Shtetl Berlin Yiddish culture Festival 2025 • Demons of Ostropil

In the organizer's words:

This performance tells stories based on Jewish history in Ostropil, a village on the Sluch river in the Volhynia region of Ukraine. Once a home to Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews, Ostropil encapsulates the tragic history of the region, a contrast between peaceful co-existence and waves of horrific violence: Khmelnitsky’s massacre of the Jewish population in the 1600s, the Civil War following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Holodomor, the Holocaust and the current Russian invasion.

Ostropil was home to influential Jewish scholars and mystics who engaged with Kabbalah in order to confront the dark forces and repair the universe. Today, the demons of history are back in full force and this piece explores history, art and demonology to search for a way forward. Drawing from Jewish folklore, ethnographic studies, Jewish writers like An-sky and Babel, as well as studies of Jewish mysticism by Gershom Scholem, Demons of Ostropil questions the power of demagogues to push societies to violence, and the possibility of escaping this cycle.

The performance is a hybrid of theater, concert and storytelling. With a mix of spoken text, Klezmer-inspired music and original songs, we conjure the lost world of pre-war Ostropil and relate its story to the dilemmas facing our world today.

Co-written by Dmitry Troyanovsky and Marina Frenk

Director: Dmitry Troyanovsky (UA/USA)Featuring:Christian Dawid (DE) – Clarinet, PianoMarina Frenk (MD/DE) – Piano, Guitar, Lead ActressCraig Judelman (USA/DE) – Violin, Percussion

Producer:Craig Judelman