This weekend, Portlanders can enjoy food, music, dancing and more with ties to Jewish culture. The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland is putting on its first Jewish cultural festival at Zidell Yards on Sunday, August 30.
Marc Blattner is the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. He joins us to share more on what attendees can expect and why this event is important.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed using AI and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland is putting on its first Jewish cultural festival in Portland this Sunday. People can enjoy food, music, dancing and more at Zidell Yards in South Portland at what’s being described as the largest ever Jewish cultural festival in the city’s history.
Marc Blattner is the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. He joins us now. It’s great to have you on the show.
Marc Blattner: Dave, thank you.
Miller: So you’re calling this the largest Jewish cultural festival in Portland’s history. How many people are you expecting at this point?
Blattner: Thousands and thousands. We don’t know. Tickets are still being sold and are available to come. We hope not only the Jewish community will participate, but also the entire city of Portland comes down.
Miller: I mentioned that there is food, music, dancing and more. I want to give people a sense for the music right now, just to start, and then we’ll talk a lot more. This is a Portland-based klezmer band called Carpathian-Pacific Express. We’re going to hear part of a song from a 2024 performance at Artichoke Music in Portland.
[Carpathian-Pacific Express song playing – fast, spirited klezmer tune led by rapidly played violin and accordion.]
Miller: Again, this is the Portland-based klezmer band Carpathian-Pacific Express, one of the bands that’s gonna be performing this Sunday at the Jewish cultural festival.
Marc, why do you think a festival of this scale hasn’t been put on before in Portland?
Blattner: That’s a great question. There have been attempts at putting on large Jewish gatherings. There was one at Reed College about 30 years ago called the Ingathering where thousands of Jews came out, but it was more of an exposition of Jewish organizations and kind of getting together. We wanted to add to that by bringing in Jewish music, Jewish artists, Jewish performers, etc.
So I don’t know why it hadn’t been done in the past, but in 2023, we did a population study of the Jewish community of Portland, and one of the things we learned is half the Jewish community lives on the east side of the river and half lives on the west side of the river. And oftentimes they didn’t meet. And we wanted to come up with something…
Miller: So hard to cross this river. If only we had bridges. [Laughter]
Blattner: We wanted to work hard to figure out ways to bring people together. So what’s more centrally located than Zidell Yards on the waterfront in South Portland? It’s a perfect location to do it and we hope everybody will join us.
Miller: Why do this now in 2026?
Blattner: So part of it was a plan from our 2023 study to come into being. But I think the biggest thing that’s pushed people now is the ongoing anti-Semitism that’s taking place. We’re 55,000 Jews who live in the city of Portland. We’re a vibrant part of the city. We’re a part of the city, and we should be able to be loud and proud of our Jewish heritage and our Jewish culture, and we want to share it with people.
Miller: When you talk about anti-Semitism, how much of this do you think is tied to criticism of the Israeli government or Israeli government actions morphing into criticism of Jews?
Blattner: So I’d rather not get into a political conversation, but I do think there are many people who have their thoughts, ideas and criticism, not only the Israeli government, but also the American government. And I think that many people have different ways to describe the anti-Semitism that’s taking place today. Certainly, the challenges of people’s views on Israel have morphed into things that have happened here.
Miller: I’m trying to talk about this cultural festival in ways that don’t get into too much politics, but I’m curious about, as you said, part of the reasons for this festival. Is it your hope that a festival like this can help people, maybe Jews or non-Jews, [to] better understand the difference between a government’s policy – Israeli government, the U.S. government – and Jewish identity, Jewish culture.
Blattner: So I think the … look, this is not an Israel festival. This is a Jewish cultural festival.
Miller: And it’s not a Jewish religious festival either, right? It’s a Jewish cultural festival, as you’re saying.
Blattner: Correct. So this is not about Orthodox reform secular Jews, this is not about Israel, non-Israel. This is about Jews coming together in the community, coming to see what our culture is all about: kosher food, music, etc. So, we recognize that Israel is at the heart for many Jews. It’s central to who they are. And for others, they have very different views about Israel and what it is today. That’s not what this festival is.
Miller: I’m curious, given though, sadly, the potential security concerns, how much have you had to think about and plan for security issues as you’ve been wanting to focus on food, dancing and music?
