Tayere Khaverim,

Borukh Haboh to this newsletter!— If you’ve ever expressed interest in Der Tkhines Proyekt or my writing, or attended any workshops or zoom concerts, I’ve added you to this new newsletter. Please feel free to pass it on to a friend, or unsubscribe if this isn’t your cup of tea.

Before this gregorian year closes out, I invite you to make a tax-deductible donation to sustain Der Tkhines Proyekt here: https://donate.mazloweb.com/donate/H6nN17CWNjYHKsq5imTKCF

Your generous donation to Der Tkhines Proyekt makes the revitalization of tkhines possible. Der Tkhines Proyekt has big plans for this coming year: a new tkhines songwriting cohort, specialized tkhines workshops, digitizing resources about tkhines, planning a future album recording, creating new tkhines zines and supporting more tkhines lider (songs) being brought into the world! I’d love your help in bringing these plans to life. 

You can make a donation one time, or sign up to be a monthly sustainer. (Even $5 a month would make a tkhines class more accessible for one participant) 

I also want to share about a fundraiser for Palestinian farmers that I have known for many years from the West Bank. About a month ago, the IDF forced multiple farmers in Beit Ummar to cut down their own trees in order to grab and steal land intended for a nearby settlement’s expansion. The organization Al Sharouq is raising funds for community members and farmers in Beit Ummar who are in need of food and basic necessities, and is also buying and planting new trees with families whose trees were uprooted. Let’s support Palestinian survival and thriving as much as we possibly can. Please give a donation through PayPal: @JGranier17

An additional organization to support is The Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network (TASSN), which is a border abolitionist, direct action, and mutual aid collective, supporting trans and queer people seeking asylum.

Der Tkhines Proyekt - A Year in Review: 

-Throughout spring, DTP had a wonderful group of musician-yiddishist-songwriters participate in the 2025 Yiddish Tkhines Songwriting Cohort who created new tkhines lider (songs), which we performed on zoom. Please check out the new tkhines lider, which are about grief, joy, and resistance, on our soundcloud 

-Tkhines were performed and taught at KlezCummington. (I highly recommend checking it out next summer/ in the future!  Klezcummington is extremely heymish)

-There was a Tkhines course taught at KlezKanada this past year, which was very fun and experimental!

-Der Tkhines Proyekt collaborated with Shahanna McKinney-Baldon of Edot HaMidwest to continue rematriating and stewarding the story and life of Gladys Mae Sellers, aka Madame Goldye Steiner. Gladys Mae Sellers, was born in 1889 and raised in Milwaukee, WI. Over the course of her career, she performed in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, German, French and English. She participated in the “Cantorial Golden Age”, and Gladys Mae Sellers, aka Madame Goldye Steiner was the only Black woman to sing Jewish liturgical music at the time (that we know of today). Shahanna McKinney-Baldon raised funds with the Black Historical Society of Wisconsin to finally create a grave marker for Gladys Mae Sellers to give koved and honor her in life and in death, as all people deserve. Through our organizations’ collaboration, we performed a kever mestn/grave measuring ceremony with multiple participants and witnesses, and later on had a candle-making workshop with the wicks from the ceremony.  Shahanna recently brought Madam Goldye Steiner’s story to Yiddish New York while performing with other khazentes–  musicians working to revive women’s khazones (cantorial) and liturgical singing tradition.  Please check out The Return of the Immortal Khazntes to listen to Shahanna McKinney-Baldon and the other incredible artists!  Stay tuned for future collaborations between Edot HaMidwest and Der Tkhines Proyekt..

-There was a hands-on cemetery measuring workshop during Elul at Mount Carmel in Queens, NY which was co-facilitated by Kohenet Sarah Chandler, Eleonore Weill, Chelsea Simon, and der tkhines proyekt

-The bands A Glezele Tey and Brivele have been singing and performing tkhines while on tour. Both bands recently performed at Yiddish New York this year, and were incredible!

Please check out their music~ 

-The album Lider Mit Palestine was released this past year, and has thus far raised over 11K for Gaza Birds Singing and The Gaza Circus– two organizations that support culture, arts, and life in Gaza right now. Five of the seventeen songs on this album were created in the 2024 tkhines songwriters cohort. Last Thursday, we had a live concert of every song on the album at the Jalopy Theatre, and raised an additional 2.5K. The live concert was an emotional and powerful experience of collective mourning for the disastrous ongoing genocide in Palestine. 

Big thanks to Joe Dobkin, Isabel Frey, and Josh Waletzky for organizing the album and last week’s live performance.

Looking forward to the near future:

-Stay tuned for applications for the Spring 2026 Yiddish Tkhines Songwriting Cohort, coming soon

-More classes and one-off workshops

-An album of naye tkhines lider, ב’ה

Again, I invite you to make a tax-deductible donation to sustain Der Tkhines Proyekt, and to make a donation to Al Shorouq, which supports Palestinian survival in the West Bank, and to donate to The Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network (TASSN).

A hartsikn dank for reading through this newsletter!  Please feel free to email zogtkhines@gmail.com with any questions or comments. May it be a sweet beginning to this new year, filled with justice, disobedience, love, and solidarity. May it be a year where we intentionally make space for tkhines, grief, joy, action, wonder, and resistance.

Noam on behalf of Der Tkhines Proyekt 

Shkoyekh for making it this far <3

spontaneousprayer.com

Make a tax-deductible donation to sustain Der Tkhines Proyekt here: https://donate.mazloweb.com/donate/H6nN17CWNjYHKsq5imTKCF