42 | APRIL 20 • 2023 

ARTS&LIFE
FILM

T

wo entertainers with strong ties to 
Michigan will be appearing at this 
year’s Lenore Marwil Detroit Jewish 
Film Festival, which runs April 27-May 7 
at the West Bloomfield Jewish Community 
Center (JCC) and has repeat screenings May 
8-9 at Emagine Royal Oak.
Mikhl Yashinsky, who grew up in 
Michigan, will be showing and singing 
Yiddish film songs with a klezmer quartet, 
and Seth Kramer, who spends summer 
vacations with in-laws living along a 
lakeshore in the state, will be discussing the 
documentary he edited giving attention to 
Israeli baseball and beyond.
Both presenters will be sharing in two 
milestones for this year’s events — the 25th 
anniversary of the festival and the world-
visible 75th anniversary of the State of 
Israel. Getting back to presentations beyond 
COVID, there will be no zoomed showings.
In an opening night special presentation, 

Yashinsky will work with the group Isle of 
Klezbos, a New York band featuring Eve 
Sicular, bandleader and drummer; Shoko 
Nagai on piano and accordion; Reut Regev 
on trombone; and Alex Parke on clarinet.
“Eve’s unearthed a lot of remarkable 
numbers from Yiddish films,
” said 
Yashinsky, 33, now a writer, translator and 
performing freelancer in New York who 
recalls appearing in productions at the 
JCC while a student at the Frankel Jewish 
Academy. 
He was in a staging of Fiddler on the Roof 
while attending Frankel and accepted a later 
professional role in the Yiddish version of 
the play outstate.
“Eve has taken the songs from their 
context and made them into stand-alone 
pieces of music to be played and performed 
on a stage,
” he continued. “Our presentation 
is called ‘Hidden Musical Gems from 
Yiddish Soundtracks.
’ 

Lenore Marwil Detroit Jewish Film Festival offers 
a variety of subjects for movie lovers.

Yiddish Film Songs, 
Israeli Baseball 
and More

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Seth 
Kramer

Isle of 
Klesbos

Israel Swings for Gold