As the vocalist and violinist for the klezmer supergroup Brave Old World, he brings Yiddish music to the masses worldwide. As an international authority on Eastern European Yiddish dances, he takes it upon himself to introduce long-lost movements to those who have never encountered the celebratory twirlings of their ancestors. As a scholar of the language itself, he is doing what he feels necessary to ensure that Yiddish is never forgotten, even as other languages are replacing it in Jewish homes across the world.
To Alpert these are all merely facets of his fictional society, segments that comprise his Yiddish universe. “It’s not just about playing the music,” he said. “It’s about playing the music, speaking the language, using the language, knowing the language. Yiddishland exists wherever Yiddish culture is practiced and celebrated.”
On March 24, Alpert will bring Yiddishland to Berkeley, as he leads “Soles on Fire,” a Yiddish dance party that will serve as the grand finale of the Jewish Music Festival. It will include music from an all-star ensemble, including Alpert, Stuart Brotman (bass) and Kurt Bjorling (clarinet) from Brave Old World, as well as a number of prominent musicians from the Bay Area klezmer scene.
During the event, part of the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center’s annual music festival, Alpert will also offer instruction in Yiddish dance. He will be leading participants using a calling style similar to that of American line or square dancing.
Through his bands Kapelye and Brave Old World, Alpert has spearheaded the decadelong American revival of klezmer music and Yiddish song. At the same time, however, he realizes that the old-time dances inspired by his music, drawn largely from Eastern Europe, have nearly disappeared from the domestic Jewish landscape.
As Jews worldwide sought to align themselves with Israel after World War II, Yiddish dances were quickly replaced by those with the more exuberant Israeli style, and are now, save for revivalists such as Alpert, in danger of dying out altogether.
The dances he teaches are distinct from the modern Israeli numbers (such as the hora) that have come to dominate American Jewish celebrations; they can be divided into two principal genres. The first is Jewish in nature, and involves such dances as the sher, the khosidl and the freylekh, the familiar circle dance still performed at American Jewish weddings, with the bride and groom or other family members carried aloft on chairs in the center of the ring of celebrants.
The dances of the second category originate from Ukraine, Romania and Hungary, appropriated by the Jews of the region and eventually brought to the United States. These dances include the bulgar and sirba, Romanian line dances that are predecessors to the Israeli hora, and the zhok, a slow, majestic Romanian circle dance.
Of these, Alpert’s favorite is the sher, which involves groupings of four couples who dance, in turn, with their partners, with the group and individually. The sher migrated from Eastern Europe in the 18th century and has been transformed domestically into the square dance — so Alpert’s method of calling out “instructions” is not so distant a concept, after all.
The beauty of the dance, he said, is it creates a collective sensibility that emphasizes community. “During that dance people act as a group, as a circle or as a set of four couples,” he said. “To me, that’s a very Jewish thing. It allows for the individual to exist within the community in a variety of ways, while allowing everybody to be together at the same time.”
Alpert, who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking Los Angeles household with a father from Lithuania, bases most of his teaching on his own field research, conducted with Jewish emigres from Eastern Europe. Speaking in Yiddish, he interviews them about the dances from their native villages, integrating much of what he learns into his own repertoire. “I’ve done a great deal of ethnographic interviewing of older singers and musicians, and I began interviewing the same people about dance,” he said. Among his questions: “What’s the sher that you did in your town? What are the variations?”
The variations will be on display for all to learn on the closing night of the Berkeley Music Festival, with the mayor of Yiddishtown at the helm.
“It’ll be a chance to hear some great, old-time klezmer music,” said Alpert, “and to learn some dances that our families did in Eastern Europe and brought to America.”
“Soles on Fire: a Community Klezmer Dance Party,” will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 24 at the International House, U.C. Berkeley, 2299 Piedmont Ave. $16 general, $14 BRJCC members, seniors, students; $10 children 7 to 12. Information: (925) 866-9559 or www.brjcc.org