Whole latke love

>> The Magic Potato Cabaret offers up a dreidelful of Hanukkah cheer

by MARK SLUTSKY

Everyone loves Hanukkah. With its eight days of gelt, gifts, latkes, candle-lighting and dreidel-twirling--celebrating the eight miraculous days the oil burned in the liberated Temple--it's one of the cheeriest holidays on the Jewish calendar. Those celebrating Hanukkah this year in style will certainly be checking out Der Kishef-Kartofl Cabaret, or The Magic Potato Cabaret, a new event organized by Shulamis and Brontshe, aka locals Sheryl Shore and Bronna Levy.

The event's being billed as an evening of new Jewish music. Shore says, "We wanted to showcase performers who were making klezmer music and drawing on traditional klezmer music, Yiddish theatre, and traditional songs, but who are interpreting them in new ways." Performers included Toronto's Reena Katz, a violinist who samples old Jewish violin recordings and voices of Yiddish women, Montrealers the Black Ox Orkestar and a new band, Onanomen, composed of Katz and locals Josh Dolgin, Rachel Levine and event organizer Levy. What's more, the evening will be topped off with a "hip hopkele tantz party" (or "dance party") orchestrated by notorious Judaic beat-schlepper So Called.

There's more than music on the bill, though, as the event will feature candle-lighting, dreidels (a spinning top with which a beloved gambling game is played), and, most enticingly, free latkes, or potato pancakes, a Hanukkah staple.

With such a variety of entertainments, "We're going for a really diverse crowd--culturally and age-wise," says Shore. "We want this event to be open to old people so they can see what the kids are doing, as well as being open to the larger Montreal music scene--everyone else." That's right: you needn't have attended Talmud Torah, nor be Jewish at all, to dig the music--let alone those tasty latkes.

At la Sala Rossa on Friday, Dec. 15, 8:30pm, $7-10 (sliding scale)