Olive Ivy Benito is a junior at Smith College, double majoring in Jewish Studies and Theatre with a 5 College Certificate in Ethnomusicology. She fell down the Western Massachusetts Yiddish rabbit-hole during her first semester at college, and has now been studying Yiddish language and singing Klezmer and Yiddish music for almost three years. She is grateful to take on a project documenting and raising awareness about a community that has given her so much. Olive can be contacted at obenito@smith.edu.
Thank you so much to all of the organizers, musicians, participants, and audience members of the People’s Puppet Parade!
More information about the People’s Puppet Parade can be found here: https://peoplespuppetparade.weebly.com/
Thank you to the interviewees featured in this documentary: Ozzy Irving Gold-Shapiro, Weaver, Ariel Shapiro, Rachel Leader, and Sarah Bluestein, as well as to those who were not featured in this particular cut: Yankl Krakovsky, Madison Safer, Raia Gutman, and Zu Sikes. Special thanks to my classmates Elena Tongg Weiler and John Joire who attended the day of the parade and collected vital footage that is featured heavily in the documentary – this project absolutely would not have been possible without them!