Klezmer star Daniel Kahn to receive the 2023 ‘Dreaming in Yiddish Award’

The award, in memory of the inspirational singer and activist Adrienne Cooper, will be presented at the Yiddish New York Festival.

Courtesy of Daniel Kahn

By Forverts Staff November 12, 2023

Daniel Kahn, the Detroit-born, Hamburg-based Yiddish troubadour, is this year’s recipient of the prestigious Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Award. The ceremony will take place at the Yiddish New York Festival in December.

Daniel Kahn performs klezmer and folk ballads in Yiddish, most notably with his band, The Painted Bird. He’s also acted in theatrical productions, playing Perchik in the Folksbiene’s hit show “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish”; Biff in the New Yiddish Rep’s “Death of a Salesman,” and the badkhn (traditional wedding entertainer) in the Netflix series “Unorthodox.” He works frequently as composer and actor at Hamburg’s Thalia and Berlin’s Gorki Theater and co-founded the Yiddish cultural festival, Shtetl Berlin.

Kahn also helped produce several Forverts videos over the years. In 2016, he recorded his Yiddish translation of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” which received over 2 million views on YouTube. In a 2020 clip he sings his translation of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall be Released” and in a 2021 YouTube video, he performs a Yiddish version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” which he co-translated with Linda Gritz and several other Yiddishists.

Kahn is the 12th recipient of this award. Among the previous honorees were Michael Wex, Irena Klepfisz, Nikolai “Kolya” Borodulin, Shane Baker and Rokhl Kafrissen.

The award ceremony and concert will take place at Hebrew Union College in Manhattan at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 27 as part of the Yiddish New York festival. To get tickets, click here.

Rukhl Schaechter and Zach Golden are the staff of the Forverts, the Yiddish Forward.

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