Di rayze aheym/The journey home

The piece was written based on Irena’s first visit back to Poland with her mother Rose, in 1983 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Irena had truly flown over the oceans, to visit the cemeteries, physically encounter the place of her birth, and observe the occasion where her father, Mikhl Klepfisz, died fighting.

She wrote the poem after her return home, looking out her window in the Brooklyn loft she shared with her partner Judy, and in their home in upstate New York.

From my first reading of Di rayze aheym, I noticed musicality in her short phrases, where silence and space are built into the text. Irena employs a strategy where Yiddish is translated into English, and then becomes a part of the vernacular of the poem. Irena is teaching us simultaneously in the richness of her experience she puts on the page, and in her Yiddish translations. Once translated, she uses these Yiddish words again in the poem, zi flit, vider a mol, and doesn't need to translate them again, because she has already welcomed us to her yiddishland.

I had thought to underscore Irena's recorded readings at one point, but her recitation is wonderful and complete.

This poem records how Irena could survive a genocide, and then integrate this fractured history into her adult understanding of herself. By moving through so much pain she arrives at her resolution to make a home. To live.

And here we are, in another terrifying moment in America, 2026. The particulars are very different from the Nazism of her childhood. But our work is clear. 

I hope this music brings you joy. 

I hope this music makes you feel. 

If this is your first introduction to Irena's work, I hope you will keep reading her poetry and prose. 

If you've known her work for decades, I hope this music feels like a fitting tribute.

Do, muz zi lebn. Here she must live. 

Here we must live. We must fight for our culture. We must create the queer resplendent inclusive yiddishland we want alongside our partners in liberation.

Avi Fox-Rosen

May 2026

So many people have contributed to make this album possible.

Thank you Irena Klepfisz for your poetry, your collaboration, and your trust. Thank you Suzanna Tamminen at Wesleyan Press for helping make the collaboration possible.

Thank you to my parents Karen and Mickey for your generosity and encouragement throughout. Thank you Izzy for helping me record the demos and for being endlessly enthusiastic about this project.

Thank you to each of the musicians for your artistry and commitment and for making the days in the studio focused and positive. And especially thank you Alicia for your enthusiasm for the project and iconic sound, and for consulting on the string parts. Thank you Carmen Staaf for playing the first shows and for encouraging me to fundraise for this project. Thank you Shmulie Lowenstein at Upper Deck for filming and editing the fundraising pitch video with patience, skill, and generosity, and for tirelessly recording our days in the studio.

Thank you Aaron Bendich and Borscht Beat Records for label support and coordination. Thank you Sarah Chandler for artist coaching and accountability when I needed it. I do not think I could have successfully run the fundraiser without your guidance and steady hand! Thank you to everyone who gave to the crowdfunding campaign. Thank you Ilya Shneyveyss, Sarah Myerson, Aaron Bendich, and Sam Day Harmet for your deep listens and thoughtful mix feedback. Thank you Yonit Friedman and Jenny Romaine for reading and editing the liner notes with care.

This album was made possible through a fundraising campaign I ran in June 2025. Over 150 people donated to support this project! Some donors are dear friends, some are family. Some are dear friends of Irena’s. Some are artists and musician colleagues. And all donors showed their belief in this project with material support. An earnest and heartfelt thanks to everyone who donated. All of you who supported at the Tsvayg / Branch level are David Wallin, Elizabeth Anisfeld, Astrid Mayer, Sara Shalva, Debra Caplan, Eddy Portnoy, Barbara Kane, Matt Darriau, Moishe Rosenfeld, Allan Tobin, Eric and Shari Fox, Suzanne Toren, Jesse Chevan, Sarah Myerson, Ilya Shneyveys, Jeyn Levison, Anita Altman, Mike Katz, Linda Gritz, my brother Benjamin Fox-Rosen, Hara Person, Rima Fand, Joey Weisenberg, Laura Punnett, Mark Hurvitz, Gregory Schneiderman, Feygele Jacobs, Barbara Kuby, Regina Rae Weiss, and Karen Shatzkin. Thank you! 

Irena Klepfisz taught Jewish Women's Studies at Barnard College for 22 years. She is the author of five books of poetry including Her Birth and Later Years: New and Collected Poems, 1971-2021 (winner of the 2023 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry; finalist for a 2023 National Jewish Book Award), Periods of Stress, Keeper of Accounts, Different Enclosures, A Few Words in the Mother Tongue, and a collection of essays Dreams of an Insomniac. She is one of the foremost advocates of the Yiddish language and its renaissance in the United States. Her work has appeared in Tablet Magazine, The Manhattan Review, The Georgia Review, In Geveb, Sinister Wisdom, Jewish Currents, and Languages of Modern Jewish Cultures.

Alicia Svigals is one of the best klezmer fiddlers currently making music, and she is a long time friend and collaborator of Irena’s. Alicia’s most recent release is 2024’s Fidl Afire. See Irena discussing this incredible photo My Jewish, Lesbian Experience of 2nd Wave Feminism and Yiddish Activism featuring Alicia and Irena marching proudly as “Lesbian / Gay Yiddishists / Freylekher Folk” in 1989 (along with Yankl Salant, Lorin Sklamberg, Jeffrey Shandler and others. wow!). Alicia co-founded the Klezmatics, and has collaborated with everyone from Itzhak Perlman to Taylor Mac to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Alicia and I have known each other for close to 20 years, but haven’t collaborated closely until now. And her contributions to this music are truly incredible. I’m honored to have her join this project!

Exhilarating jazz pianist and improviser Marilyn Lerner performs to acclaim internationally, from her native Montreal to Havana, from Jerusalem to Amsterdam and Ukraine. A prolific artist, Lerner’s work spans the worlds of jazz, creative improvisation and klezmer. She is active in Jewish music scene and has taught and led master classes at KlezKanada and Yiddish New York. She composes, arranges and directs music for the annual Dreaming in Yiddish concert in memory of the great Yiddish singer Adrienne Cooper.

Rima Fand is an incredible creative violinist and composer, and also a longtime friend! I played in the pit of  her puppet theater piece Don Cristobal, Billy-Club Man, back in 2011 and 2013. And she joined me in the pit for Fowl Play: Conference of the Birds just this last year. And I plan to join her in January 2026 for the debut of her opera Precipice. I’m excited to have Rima on board for this project!  

Zoe Guigueno is a wonderful bassist, multi instrumentalist, and performing songwriter, in addition to being a winter surfer from Canada’s Pacific Northwest! Zoe and I have been playing together on and off the last 10 years or so, and she’s another alum of Winograd’s Honorable Mentshn. Zoe holds it down, and I’m really excited to hear what she brings to this project! 

Jessie Reagen is an incredible cellist and longtime friend. Jessie has performed with some amazing artists including Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Gaslight Anthem, Ra Ra Riot, Mike Errico, Enya, Gòn, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, tap dancer Savion Glover, Natalie Merchant, Anat Cohen and Galeet Dardashti among others in various performances from Joe's Pub to the Met Ball.  She was excited to be a part of Adele's November 2015 concert at Radio City Music Hall (NBC) and the Adele Live 2016 tour and can often be heard in various Broadway musicals.

Jason Nazary is an incredible improvising drummer and great anchor for this project.