Summer Schools

Head of Faculty
Helen Khayele Beer is head of Yiddish faculty for JMI’s Ot Azoy! London and was the William Margulies Lecturer in Yiddish, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. She has taught Yiddish at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and is a veteran of Yiddish Intensive Summer Courses in Oxford, Brussels, Paris.

Sonia is one of the most sought after and popular teachers of Yiddish in Europe. A mainstay of Ot Azoy! her teaching is enjoyed by young and old who find her methods extremely engaging and effective.

A Yiddish teacher who teaches at the Jewish Music Institute’s summer programme Ot Azoy!, at Leo Baeck College, with synagogues, and privately. He has led workshops in Yiddish poetry online and at the Shtetl Berlin Festival. He is one of the organisers of the group Yiddish House London and of the annual residential Yiddish Sof Vokh UK. He has studied Yiddish at University College London and at summer programmes in Tel Aviv and Berlin.

Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and I specialise in Yiddish Studies and Holocaust Studies. The Co-I in the Swedish Research Council funded project ‘Witnessing for the Future. Holocaust, Sweden and Forgotten Early Testimonies’ (2024-2026) led by Professor Andrej Kotliartchouk and in cooperation with Associate Professor Karin Kvist Geverts, director of the Institute for Holocaust Research in Sweden IHRS.

Shura Lipovsky is a highly valued performer of Yiddish song. A writer and composer of new Yiddish songs, she appears as a singer and storyteller in Europe, Scandinavia, Israel, Russia, the United States and Canada with numerous celebrated recordings and performances to her name.

Zalmen Mlotek is an American conductor, pianist, musical arranger, accompanist, composer, and the Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (nytf.org ), the longest continuous running Yiddish theatre in the world. He is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theater music and a leading figure in the Jewish theatre and concert world.

Polina Shepherd is one of the first generation of musicians of the Yiddish revival scene in Eastern Europe: acting as a programme director, educator and performer she has been involved in festivals, conferences and seminars globally. Now living in Britain, Polina leads four choirs and continues to tour internationally as a Yiddish and Russian singer.

Head of Faculty
Susi Evans is Head of Faculty at Klezfest London and has taught and performed at all the major international klezmer festivals including Yiddish New York, KlezKanada and Yiddish Summer Weimar.
Susi is a founding member of She’koyokh and features as an in-demand and integral musician across the international music scene.

Alan Bern is the creator and artistic director of Yiddish Summer and co-founder and chairman of other music e.V., both based in Weimar, Germany. A pioneer of the American klezmer revival, he is a composer/arranger, pianist, accordionist, educator, cultural activist and philosopher. He is co-founder and director of Brave Old World, founder and director of The Other Europeans and Diaspora Redux.

Sayumi Yoshida first learned Yiddish dance in 1989 with Michael Alpert and Brave Old World. She has also studied with Zev Feldman and many others. She has led workshops in Yiddish dance and Dance ball at Yiddish Summer Weimar (since 2013), Shtetl Neukölln Berlin (since 2015) and Yiddish Academy Tokyo (since 2014).

John MacNaughton is a woodwind specialist based in London, specifically interested in exploring traditions from the Pale of Settlement (Klezmer and co-territorial), and the Balkans. As an educator, John has extensive experience teaching Klezmer music, having tutored students at BA and Masters level and has also directed the SOAS (University of London) Klezmer band from 2015-2019.

Anna Lowenstein has gigged, toured and taught across London and the UK, is fast becoming one of the UK’s most sought after performers and teachers of the Klezmer fiddle style – appearing in the 3-month run of highly critically acclaimed production of Indecent alongside Musical Director and Clarinetist Merlin Shepherd, performing widely as part of Klezmer trio Loshn and teaching at The Jewish Music Institute’s Klezfest London