Nusakh Vilne Memorial

Annual Nusakh Vilne Memorial Program Lecture & Concert In Person: Admission: Free Registration is required. Register Zoom Livestream: Admission: Free Registration is required. Register

Join us in commemorating the Jewish community of Vilna through poetry, music, and presentation. This year, Bret Werb will discuss Shmerke Kaczerginski’s work collecting songs of the Holocaust. A mini concert featuring musical settings of Kaczerginski’s poetry performed by Temma Schaechter and Binyumen Schaechter will follow Werb’s presentation.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

About the Participants

Bret Werb is a long serving music specialist and recorded sound curator at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Bret Werb has contributed to scholarly books and periodicals, produced recordings of ghetto, camp, and resistance songs, and collaborated on numerous theatre, film, and concert projects. He holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from UCLA.

Temma Schaechter is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She has performed since she was three, appearing on four continents as half of Di Shekhter-tekhter. She was featured in a documentary film, When Our Bubbas and Zeydas Were Young: The Schaechter Sisters on Stage, which was presented at the Montreal International Yiddish Theatre Festival, Miami Jewish Film Festival, and Toronto’s Ashkenaz Festival. In her original music, Temma draws on her diverse backgrounds in Yiddish, folk, jazz, indie, musical theater, and classical music. In May 2024, she sang at Carnegie Hall with the Philadelphia Orchestra Symphonic Choir.

Binyumen Schaechter is an award-winning composer, arranger, conductor and pianist, both of American musical theater as well as Yiddish music. He is the conductor of the acclaimed Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus, which performs exclusively in Yiddish. His singable Yiddish translations of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “Auld Lang Syne,” and “Over the Rainbow” are on YouTube, as are his choral arrangements of “Partizaner-himen,” “Afn veg shteyt a boym,” and a jazzy Yiddish “Dayenu.” He leads workshops and lectures on Yiddish music and culture (including “Ashkenazic Family Names: What Our Names Mean About Our Families”) and growing up speaking Yiddish in contemporary America.