Internationally known Yiddish star Vira Lozinsky, an Ed Sullivan-style variety show and a tribute to The Barry Sisters will be featured at the 2016 Mameloshen Festival.

Who knew Ed Sullivan spoke Yiddish, even if they knew that his wife, Sylvia, was Jewish?

The organizers of the 2016 Mameloshen Festival of Yiddish Entertainment and Culture will be channelling Ed Sullivan’s spirit with the “Almost Ed Sullivan Yiddish Variety Show” on June 15, to kick off this year’s eighth Yiddish festival.

And, like the Ed Sullivan shows of old, notes Mameloshen program director and producer Kinzey Posen, the Winnipeg Yiddish version will feature a novelty act, along with the Yiddish song stylings of local talents Tracy Kasner Greaves, Richard Yaffe, Justin Odwak, Ian Dimmerman and the Gray Academy of Jewish Education choir.

READ: TDSB HOLDS FIRST-EVER TIKKUN OLAM FAIR FOR JEWISH HERITAGE MONTH

The novelty act, Posen says, will be Gray Academy Grade 10 student Gilon Lazar. “I caught Gilon’s performance at a Gray Academy talent show,” Posen says. “He was doing amazing stunts. He was balancing unusual things. For Mameloshen, he is going to try to set a world record for the number of hats he can wear on his head at one time. The record is 37, and he’s going for 40. The record is held by his friend Louis Stevens.”

Posen adds that Lazar also studies Yiddish at the school.

The second Mameloshen program, on June 22, will mark Vira Lozinsky’s Winnipeg debut. Posen notes that Lozinsky, who lives in Israel and has a dregree from Bar Ilan University in Yiddish literature and musicology, was born in Beltz, Monrovia, and began performing at a young age.

“Her parents, Mikhoel Felsenbaum and Nechama Lipschutz, were both involved in Yiddish theatre,” Posen says, “Her father was also a composer. Vira sings a lot of his songs.”

The festival program concludes on June 27, with a reprise Tribute to the Barry Sisters – once again featuring Shayla Fink and Debbie Maslowsky, portraying the popular Yiddish recording stars of the 1950s. Maslowsky is a longtime star of the Winnipeg stage and has performed numerous times on Winnipeg theatre stages in a wide variety of musicals and dramatic roles. Fink (along with Posen, her husband) was one of the original performers who made up the Winnipeg klezmer group, Finjan, and the couple frequently headline local community events.

“We last did a tribute to the Barry Sisters in 2010,” Posen says. “The response was incredible. I took some of the original arrangements from the recordings and had them arranged for our show. Everyone wanted more.”

He also commented on the charm that Fink and Maslowsky bring to their performances.

The annual Yiddish festival is brought to Winnipeg audiences compliments of the I.L. Peretz Folk School Endowment Fund and the Rady Jewish Community Centre. All shows are scheduled for the downtown Winnipeg Art Gallery’s Muriel Richardson Auditorium.

Last year, all the tickets sold out within a week of going on sale, and Posen expects much the same response this year.

For tickets, click here.