Israel and American Jewish Week to Be Held in Washington in June

Israel and Italy will share the celebration of the opening week of the 12-week Festival of American Folklife starting this week in Washington’s mall as part of the nation’s Bicentennial observance, Cultural artists from 25 countries will participate in the presentations. Israel and Egypt are the only Middle East participants.

“Jewish Folkways in America and Israel” will be the festival’s inaugural theme. Israeli and American Jewish aspects will be presented June 16-20. No offering will be given on the Sabbath, June 19.

Cultural groups in New York, Baltimore and Washington will take part in the program that will include music, dancing and workshops on children’s folklore, Yemenite bridal dresses, shofar making, weaving of tsitsim, liturgy and East European papercuts. The Washington “Kosher Kitchen” will provide food.

WIDE VARIETY OF PRESENTATIONS

Israeli participation will include Yemenite, Moroccan and modern Israeli music and dance, Kurdish, Ladino and Ashkenazi groups will exemplify Jewish traditions. A Torah scribe, a Succoth builder and a folk painter and traditional wedding musicians will take part.

In the programs on the folkways of immigrants to America, the Jewish element will include both the East European and the national culture of modern Israel. It was explained that this distinction results from the fact that unlike Polish-Americans or Italian-Americans, there is no corresponding “Israeli-Americans” national or ethnic entity in the American immigrant tradition.

Barbara Kirschenblatt Gimblett, professor of folklore at the University of Pennsylvania, who is also associated with YIVO, has been selected as the expert for the Jewish folkways program. She is aided by the Folklore Research Center of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Israel Museum, Haaretz Museum of Ethnography and Folklore in Tel Aviv and many individuals.