left off by returning to the lands of her ancestors to stage collaborative performances inspired by the dybbuk.

Get tickets here

Bio

Julie Weitz is a visual artist, writer and educator who accounts for the wounds and resilience of diasporic culture by creating embodied and collective experiences for repair. Weitz probes the potential for embodied performance art to activate concepts of diasporism and doikayt. Doikayt, meaning “hereness,” is a Yiddish organizing principle—popular in prewar Eastern Europe, it has re-emerged in the 21st century as a cultural and political framework for radical Jewish diasporism, standing in solidarity with global liberation movements. Weitz’s performance art practice animates figures from Yiddish folklore and uses the interactions between figures and sites—especially those where Yiddish culture was all but eradicated—to explore themes of loss and healing through a diasporic lens. She engages with caricature, folklorism, and emplacement to historicize her work in relation to past, present, and future developments in Jewish culture. Weitz is a Fulbright Scholar (2023–24) and Wallis Annenberg Helix Fellow at Yiddishkayt (2020–23). Her artwork has been exhibited at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco), Galicia Jewish Museum (Krakow), Jewish Museum of Vienna (Austria), LAND (Los Angeles), Lambert Center for the Arts (NYC), and Judisches Museum (Germany). She has been featured in Artforum, Art in America, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, BOMB, and Hyperallergic. Weitz received her BFA from the University of Texas and MFA from the University of Wisconsin. She is currently based in Krakow, Poland. For more information visit @MyGolem_is_here.

Image: Julie Weitz, Release Your Dybbuk, poster design by Beata Filipowicz

The Poetry of Despair

Tisha B'Av, which marks the destruction of both Great Temples in Jerusalem, is the saddest day in the Jewish Calendar. The traditional readings of the day - Eikha and various other poems of lament -  make it clear that one of the primary ways Jews respond to tragedy is with poetry. 

Following our Love and Redemption Poetry Salon last Passover, Hadar West and Der Nister are partnering again to explore the poetry of the Bible and to respond with the voices of contemporary Jewish poets. 

Please join us for a night of prayer – including the reading of Megillat Eikha - poetry and song as we hold each other through the despair of our history and our present. 

Register here:

https://forms.gle/bXdUtW88eiwX8nsy5

Join us at the Southern California Arbeter Ring Educational Center for a poignant commemoration of the Night of the Murdered Poets, honoring the lives and legacy of the Yiddish writers and intellectuals executed by Stalin on August 12, 1952.

This 72nd-anniversary event will take place on Sunday, August 11, 2024, at 1:00 pm.

The Night of the Murdered Poets saw the tragic end of 13 Soviet Jewish intellectuals, including renowned figures such as David Bergelson, Itzik Feffer, Peretz Markish, and Shmuel Halkin, who were falsely accused of espionage and treason. Their contributions to Yiddish literature and culture were immeasurable, and their unjust deaths marked a dark chapter in Jewish and literary history.

Our commemoration will feature readings of selected works by these martyred poets, providing a glimpse into their profound and resilient spirit. We will also sing songs taken from their writings, led by Ruth Judkowitz and Zach Golden. A candle-lighting ceremony will be held to honor their memory, followed by a moment of silence.

This event is an opportunity to reflect on the enduring power of literature and the importance of preserving cultural heritage. Light refreshments will be served, and attendees are encouraged to engage in a dialogue about the significance of these poets' work in today's world.

All are welcome to join us in paying tribute to the Night of the Murdered Poets and ensuring that their voices continue to be heard and remembered.

RSVP here

מוזמנים ומוזמנות לחנות ספרים קסומה בדאונאטאון לוס אנג׳לס,

להנות ממפגשים קבועים של קבוצת קריאה. המפגשים כוללים כיבוד ואת ספרי הקריאה ללא עלות. בואו להתחבר עם ישראלים בעיר באופן חווייתי ומעורר השראה.

https://forms.gle/cXmcVJUW1t2PzgB99

LOMIR ZINGEN! Join Cindy Paley (guitar, vocals) and Daniel Avidon (accordion) for an evening of Yiddish Favorites Old & New! Come ready to learn and sing along to the vibrant and colorful songbook of the Eastern European Jewry’s unique cultural history. The popular Yiddish folk songs of Itzik Manger and Mordechai Gebirtig, among others, are sure to stir your nostalgia. Newer melodies by Chava Alberstein, Michael Alpert and Arkady Gendler will remind you that Yiddish is timeless, thriving and meaningful even today. Songsheets in Yiddish transliteration with English translations will be provided.

This event is cosponsored by Der Nister & Yiddishkayt

Tickets are $15, get them here.

Make sure to park on Spring St. by the LA Cafe, or on Hill St.

Rabbis Zach Golden and Henry Hollander will give a talk about the Jewish History of Downtown LA, with a series of interesting people, places and Yiddish texts that illustrate the variety of Jewish experiences that were part of the community. 

The talk will take place at the Mark Taper Auditorium at Los Angeles’ Central Library.

Cabaret New Moon is back celebrating the life and work of the father of psychoanalysis - Sigmund Freud.

