When singers Polina Fradkin and Paulina Levi got 50,000 Instagram followers, they celebrated with a cake.
But these days, they are really cooking.
The Shvesters (the Yiddish word for “The Sisters”) now have 134,000 followers on Instagram and 24,500 on TikTok.
In the history of Jewish music, female duos are fairly rare; Jewish female duos singing in the Yiddish language are rarer still. Not all of their tunes are in the mamaloshen (“mother tongue”); about 40% are in Hebrew and English.
The Shvesters’ American tour this month includes several shows, including two at the Museum of Jewish Heritage‒A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City; one at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia; and another at the Berman Center for the Performing Arts in Detroit. In these performances, they are accompanied by guitar or piano.
Fradkin, 30, who was born by the Ural Mountains in Russia, said the group has risen due to 30-second videos of the pair singing, which look effortless but aren’t. Each video takes about a day to do—from an hour or two to arrange the song, rehearsing, picking outfits and then shooting the video, which can take anywhere from one to four hours.
“She does the melody and holds down the fort, and I’m kind of the instrument to her voice,” says Levi, 26. In one, “Kol Ha’lam Kulo,” they sing in a stairwell, with the acoustics hauntingly beautiful.
The two were good friends at Frankel Jewish Academy in Detroit, where they sang in the choir and performed in the plays. But they made it a point to say they “were not cool in high school.”
But it seems they are now.
Fradkin said she was moved by one person who cried and said, “I live somewhere without any Jews, and I listen to your music when I light candles. That’s my way of doing Shabbat.”
As partly an homage to the Barry Sisters—Clara and Minnie Bagleman, popular from the 1940s to the 1970s for their “Yiddish Swing”—they incorporate a similar traditional style, updating it for contemporary listeners.
Levi says their “Eishet Chayil” (“Woman of Valor”) and “Tumbalalika” have gotten the best receptions.
‘Jewish pride is the antidote to hate’
Everything, however, isn’t coming up roses.
They are also sometimes the recipients of online hate with people lobbing angry comments toward the two women. “I delete it and laugh at it,” says Levi, while Fradkin says all feedback boosts the algorithm of their music shares.
They do note that they have security at shows.
And, of course, with the sometimes gut-wrenching news from Israel and rising antisemitism everywhere else, Fradkin thinks that people need positivity coming from their roots. “We believe that Jewish pride is the antidote to hate,” she says. “It’s our God-sent mission to bring joy and light, and to remind people what it feels like to be a proud Jew and love who you are.”
As for those who inspire them, the pair mentions Jewish actor and singer Mandy Patinkin, 72, who has a Yiddish album and famously played Inigo Montoya in the 1987 comedy film, “The Princess Bride.”
“We’d love to sing with him!” gushes Fradkin, adding that another person they’d like to perform with is 45-year-old Russian-born singer, songwriter and pianist Regina Spektor.
Levi notes that she started training her voice at the age of 14 and later honed her skills at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She adds that their secret weapon is Fradkin’s grandmother, who consults with them and offers some extra training. “I don’t know if a lot of people are privileged to have that resource for their music,” Levi says.
Women often play other “helpful” roles, too: After the shows, mothers and grandmothers approach them in an attempt to set them up with their sons or grandsons. While Levi is married and Fradkin is currently in a relationship, they both say they are flattered, even honored, by the kindnesses they receive.
‘Our shows are absolute bangers’Now, don’t expect the Shvesters to belt out a Taylor Swift song in Yiddish, though that has nothing to do with other artists but with their own traditional sensibilities.
“I think it’s a little schmaltzy—this translating pop into Yiddish,” Fradkin says. “There is a guy who does it, and it’s his shtick and it’s cute. It’s very him. But that’s not us. We like to do the classics. We transform the oldies into something fresh.”
After graduating from the University of Michigan some eight years ago, Fradkin left for Israel to study as part of a Fulbright Research Fellowship in music and decided to stay.
“The community is amazing, the music is amazing, and life here is amazing,” she says. ‘I’m privileged to be a Jew in the modern age where there is a Jewish state, and I want to take advantage of it.”
The Shvesters: Paulina Levi (left) and Polina Fradkin. Photo by Nira Dayanim.
Levi returned a few months ago and says her love for the country made her want to be there, too.
While some believe that there is a stigma to Yiddish—“it’s so old-fashioned”—the duo says people of all ages are energized by it, and young fans have been a reason that shows have sold out.
Their top priority, they say, is that live performances are memorable for musicianship and performance, and are geared to audiences of all ages. (But not, they acknowledge, for observant Jewish men due to “Kol Isha,” a religious law that prohibits them from listening to women’s voices.)
“Our shows are absolute bangers,” insists Fradkin.”It’s not just a show for your grandmother.”
And are the women concerned about singing in Yiddish being marketable?
“No,” Fradkin states. “Niche is king.
Leave a Reply