Annie Gottfried Cohen

Today’s episode should have been a halloween episode! This time, Dan sits down with Historian, Yiddishist, singer, and messenger of deep Jewish ritual practices, Annie Gottfried Cohen! Annie is based in the UK, teaches Yiddish through the Workers Circle, and has sung with Cantor Rachel Weston, the Isle of Klezbos, and on her own Yiddish translations of folk and pop songs with Mikhl Yashinsky and our very own producer Beila Ungar! Alongside all that work, Annie created the website pullingatthreads.com, an incredible resource documenting the ritual practices of Jewish Women, especially but not limited to “Cemetery Measurers” and Klogerins or “Mourning Women”.

After Dan and Annie discuss their journey’s into Yiddish and discover many parallels in their Jewish stories, they turn to these women and their practices that peer beyond our physical world in to realms we might even call supernatural. Annie describes the process and the experience of uncovering the powerful stories of women who fulfilled communal roles like speaking with the dead, that beautifully enrich and complicate many standard narratives about our Jewish past. There’s talk of superheroes, of how to connect to our ancestors, of magic, and measuring cemeteries in Lithuania, and what all those big and impossible ideas might mean for us in the present.

We also root this conversation in our horror and opposition to the genocidal devastation of Palestinian life that continues to happen in Gaza and in the West Bank, alongside many other horrible acts led by the US, the Israeli government, and other imperial powers around the world. In light of that, we are asking for your help supporting a campaign that Annie helps lead to to assist Mohammed Abdel Gatah Kamel Haggag, along with his multi-generational family, survive in a devastated and intensely dangerous Gaza Strip, Palestine.

Music on this episode:

1. Annie’s latest translation, der mantshester vanderer (the manchester rambler, a radical British folksong about “the right to roam”), performed with Jess and Benji from Edinburgh Klezmer band Och Vey

2. Poor Man’s Akdomoys – Isle of Klezbos Yiddish Silver Screen Album featuring Annie Gottfried Cohen and Rachel Weston

3. Abi Gezunt – Isle of Klezbos Yiddish Silver Screen Album featuring Annie Gottfried Cohen and Rachel Weston

Radiant Others is produced by Dan Blacksberg and Beila Ungar.Please support our work and help us bring more Radiant conversations into the world at https://www.patreon.com/RadiantOthers, and https://tiptopjar.com/RadiantOthers