Freud was born on the first day of the month of Iyar, and as we celebrate Iyar's new moon we will be celebrating him as well.... and just in time for Mother's Day.

As always you can expect music, comedy, weird, wild and surprising acts and of course, lots of wine.

Doors open at 7, and the cabaret begins at 7:30.

Get your tickets today.

Park either on Spring near the LA Cafe or on Hill.

Looking for a chance to chat “af yidish”? We’ll talk about anything, from the latest shtikl narishkeyt to the tifste inyonim. Zach Golden will conduct it, but everyone is welcome to throw in their tsvey groshn, just listen, or zog a gantze megillah.

Our second meeting is at 11:00 am, Sunday, May 5.

Register to sign up. (You can also sign up to the Leyenkrayz with this form.)

Did you know that Der Nister is the name of a Yiddish writer and mystic? Read his work and many others in the original Yiddish with the Der Nister Leyenkrayz, or Yiddish Reading Group. We'll go around reading and translating great works of Yiddish art and culture, compiled into zines with vocabulary guides by our teacher Iris (Malke) Morrell and Aaron White.

Our second meeting is Wednesday night, May 1st at 7 pm at Der Nister, where we'll be reading Der Nister's story "A mayse mit a nazer un mit a tsigele" or "A Story of a Hermit and a Little Goat."

Register to sign up. There is no reading required in advance.

On the last day of Passover, as soon as the sun set and leavened bread was once again permitted, the Jews in Morocco would invite their Muslim neighbors to celebrate the first breaking of bread together. Mimouna, which means luck and good fortune, was celebrated with sweets, music and alcohol.

Join us for our first ever annual Mimouna party! There will be the live making of Mufletot (Moroccan crepes rolled with butter and honey,) Moroccan sweets, Moroccan music and dance and of course lots of wine. Come dressed in your favorite Kaftan! The party is free of charge. Register here.

Rabbi David Kasher and Julia Knobloch invite you to an evening of Torah study and poetry performances.

This evening at Der Nister is hosted by Hadar West Coast and Der Nister.

Sign up here.

Singer-songwriters Gidon Shikler, Duvid Swirsky, Chloe Pourmorady and Shep Rosenman perform songs they've written connected to Passover, plus some songs you already know!

It will take place Thursday, April 18th. Doors open at 7:30 pm. Refreshments will be served. Donations at the door suggested.

Park either on Spring by the LA Cafe, or on Hill.

Tickets here

Cabaret New Moon is back with a Purim celebration you won’t want to miss.

Our Klezmer Jazz band Shiri and the Shiribims featuring Dan Cantell is back with Purim songs and other tunes in Yiddish, Hebrew and English!

Also featuring:

Ventriloquism!! by Helen Day.

Emcee and Purin Shpiel by Josh Mann.

Burlesque! by Prix de Beaute.

Belly Dancing by Elizabeth Strong.

We’ll have Hamantaschen! and as always, lot’s of wine….

Tickets here

Accordionist and world-class Yiddish singer Jordan Wax @stopgolus will be joining us Sunday, March 10 at 7 pm at Der Nister for a special night of his original compositions in Yiddish. These songs come from his upcoming album.

Wax (דזשאָרדען װאַקס) is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and traditional musician based in New Mexico. For the past twenty years he has studied intergenerational music traditions with elders from a variety of cultural lineages in the Missouri Ozarks, Central Mexico, Northern New Mexico, and Greater Yiddishland.

Tickets are $18.

Park either on Spring near Der Nister or on Hill.

Doors open at 6:30 pm, Performance at 7 pm on Sunday, March 10

Register

Please join IPF Atid LA and Der Nister Book Club as we come together and expand our knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and current events. We will be discussing "Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai" by Matti Friedman. In October 1973, the poet and singer Leonard Cohen—thirty-nine years old, famous, unhappy, and at a creative dead end—traveled from his home on the Greek island of Hydra to the chaos and bloodshed of the Sinai desert when Egypt attacked Israel on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur. Moving around the front with a guitar and a group of local musicians, Cohen met hundreds of young soldiers, men, and women at the worst moments of their lives. Those who survived never forgot the experience.

Date: Sunday, March 10, 2024

Time: 1-3pm

Register

Join us for an intimate experience which will begin with an inspiring service led by Rabbi Rosenfeld and musicians Shiri Goldsmith and Dan Cantrell.

The guests will then be invited to the dinner table where we will all enjoy a fully catered Shabbat meal provided by Holy Grill.

While we enjoy dessert, an inclusive conversation will be led around the table in which we will explore aspect of Buber philosophy and offer our own thoughts and ideas.

Seats are very limited. Be among the first to join us.

Register

Traditions and rituals can give our lives meaning or drive us crazy. Join us for an innovative performance of professional storytelling and song that explores why we find comfort in repetition, struggle with bad habits and find magic by living life through the ticking of a clock. 

Brought to you by The Braid's NEXT Emerging Artists Fellowship. At Der Nister, Sunday Feb. 25, for its Downtown performance of their world premiere.

Get tickets

Join Henry and Zach for a traditional, egalitarian Shabbat service. Make the minyan and enjoy the beautiful, contemplative prayer space.