Album Review: Klezmer Shack
by Ari Davidow, July 2026
At this year's Yiddish New York, it became clear to me what a large presence the young Yiddish punk-folk "neo-Bundist" activists have within this world of modern Yiddish. I would argue that there has always been such a presence, but never has it been more visible nor more vital. Yiddish was the language with which many Jews of Eastern Europe (many of whom migrated to di goldene medina, America, starting with the pogroms in the 1880s) mediated their encounter with modernity. Assimilation, the Holocaust, and the post-Holocaust turn by world Jewry to Israel and Hebrew created a breach in that dialogue. With the "klezmer revival," it was resumed, and post 10/7 (and Israel's horrific response) Yiddish is again a noticeable force in the Jewish encounter with the world.
Brivele go back much further than 10/7. I remember encountering them pre-pandemic in a small cafe near Boston, MA. I wrote: "A new generation of Yiddish punk folk singing has arrived and it is really, really good." This new release can only enhance that reputation. If the Jewish Bund were revived, Brivele would be the band leading the march against oppression, from eviction and the housing crisis, to the notion that "Amerika" is the "goldene medine" for all, and yet, there is still that dream given voice by Langston Hughes:
O, let America, America, America be America
The land that never yet has been
O, let America, America, America be America
A land where everyone is free.
Elsewhere, the duo sings Earl Robinson's "Joe Hill" (af yiddish) and Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" and with a delightful "eggcorn" (misheard lyric) turns Chava Alberstein's "Di Krenitse" to a statement against the anti-immigrant panic that has gripped so much of the world (the United States, too, in ways that have greatly endangered our democracy).
From the desert blows a breeze
across the burning sands.
Through the ruins, girls are walking
with the truth in their hands.Pale and paler grows the moon
above a drumming band.
Where the rule of law does not apply
and the truth is tacitly falsified
and mass death is simply justified,
closed borders dot the land.
Many of the songs Brivele have recorded here have long lineages, pulled and adapted from country to country, language to language, to meet the struggles of the moment (see song credits, below). Like The Klezmatics, Daniel Kahn, Josh Waletsky, Jordan Wax, Ira Khonen Temple, and so many others, Brivele are providing the soundtrack and documenting our hopes and times, and determination. As Billy Bragg exclaimed at a concert I attended recently, "the right music enables us to believe that change is possible." Now it's on us to go out there and change things for the better.