Chava Alberstein
Calling someone her country's greatest singer would be a huge compliment to most performers. In the case of Chava Alberstein, however, it only tells a small part of the story.

Alberstein is undoubtedly Israel's most accomplished singer, having released over 54 recordings since the late 1960's, many of them now gold or platinum.  Alberstein is Israel; her development as an artist mirrors Israel's development as a country; her growing pains are Israel's growing pains.  Alberstein and Israel are even the same age and they both share a tiny but powerful stature.  But Chava Alberstein sees herself as much as a singer of the world as just a singer of her beloved Israel. "Even though I have lived in Israel nearly my entire life, I am constantly questioning my place in the world," said Alberstein.  "Maybe this searching comes from being an artist, maybe it comes from being a Jew.  I'm not really sure."

This bittersweet tension between the national and the universal is most evident in all of her recordings. From tender love songs to defiant songs about peace and oppression.  There are prayerful songs celebrating the beauty of the human form and more melancholy songs about loss, poverty, and solitude. 

In 1998 Alberstein released The Well, an album of Yiddish poems she has transformed into folk songs, with the renowned klezmer group the Klezmatics.  “In Israel, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone today composing and singing in Yiddish," she says.  "Some people still see Yiddish as the language of soft Jews who can't protect themselves.  But I believe I understands both the joy and depth of the language."

Yiddish was the mother-tongue of Alberstein's family in the small town in Szczecin, Poland, where Chava was born.  Her family moved to Israel when Alberstein was only 4-years-old, but Chava says she has never totally lost the feeling of being a stranger. "No matter where I am, even if it's in my own country, I feel like a bit of a guest," she said.  "People can appreciate this today, because they move around so much.  Every country you go to in the world is filled with so -called foreigners." 

Since the very first time she ever sang in public - a four-song set, which included songs in French, Spanish, Yiddish, and a gospel standard in English - Chava Alberstein has been a performer of "World Music." Chava has released more than 50 albums in Hebrew, six of which have been awarded the Kinor David prize, Israel's Grammy.  She has also released seven albums in Yiddish, and an English album of standards ranging from Gershwin to Lennon and McCartney. A dozen of the records have gone gold, six platinum, and one triple platinum.

Alberstein's early Hebrew recordings, with names like Songs of My Beloved Country,Beaches, and Like a Wildflower, speak to Israel as a fledgling country.  They are external, almost frontier. "Israel was like a little child in those days," Chava recalled.  "Discovering all the parts of her body."

"If we have a true folk singer, it is Chava Alberstein," Yediot Aharonot, Israel's largest daily newspaper said about Alberstein, naming her the most important female musician in Israel's history. With a half century of life and song under her belt, Chava Alberstein, like Israel, has come to understand that good art, like good state craft, is best achieved by looking inwards and outwards.  She is a singer who accomplishes that greatest, most precious rarity of all: she speaks for a culture, a tradition. “Everything is good only in the proper measure,” Chava sings in one of her songs.  It seems her career is yet to see tremendous achievements.   

Chava Alberstein’s album, Foreign Letters, produced by Ben Mink, was released on French label Naïve in September 2001 and in North America on Rounder/Universal.   Voices, A Musical Celebration, a Public Television concert special starring Chava Alberstein aired world wide starting November 2001. In September of 2003 a box set of Chava’s earlier recordings was released in Israel, including over 200 songs never before released.  Her album, Motzai Khag (End of the Holiday) was released to rave reviews in Israel and the US (Rounder Records) in January 2004.  The album Coconut was  released in Israel in March 2005. A new album, Lemele, in Yiddish, was recorded in the Czech Republic and was released this year in Israel.  An album of children’s lullabies, The Milky Way was released in Israel in 2006 and in 2007 her Human Album Nature was released.  Her recording capturing her live concert tour in Israel in 2008 was released last year, and a new album, Welcome to the World will be released this year.

This year Chava Alberstein is the recipient of an honorary PhD from Tel Aviv University for her 40 year long contribution to Israeli music and culture.  Chava is currently touring both Israel and all over the world, and performed a special concert of her Yiddish music with the Hamburg Philarmoniker this past April.

For more click here

Anat Atzmon
Engages in singing and acting. Received the Harp of David Prize for her film achievements: Eskimo Lemon (1978), Dizengoff 99 (1979), The Vulture (1981), Dead End Road (1982); for which she received an award from the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Sunstroke (1984), Shell Shock (1988), Double Edge (1993), and more. On television: Seven Days in Elul, Frank Sinatra is Dead, City Tower. In the Be'er Sheva Theater: The Beggar's Opera, Princess Tornadot. At Beit Lessin: Insignificance. At the Acre Festival: Lucky Strike. At the Cameri: Chapter 2. At the Yovel Theater: Rita The Teacher. At the Yiddishspiel: The Rothschilds, A Beautiful Girl, A Simple Story, Tevye the Dairyman,How to be A Jewish Mother in 10 Lessons,20 Until 120, She Was Not Here, Who is Who. Songs: In a Dream, and Cold Night and a Girl's Image. A third disc in the making: Love Corners.




