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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: KlezKanada and Ashkenaz Festival: How Zoom is helping to revive Jewish folk music in Canada
Description: KlezKanada and the Ashkenaz Festival are some of the largest Jewish and Yiddish arts celebrations in North America, and both are being held mostly virtually this year because of COVID-19. As the pandemic has upended cultural events around the country, so too has it forced these two renowned annual celebrations to figure out new ways to reach fans of Yiddish and Jewish culture.
Despite the hurdles, both events are gearing up for innovative programs this year, and organizers from KlezKanada have even said their audiences have grown in 2021, because technology has swung open their doors beyond geography.<...