Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Yiddish World

Violinist Deborah Strauss wins 2024 ‘Dreaming in Yiddish Award’

The award, named after the late singer Adrienne Cooper, supports artists who have contributed to the Yiddish cultural scene.

Deborah Strauss, the widely praised klezmer violinist and educator, is this year’s recipient of the prestigious Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Award. The ceremony will take place at the Yiddish New York Festival in December.

Adrienne Cooper was a popular Yiddish singer, musician and activist who was integral to the revival of klezmer music. The Dreaming in Yiddish award supports artists who have contributed to the contemporary Yiddish cultural scene.

Since the mid-1980s, Strauss has found her life’s passion in the world of Yiddish music and culture. Raised in a traditional home filled with European cantorial music, family melodies, Ashkenazic liturgy, Hasidic nigunim and Jewish art song, Strauss’ childhood paved the way to a deep connection to klezmer and Yiddish music.

Strauss was a member of the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble; was featured in the Emmy Award-winning film Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler’s House, and was a member of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. She is also in a duo with her husband, guitarist, mandolinist and singer Cantor Jeff Warschauer, and the two have been performing, recording, and teaching together worldwide for nearly 30 years.

Strauss is also a highly regarded Yiddish dancer and award-winning children’s educator who has taught Jewish culture, history, and music at the Workers Circle Yiddish secular schools for more than 20 years.

Previous honorees of the Dreaming in Yiddish award include Shane Baker, Michael Wex, Nikolai “Kolya” Borodulin and Rokhl Kafrissen.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version