The Yiddish Folklife Festival of the Finger Lakes (YFFFL) is a new three-day arts and cultural festival in town taking place April 25-27, 2025 at the Lifelong Community Center downtown and other venues.
Featuring live klezmer music, folk dancing, a community potluck, cooking and cultural workshops, a nature talk, an academic lecture, an open mic, and other community events, this intergenerational, all-ages festival is open to the public, including those new to Yiddish music and culture.
SCHEDULE
FRIDAY, APRIL 25
04:30 PM - Not Written on Water: The Movement to Recover Women Who Wrote in Yiddish - A Lecture (Cornell U.)
07:00 PM - Community Potluck, Instrumental Klezmer Jam, Shabes Songs (Lifelong)
All are welcome to bring a potluck dish or beverage to this informal musical evening. Following a brief Kabboles Shabbos (Shabes evening blessings), guests are invited to nosh, shmooze, or play music.
The instrumental klezmer music jam will be lead by Rebecca Couillard and Ryan Zawelof the Klezmer Ensemble at Cornell University. All levels welcome! Please bring an extra music stand if you have one. Some printed sheet music will be provided and some tunes will be played by ear. Non-musicians are welcome to shmooze and dance.
To close the evening, Yiddish song leaders of the group Abi Gezuntwill lead us in a Shabes Tish (Yiddish songs around the tables including niggunim (wordless melodies) and Yiddish zmires (songs).
SATURDAY, APRIL 26
10:30 AM - Yiddish Nature Walk (Stewart Park; leaves from Lifelong at 10am)
02:00 PM - Dough: Sweet & Savory - A Jewish Cooking Workshop (Lifelong)
04:30 PM - Zingeray - A Yiddish Song Workshop (Lifelong)
07:00 PM - Community Open Mic (Lifelong)
SUNDAY, APRIL 27
11:00 PM - Jewish Paper-cutting Crafts Workshop (Lifelong)
02:00 PM - Yiddish Folk Dance Workshop & Klezmer Dance Party (Library Place Community Room)
FESTIVAL SUPPORTERS
We thank our partners: Klezmer Ensemble at Cornell University and Jewish Studies at Cornell University for supporting Yiddish Folklife Festival of the Finger Lakes!
We thank our funder: This festival is made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts,
administered by the Community Arts Partnership.
