The Ashkenaz Festival, a showcase for klezmer and Yiddish music and culture that has evolved since 1995 to include theatre, film, dance and art, can now add a showcase of Jewish food to its offerings.

“This year, there’s an entire program stream devoted to Jewish food. I can’t believe we’ve never done it before because it is so central to Jewish culture,” said Eric Stein, the artistic and executive director of the biennial festival, Aug. 30 to Sept. 5 at the Harbourfront Centre and in York Region.

“You see so much Jewish cultural renewal happening through food and it’s a multi-generational thing.”

He said as part of the 11th festival since 1995, eight presenters will offer a combination of lectures, food demonstrations and tastings.

“There are chefs and restaurateurs – people like [Caplansky’s Deli owner] Zane Caplansky, [Free Times Café owner] Judy Perly. We’re bringing someone… who is a 30-something, Brooklyn Jewish hipster who has a business called The Gefilteria and she is releasing a cookbook that is all about invigorating Jewish heritage foods for the 21st century,” Stein said.

“We have another interesting guy named Michael Twitty who does something called Kosher Soul. He is an African-American Jew and he mixes black food with Jewish food. He’ll be doing a demo of black-eyed pea hummus.”

The festival, featuring more than 90 events and 250 artists from North America, Israel, Europe and even Japan, opens in Richmond Hill with the Grammy award-winning Klezmatics. The band is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a new CD-release concert at the Richmond Hill Performing Arts Centre.

“They’re probably the world’s most famous klezmer band and the only klezmer or Yiddish roots group to win a Grammy award. They are probably the poster people for the acceptance and popularity of eastern European Jewish roots music,” Stein said.

Stein also highlighted two theatre productions, one of which is a Yiddish adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Salesman or Toyt Fun a Seylsman, at the Toronto Centre for the Arts from Aug. 31 to Sept. 10.

“I saw this show in New York in the fall and I was really quite taken by it and thought it was such an inventive way to interpret such an iconic play and in such a fresh, new way.”

We Keep Coming Back: Deconstructing Jewish Polish Narratives is another play that will be presented as part of the festival

“It’s basically a neurotic Jewish boy story. He and his mother take a trip to Poland to try to work out their issues, which are in large part related to post-Holocaust trauma that is in their family line.”

Stein said he’s excited about the return of the “Jewish-funk super group” Abraham Inc, which features klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer, Montreal-based Yiddish hip-hop artist Socalled and the legendary funk trombonist Fred Wesley, who is best known for his work with musicians James Brown and George Clinton.

“They were here in 2008, and this is now the fifth festival that I’ve directed, but this is the first time in the five different festivals that I’ve ever repeated a non-local artist. Especially because our festival is every two years, it creates a nice opportunity to start bringing things back.”

Another draw is a Japanese klezmer band called Jinta La Mvta.

“One of the things they illustrate is how powerful and successful this whole klezmer revival thing has been over the last 30 years. The fact that you have non-Jewish Japanese people playing klezmer music is pretty amazing.”

In addition to the numerous performers and productions, there will be two themes at the festival. This year, Ashkenaz will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Yiddish author and playwright Sholom Aleichem’s death.

“We’re also observing the 500th anniversary of the creation of the Venice Ghetto, the world’s first Jewish ghetto. The interesting thing about it is that when people hear ghetto, they think negatively right away, that it was a place where Jews were constrained and persecuted. But we’re trying to show… that as much as those were walls that kept them in, they were walls that kept things out and allowed the Jewish community to flourish and created a crossroads for Jewish communities to come together.”

Stein added that they are also launching a new artist-in-residence program in honour of musician Theodore Bikel, who died last year.

“He was one of the biggest advocates and greatest presenters of Yiddish culture and Jewish music and acting over the last century. So we established this position as a way to honour his value as a performer and a human being.”

For those who want to get involved with the festival beyond the role of spectator, the Semer Ensemble, a Berlin-based group of talented musicians and singers, will be running a four-day workshop for local musicians.

“That’s a great opportunity for anyone who plays an instrument, whether they know klezmer or not,” Stein said, adding that the workshop, held at the Miles Nadal JCC, will culminate with a performance by the participants and the band at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre on Sept. 4.

For more information, visit www.ashkenaz.ca.