The FIS and the Barbara and Aaron March Freilich Fund are excited to present an evening of klezmer music with the Strauss/ Warschauer duo

Dem Fideles Neshome: The Soul of the Fiddle
A Concert with the Internationally Acclaimed Strauss/Warschauer Duo

Hailed by the New York Times as “terrific,” Deborah Strauss (violin, accordion, vocals) and
Cantor Jeff Warschauer (vocals, guitar, mandolin) are sweet and soulful performers who draw
from klezmer, Yiddish, Hasidic and Jewish liturgical music and culture, adding their own original
compositions and song settings. Their music is grounded in tradition, yet thoroughly
contemporary. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear one of the most influential and beloved
klezmer groups of this generation.

The Strauss/Warschauer Duo Biography
Deborah Strauss (violin, accordion, vocals, dance) and Cantor Jeff Warschauer (guitar,
mandolin, vocals) are sweet and soulful performers who draw from klezmer, Yiddish, Hasidic
and liturgical music and culture, adding their own original compositions and song settings. Their
music is grounded in tradition, yet thoroughly contemporary.
For over 25 years, Deborah and Jeff have been at the forefront of the international klezmer and
Yiddish music scene. They were both longtime members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band,
one of the premiere groups of the klezmer revival, and have performed with legendary violinist
Itzhak Perlman on film and in concert.
As the Strauss/Warschauer Duo, they have performed to overwhelming acclaim in such diverse
venues as the Philadelphia Folk Festival, Great Britain’s Fiddles on Fire, the Jewish Culture
Festival in Cracow, Poland, and the Art of Yiddish in Los Angeles with the late actor and singer
Theodore Bikel.
Deborah and Jeff are Yiddish speakers, and have researched and collected Yiddish and Hebrew
songs and instrumental melodies since the 1980s. They lead some of the most popular klezmer
music, Yiddish song and traditional dance workshops throughout North America, and Eastern
and Western Europe. Both teach regularly at KlezKanada, Yiddish Summer Weimar, and the
Warsaw International Summer Seminar in Yiddish Language and Culture.
Cantor Jeff Warschauer is internationally renowned as a one of the foremost
exponents of the klezmer mandolin, as an innovator in the development of a
klezmer guitar style, as a soulful and expressive Yiddish singer and as a skillful and
inspirational educator. A graduate of the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the
Jewish Theological Seminary, Jeff is the cantor at The Jewish Center of Princeton, NJ. He is on
the faculty of Columbia University, and is a Founding Artistic Director and Senior Artistic Advisor
of the KlezKanada Institute for Yiddish/Jewish Culture.

Deborah Strauss is one of the leading klezmer fiddlers of her generation. She is also an award-
winning children’s educator and a highly regarded Yiddish dancer and dance leader. She has

performed with the Klezmatics and appears in the film, Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom
Aleichem. Deborah is co-director of both the instrumental music program and the dance
program at Yiddish New York and, with Alan Bern, is the author of Klezmer Duets for Violin and
Accordion, published in 2017 by Universal Edition, Vienna.