Jon Kalish is a Manhattan-based writer and radio journalist.
Jon Kalish
By Jon Kalish
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Israel News After 30 Years, First Klezmer Festival Founder Says ‘Mission Accomplished’
Thirty years ago, klezmer music was a dying art, played mostly by aging musicians at the occasional wedding or bar mitzvah. That started changing in the late 1970s with the klezmer revival, and especially with KlezKamp, one of the first klezmer festivals and a training ground for new artists. Now, KlezKamp, the annual festival of…
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News Professor Irwin Corey, ‘World’s Foremost Authority,’ Going Strong at 100
It is the view of “Professor” Irwin Corey — the self-described “World’s Foremost Authority” on practically anything — that if a man lives to be 100, he has the right to recite a limerick about farting at his birthday party, even if it’s inside a synagogue. So that’s what happened July 29, when Corey, frail…
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The Schmooze Comedian Irwin Corey Celebrates Star-Studded Centennial
Photo: Jon Kalish I suppose that if a man lives to be 100, he has the right to recite a limerick about farting at his birthday party, even if it’s inside a synagogue. Which is exactly what happened Tuesday night when Irwin Corey was greeted by scores of well-wishers at the Actor’s Temple in Manhattan….
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News Margot Adler, Witty NPR Correspondent, Put the Witch in Jewish
When Margot Adler, the longtime Manhattan-based National Public Radio correspondent, succumbed to cancer this week at the age of 68, I thought back to the mid-1970’s when she worked at the left-leaning radio station WBAI-FM. I was a cub reporter there, and when a clash between management and producers took the station off the air…
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Books Yiddish Tomes Go Digital With DIY Scanner
It’s a scenario that the Yiddish writers of yore could never have predicted, and yet by which they likely would have been tickled: Today, their work is being digitized with the help of a home-made scanner built by a former Baptist from Indiana who lives in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. As of mid…
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The Schmooze A Mandolin Orchestra’s Labor Roots
Photo courtesy New York Mandolin orchestra On June 1 the New York Mandolin Orchestra will celebrate its 90th anniversary at a concert in Manhattan. The repertoire ranges from a Vivaldi concerto to St. Louis Blues. Founded in 1924 by a Russian Jew named Samuel Firstman, the orchestra was initially affiliated with the Jewish communist newspaper…
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The Schmooze VIDEO: Jazz Genius in the City of Light
A friend of klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer recently stumbled on a mention of Behcet’s Syndrome, a medical disorder involving inflammation of the blood vessels. He joked that Krakauer seems to be suffering from Bechet’s Syndrome, an obsession with the American reeds player Sidney Bechet, who received great acclaim in the late 1940s. Krakauer has let…
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The Schmooze Podcast: The Best Hasidic Composer in Brooklyn
Over the past 200 years, the Modzitzer hasidim have become known for their beautiful melodies, or nigunim. Thousands of them, in fact. Today, 88 year-old Ben Zion Shenker is one of the most prolific, and respected, Modzitzer composers. For his latest album, “Hallel V’zimrah,” he teamed up with klezmer and bluegrass virtuoso Andy Statman. The…
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