Virginia-based Yiddishists lead first Yiddish culture festival in Richmond
This is one of many Yiddish festivals that took place this year around the U.S., including Seattle and Albuquerque
Richmond Yiddish Week founder Samantha Shokin (left) with co-organizer Daniel Kraft. Photo by Vlad C.
By David Zakalik January 6, 2026
Virginia’s capital city is having a few big inaugurals this January. Not only will Richmond see the state’s first female governor installed; it will also be seeing the state’s first-ever Yiddish cultural festival.
Richmond Yiddish Week (RYW), running from January 10 – 16, will feature Yiddish music, poetry, dance and film. The grassroots festival, co-founded by two Virginia-based Yiddishists, Samantha Shokin and Daniel Kraft, has been in the works for the past six months.
Shokin, a seasoned veteran of Jewish cultural programming, originally set out to organize a concert for Brooklyn-based musicians (and Yiddish cultural power-couple) Ilya Shneyveys and Cantor Sarah Myerson, who are currently on tour with their new Yiddish musical project, Electric Rose. With a concert and workshop in the works, Shokin then decided to expand it into a longer event series and reached out to the only other Richmond-based Yiddishist she knew: Danny Kraft.
Kraft, a poet and Yiddish translator, also holds a Master’s from Harvard Divinity School and currently works at Yetzirah, a nonprofit devoted to spreading and cultivating Jewish poetry. Shokin reached out about collaborating on an event series, and Kraft suggested further program ideas, including a Yiddish poetry lecture/workshop, a Yiddish storytime event at the public library and a screening of the 2022 Ukrainian-Yiddish film SHTTL.
Shokin, who has worked for many years at Jewish cultural nonprofits in New York City, told the Forward that she felt a Yiddish cultural festival needed to be “on solid footing and meet high standards, in part out of a sense that Yiddish language and culture are not always accorded the care and respect they deserve.”
To that end, she formed a nonprofit LLC for the festival, obtained a fiscal sponsor and secured partnerships and co-sponsorships from local universities, eateries and community organizations, including event security assistance from Richmond’s Jewish Federation.
As far as Shokin and Kraft know, this festival is the first of its kind in the Old Dominion. (A brief fact-check only found evidence of an evening of Yiddish music in Richmond way back in 1981.) Richmond Yiddish Week is the latest in a growing number of new Yiddish cultural festivals popping up across the country— and notably, outside the New York Metro Area: Yiddish Folklife Festival of the Finger Lakes, Midwest Yiddish Fest, Seattle Yiddish Fest, KlezCummington, KlezmerQuerque, and hopefully District of Klezmer in our nation’s capital.
Richmond Yiddish Week hasn’t even begun, and the organizers have already been getting inquiries about doing it every year.
“People are asking me if this is going to be an annual thing,” Shokin told the Forward, “and it depends on the success of this one. This was an experimental pilot project, and we’ve already accomplished so much more than I expected.”
The full festival schedule, including registration links, can be found on its website.