For more click here

Fyvush Finkel
won the Best Supporting Actor Emmy Award for his role on Picket Fences. His first acting role was 51 years earlier in the numerous Jewish theaters along New York City's Second Avenue. Finkel's breakthrough to American mainstream theater came at the age of 43 when he joined Jerome Robbins' national company of the Broadway hit Fiddler On the Roof. He toured the USA and Canada, playing first the Innkeeper, then the Butcher and finally the lead, Tevya, over a 12-year period.

His additional theater credits include an Obie-winning performance in Cafe Crown and a five-year stint as the star of Off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors.

Finkel appeared in the feature films Nixon, For Love Or Money, Mobsters, Seize the Day and Q&A and several guest starring roles on Picket Fences. His additional television credits include the revival of Fantasy Island,Early Edition, One Life to Live, Evergreen, Prime of Your Life and The Simpsons. Between his film and television work, Finkel has appeared with sons Ian, a master mallet percussionist, and Elliot, a noted pianist, along with his grandson Abbot, a drummer, in two musical reviews -- Finkel's Follies, which Fyvush created, and From Second Avenue to Broadway, with Fyvush singing songs from both the Yiddish theater and Broadway.  In addition he has had special roles in more than twelve feature films and mini-series. Most recently he appeared in the Oscar-nominated film A Serious Man.  

Finkel was born in Brooklyn, NY.

For more click here

Frank London and his Klezmer Brass Allstars
Grammy award winning  composer - trumpeter - teacher FRANK LONDON is a member of  The Klezmatics, and leads his Klezmer Brass Allstars, whose CD Carnival Conspiracy was Rolling Stone’s #1 Non- English recording of 2006. Critic Stephen Fruitman writes, "Frank London is new Jewish musics’ heart, soul and yiddishe kop" and Seth Rogovoy calls A Night in the Old Marketplace  “the best Jewish musical since Fiddler.” His opera about the Soviet Yiddish theater, Green Violin, was performed in Amsterdam, St. Petersburg and at New York’s Jewish Museum. He has explored Jewish jazz with Hasidic New Wave, cantorial music (Hazonos and Invocations), and mystical music on tsuker-zis, Nigunim and The Zmiros Project, is Artistic Director of KlezFest London(no relation) and on the faculty at SUNY Purchase.






For more click here

Zalmen Mlotek
(Artistic Director of The National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene) is a leading figure andan internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theatre music, and has brought Yiddish-Klezmer music to Broadway and Off-Broadway stages and venues worldwide. He trained as a conductor at the Juilliard School and Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein, he served as musical director for Those Were the Days,the first Bilingual musical to be nominated for two Tony Awards. He was musical director and co-creator of Shlemiel the First, The Golden Land, On Second Avenue and others. He has been the force behind the Folksbiene’s revitalization for the past 10 years. He introduced the idea of supertitles for all performances, now in Russian and English, making our shows and concerts totally accessible. He has instituted children’s shows, staged readings and outreach groups that now present Yiddish theater (all with supertitles) to communities around the metropolitan area and throughout the United States. Zalmen Mlotek tours the country with an entertaining musical lecture about the Yiddish theater with songs and pictures performed from the piano, with a powerpoint presentation.

For more click here

Daniella Rabbani
is thrilled to be part of From the Golden Land to the Promised Land at Jazz at Lincoln Center. A member of the Folksbiene Troupe, Rabbani made her Off-Broadway debut as Elke in Gimpel Tam. Recently, Daniella has gone on to star in Israel Horovitz's MidEast Pieces at Theater for the New City. Daniella performed in The Folksbiene's star-studded galas at Town Hall and tours the country with Zalmen Mlotek singing Yiddish folk and theater songs. Daniella is currently starring in the La MaMa E.T.C. workshop series, RakheLeah: a New Musical Composed by Elizabeth Swados which she co-wrote with fellow Troupe member Rebecca Keren. This Spring, Rabbani returns to The National Yiddish Theater: Folksbiene's mainstage season with Hershele Ostropolye.

For more click here

Eleanor Reissa
is a director, choreographer, playwright, actor, and singer – in English and in Yiddish.

Direction -Broadway:  Tony Award Nomination for THOSE WERE THE DAYS, which she also choreographed and starred in.  

Off-Broadway Direction: COWGIRLS (Outer Critics Circle Nomination), SONGS OF PARADISE (Public Theatre), ECHOES OF THE WAR  starring Frances Sternhagen and Richard Easton at Mint Theater where she directed half a dozen plays, including SOLDIER’S WIFE (Drama Desk Nomination – Best Revival). Most recent - HOW TO SUCCEED at White Plains Performing Arts Center and DESPERATE MEASURES by David Friedman/Peter Kellogg based on Shakespeare’s MEASURE FOR MEASURE at NYMF.

