Our Vision

KlezCummington is a homegrown festival dedicated to the creation and deepening of Yiddish diasporic cultures, serving as a vibrant community hub for contemporary Yiddish performance, musical exploration, cultural transmission and learning, resilience, and joy!

KlezCummington is hosted on Nipmuc and Pocomtuc land in so-called Cummington, Massachusetts on a beloved 14-acres stewarded by Northampton-based Judaica artist, sculptor, builder, baker, and KlezCummington co-founder Emmett Leader. Emmett has spent the past 15 years transforming the property— restoring the 100-year-old barn and bringing it to life as a community gathering space and functional work of art. Emmett's deep connection to the land as a holder of Jewish community and ritual embodies and inspires the spirit and vision that gave birth to KlezCummington.

As we do this important work of connecting to our own lineages through relationships to land, language, music, dance, and ritual, it is vital to support those communities that have stewarded this land on which our learning takes place, and to make sure they continue to have access to their land, their languages, and their lineages. We are committed to passing along a portion of the funds raised for KlezCummington to a local land-based, indigenous-led project called the Ohketeau Cultural Center in our neighboring town of Ashfield, Massachusetts. Please donate to support their important and vital work!

Land

Community

KlezCummington is a vibrant intergenerational gathering. We welcome people of all backgrounds and experiences. We envision a festival that nourishes our communal learning, deepens our connection to one another, and creates the space for flourishing artistic and cultural innovation grounded in Yiddishkayt.

We welcome families to attend! We will have family-friendly programming throughout the day.  

Past performers/instructors include Mamaliga, Burikes, Levyosn, Jenny Romaine, Christina Crowder,  Zoë Aqua, Mikhl Yashinsky, Ilene Stahl, Howard Ungar, Noam Lerman, Sam Coates-Finke, Ozzy Irving Gold-Shapiro, Adah Hetko, and A.C. Weaver. Visual Art installation by Emmett Leader.

Klezmer Music & Dance

The world of klezmer music (Eastern European Jewish music) is deep and rich. KlezCummington offers a context for musicians and non-musicians of all-ages (including children & families!) to attend klezmer workshops, jam and sing together, and enjoy concerts and dancing!

Integral to the festival is language! We are in awe of the way language can reveal and also transform the world. We are excited to invite Yiddish playwrights, Yiddish singers, Yiddish speakers, Yiddish learners, and Yiddish dabblers to the festival. We hold space for innovation and the creation of new cultural and artistic works in Yiddish and other Jewish diasporic languages. 

Yiddish Language & Song

  • Klezmer-Loshn: The Secret Argot of Yiddish Musicians [Led by Mikhl Yashinsky]

    Yiddish Tkhines Zingeray! [Led by Noam Lerman]

    Yiddish Song [Led by Adah Hetko]

Jewish Food & Baking

Nourishment is at the heart of the work we do. At KlezCummington we nourish ourselves and build community over shared meals, with fresh warm Jewish breads baked in a wood-fired oven and home-cooked dishes using local vegetables from neighboring Sawyer Farm. Alongside large quantities of borsht, slaw, and other diasporic delicacies, we invite community members to bring vegetarian potluck dishes to share, and many hands pitch in throughout the festival to braid challahs, shape bagels, chop vegetables, and churn homemade maple ice cream! 

Reach out to head cook Ariel Shapiro if you’d like to get involved in food preparations before the festival! 

Art Installation

The location site and barn of KlezCummington itself is a work of Jewish art, stewarded and envisioned by local artist Emmett Leader. KlezCummington showcases Emmett’s artistic installations (see below) that are so deeply connected to their context that they nearly appear to be integrated into the fabric of the barn itself.

  • Emmett Leader’s work Slonim Revisited is an installation that is a window into the world of Judaism and the Jewish Diaspora. It weaves two stories, one dealing with his youth in rural Vermont, and
 the other based upon the pre-World War II Eastern European Jewish shtetls of his grandparents and their ancestors. This installation is a visual feast made up of a wooden shelter with earthenware panels on the walls, a large pair of doors, clay ritual objects on wall pedestals and various clay and found items on mantles. The artwork uses a folk, vernacular style and the overall effect is of a barn shrine; a holy space within a rural setting.

  • A bowl is an invitation to conversation – an empty vessel to be filled .. or not… and with what? It’s the perfect ritual object to approach a year whose primary identity is to be empty of “business as usual” but full of possibility... Read More