Join us for an afternoon of traditional Yiddish folksong and new classical works that explore Jewish life and historical experience, including reflections on the role of religion in creating Jewish identity. This is a repertoire which was born in Eastern Europe—where Yiddish was spoken for 1,000 years—and which came to the United States with Jewish immigrants, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In an American context, these songs take on a new meaning, becoming vessels of tradition and of identity for a community which largely acculturated and assimilated away from the traditional religious practices.