The Klezmatics // The Eisenberg Review Interview
Photo by Adrian Buckmaster, design by Anna Nikolaenko
For nearly four decades, The Klezmatics have treated klezmer not as a fixed tradition, but as a living, breathing language, one shaped as much by the present moment as by the past. Emerging from New York’s East Village in the mid-’80s, the group has long pushed Yiddish music into new territory, folding in elements of jazz, punk, gospel, and global rhythms while staying grounded in its roots.
Their latest album, We Were Made For These Times, continues that lineage with a renewed sense of urgency. Drawing from labor anthems, protest songs, and spiritual traditions, the record moves fluidly across languages and cultures, connecting Yiddish song with Black gospel, Latin rhythms, and contemporary improvisation. It’s music that carries history forward into the present tense.
At the center of it all is vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and founding member Lorin Sklamberg, whose work on stage and as a sound archivist at the YIVO Institute reflects a deep commitment to both preserving and reimagining this music.
I caught up with Sklamberg to talk about We Were Made For These Times, the role of Yiddish music as protest, and how the archive continues to shape what comes next.