 Regional theatres: Old Globe, Berkshire Theatre Fest., Marin Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Alaska Rep, and many others.

 As a Playwright: THE LAST SURVIVOR premiere at Northlight Theatre in Chicago.  Winner of the Dorothy Silver Prize; Finalist for Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

As an actor : YENTL; LOST IN YONKERS; EL GRANDE DE COCA-COLA; THE NATIONAL LAMPOON SHOW; (very partial list)

 From 1998 – 2002  Artistic director of Folksbiene Theatre, where she produced, directed, acted and sang.

Concert/Cabaret – ELEANOR REISSA SINGS ENGLISH at the Metropolitan Room; HIP HEYMISH AND HOT at the Houseman Theatre, Parker Playhouse.  Performances of her one woman show at international festivals including Warsaw Yiddish Festival, Israel, Amsterdam, and around the United States.

A Brooklyn girl and a product of the New York Public School system. Daughter of Holocaust survivors.

For more click here

Yelena Shmulenson
Her stage credits in Yiddish include five seasons with the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene.  For New Yiddish Rep: The Essence: A Yiddish Theater Dim Sum (which she also performed in Stockholm).  For the Joseph Papp Yiddish Theater: Ghetto Cabaret In English she did two seasons at the Ellis Island Theatre.  Fringe NYC: Bronx Express and The Unlucky Man In A Yellow Cap.  Performed in Frank (‘Klezmatics’) London’s musical of A Night In the Old Marketplace. the tour of Lady of Copper, and Off-Off Broadway productions of Flowers For Algernon, The Lilac Minyan, etc.  TV & Film: Life on Mars, Robert DeNiro’s The Good Shepherd, Romeo And Juliet in Yiddish, the Movie (scheduled for release this spring), and the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man. Upcoming: Fire At The Triangle for PBS. 

She is a winner of the Earphones Award for her recordings of Train to Trieste and Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl and Rosa for Highbridge Audio. 

Yelena emigrated to the US with her family in 1993. She is fluent in five languages.

For more click here

Dani Marcus
She made her Folksbiene debut as Malke (Mabel) in The Yiddish Pirates of Penzance. She went on to appear in A Yiddish Vaudeville starring Bruce Adler and Di K'sube directed by Motl Didner. Other recent credits include Olive Ostrovsky in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee with San Jose Repertory Theatre, and a co-production of Paul Gordon's Emma at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. Dani was nominated for a Kevin Kline Award for her performance as Harriet Smith in Emma.

Avram Mlotek
Avram currently learns at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School.  He is a recent graduate of Brandeis University, having majored in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies.  Avram has been performing publicly since age three and grew up speaking and singing Yiddish in the home.  Avram performed in the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene off-Broadway production of Kids and Yiddish for five years and has concertized in Israel, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Fort Lauderdale, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the Lambs Theatre off-Broadway.  Most recently Avram performed with the NYT for the CUNY series of Itsik Manger's Megilleh Lider.  Avram teaches at a number of Hebrew and Yiddish schools throughout the New York City area.

Marissa Mlotek
Marissa currently works in Campaign Finance, raising money for political campaigns.  She is a recent graduate of Brandeis University with a B.A. in Politics and a minor in Theatre Arts.  While at school, she performed in such productions as Thoroughly Modern Millie, Seussical the Musical, Anything Goes, Cabaret, and Aloha! Say the Pretty Girls.  A former Kids and Yiddish cast member, Marissa is thrilled to be returning to the stage to once again perform with her Folksbiene family.

Nimrod Weisbrod
Nimmy Weisbrod was born in Germany and raised in Israel. After serving three years in the military, he moved to the US to study voice and opera at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins. With Peabody opera Nimmy sang such roles as, Schicchi, Falstaff, Guglielmo and Harlequin. After finishing his degree, Nimmy was accepted to take part in Orlando Opera's studio program. With Orlando Opera Nimmy sang the roles of Masetto and Ping. Nimmy was a first place winner at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in Orlando FL and a third place winner of the same competition at the South East Region. Nimmy is thrilled to be taking part in this evening's gala and is looking forward to working with Folksbiene in the spring, performing the role of Berel in The Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyer.

Rachel Arielle Yucht
Rachel has been a member of the cast of Kids and Yiddish for the past 2 years & is honored to return to the Folksbiene stage for her 3rd time participating in the annual gala. Outside of the Folksbiene, Rachel is currently performing in Show-n-Tell, a new children's musical, so keep an eye out & bring the kinderlekh! Thank you to Zalmen & the rest of the Folksbiene family for every opportunity they have granted me. A very special thanks to my Tateleh for bringing Yiddish into my life.