MLK Day concert to include civil rights songs and Yiddish folk songs

The event will take place in a synagogue where Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

By Moishele Alfonso December 20, 2024

On January 19, 2025, the Stephen Rice Free Synagogue and the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene will celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a concert — Soul to Soul. It will feature Yiddish folk songs, civil rights songs, jazz, spirituals and theater songs. All Yiddish songs will be accompanied by supertitles.

The celebration is actually taking place in the very synagogue where Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke more than 65 years ago. The synagogue’s namesake, Rabbi Stephen S. Rice, was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and today it continues to advocate for social justice and equality.

Zalmen Mlotek, the artistic director of the Folksbiene, conceived Soul to Soul in 2010. The upcoming concert will include performances by a children’s choir from the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, Harlem’s IMPACT Repertory Theatre and the Abraham Joshua Heschel School.

Soul to Soul will explore the parallels between the Jewish and African-American experiences in the struggle for civil rights in the United States, including songs of protest against racism and antisemitism, while bringing a message of hope for the future.

You can purchase tickets here.

Moishele Alfonso is a Yiddish instructor at the Yiddish Book Center, YIVO and other institutions. His transcription of I.B. Singer’s book, Enemies: A Love Story, into standard Yiddish was published in 2022.

A message from our Publisher & CEO 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.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

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