A "Borough Park" for a radical Jewish present

How do the echoes of the past guide us toward liberation in the present? This is a question that centers my work as a Yiddish music practitioner and techno artist. Sampling, a practice with its roots in Black American music, has long been a way to summon the voices of ancestors, weaving them into new narratives. House and techno, born as vehicles of Black liberation, have historically sampled Black music, speeches, and sonic landscapes to craft radical spaces of cultural expression. In my own practice, I extend this lineage by sampling the music of my Yiddish ancestors, using techno as a medium for cultural liberation, remembrance, and radical solidarity, pulling Yiddish history into a shared, ecstatic space. Yiddish, with its long history of queerness, activism, and anti-Zionist movements, beautifully obliges.

In “Borough Park,” I bring my grandmother's voice into this ecstatic space. She speaks of her childhood in Borough Park, Brooklyn—a world marked by a fluid orthodoxy, one that, though tight knit and unyielding, bent and shifted with the evolving communities around her, one that rejected insularity in favor of joyous pluralism. In my grandmother’s recollections of mixed dancing at her local community center, there’s a wildness that resonates with the rave culture where this track now lives. To me, the pulsing beats and flashing lights of the rave are not so different from the energy she describes.

Layered into this track is a 1965 recording by Yiddish song pioneer Ethel Raim and her group “The Pennywhistlers.” Their song “OYFN OYVN” tells a playful tale of a girl and a boy on an oven—an encounter charged with desire and sexuality. The girl says:  “I won’t ask you where you’re from, I won’t tie you with rope, but I will embrace you and I will love you and you will remain.” This story, one of love without force and regardless of background, stands in beautiful conjunction with my grandmother’s story of pluralistic identity in Borough Park. Ironically, modern popular renditions have censored all mentions of sex and free love.

Through these samples, my work explores how Yiddish folklore and personal memory can be repurposed to serve as tools for contemporary cultural reclamation. Integrating these ancestral voices into techno is not just a musical project. Rather, it’s a political project of diasporism, activating spaces where history, culture, and liberation intersect. By bringing these voices into modern, communal spaces, I aim to transform collective memories into shared experience, emphasizing the joy of engaging in fluid community and solidarity in diaspora. 

Listen to “Borough Park” by Chaia available on all streaming platforms September 13. 

There will also be a release party on September 13 in Brooklyn at Jupiter Disco from 7PM-4AM, featuring 6 electronic practitioners (Omar Ahmad, Seba Kayan, Dynoman, Elina Arbo, BINT, Chaia) from different diasporas. The party will serve as a fundraiser for DJs Against Apartheid.

For more info and updates, follow Chaia on Instagram @chaialeh, find her website chaia.online, or email her at chaialehmusic@gmail.com to be added to her email list.