Blattner: It’s a great question. The Jewish community of Portland spends about $1.6 million a year on security for its Jewish institutions, and that’s not even enough. And there’s no other group in this community that has to spend that kind of money for security needs, whether it’s cameras, security guards, etc. We have taken every precaution at this festival to be as safe as possible. Portland police, FBI, other law enforcement, private security guards are all in place and, and ready to go. And sadly, I’ll be honest with you, the most expensive part of putting on this festival is the security.
Miller: Let’s get back to the music. One of the performers people can see … he’s headlining, I guess you might say. He’s the last performer of the evening, a man named Nissim Black. Can you tell us about him?
Blattner: Sure. So Nissim Black is a Black gentleman originally from Seattle, Washington, who grew up in a very difficult childhood with his family, drugs, jail, etc. And through his own personal journey, he discovered Judaism and Orthodox Judaism. So he’s an observant Jew who actually lives in Israel with his family, but he has this magnificent, soulful, wonderful way about him and his music that’s very heartwarming, and we were excited to be able to bring him in.
Miller: Let’s listen to part of Nissim Black’s 2024 song, “Keep Going.”
[“Keep Going” by Nissim Black playing]
Miller: So this shows us something about the breadth of the music you’re going to have, from klezmer to rap. Who else is performing this weekend?
Blattner: So, we also have Rick Recht, who is probably known as the greatest song leader in the Jewish community today. He’s coming from Colorado to play. He basically tours synagogues and Jewish camps all the year round, and he’s a phenomenal musician. We have another local act, Alicia Jo Rabins, along with her band Girls in Trouble. She performs songs about women in the Bible, and to hear how she creates these stories from the Bible into her music is really beautiful. And then we have another rap artist, Kosha Dillz, all the way from Brooklyn, who actually has his own interesting story – and he talks about this publicly. He [was] a very talented wrestler, got a Division I scholarship to wrestle, and unfortunately fell into drugs, and singing and rapping, and his Jewish heritage is what saved him.
Miller: People do have to pay for tickets and parking. What does the money go towards?
Blattner: It helps to offset the cost of the festival. Bringing in these musical acts, the security, as I mentioned, none of this is inexpensive. Tickets are currently $12 for adults, $7 for kids. As I mentioned, there’s the music. There’s plenty of kosher food available for people, from cheese blintzes, all the way to shawarma, to hot dogs, chicken fingers and the regular festival food that you could imagine. We have some other private vendors who are selling cookies and those kind of things. And we also have a range of kids’ activities: bouncy houses, face painting, getting tinsel in your hair.
Miller: There’s some universals to festivals, it seems. No matter what religion it is or reason, there’s gonna be a bouncy castle.
Blattner: Yes. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have funnel cake, but everything else will be there. But we also have … As the high holidays approach for the Jewish community, one of the things that you do is you blow a shofar, a ram’s horn. There’s actually a shofar-making kit for kids to do with their families to bring home for them. So that’s something very nice.
Miller: And is that with actual ram’s horns?
Blattner: No, no, it’s a model kit that you use, but it should be a lot of fun.
Miller: What are you hoping that people are going to take away from this festival?
Blattner: So it’s really three things. Number one is that we as a Jewish community should be very excited and proud to be a part of the Portland community. Number two is we can gather together. OK, I think there are people who are afraid for Jews to gather together, but we can safely gather together. We live in America, we should not have these fears. But we can gather together, and it brings together the entire swath of the Jewish community. You can be religious, non-religious, pro-Israel, not pro-Israel. You can have your views on a whole range of things. We want you to come and celebrate with us. Now, this is not a political festival at all. We don’t want demonstrations and those kinds of things.
And the last thing I think is to showcase Jewish culture to the rest of the community, to see who we are and what we have. So the music, the wide range of music that we’re playing hopefully gives people an idea. Most people probably don’t know there’s Jewish rap artists, may have never heard klezmer music before. So we want to expose people to that. We have Israeli dancing. And the last thing that I would tell you is, we have 100 organizational booths that will be at the festival of people to learn about Jewish organizations around the community, what they offer and what they can do.
Miller: So those are all kinds of community-wide hopes that you have for this. What are you looking forward to the most, yourself personally?
Blattner: A successful, safe, fun day. That’s the easiest way. I want my wife to come and have a great time. I want everybody just to see the vibrancy of a Jewish community. And I’m also grateful to the work of the Jewish Federation and its team for helping to put this together. We’ve never tried something like this before. We’re not concert promoters. We’re going to try it, but we think we’ve got everything in place.
Miller: Marc, thanks very much.
Blattner: Thank you.
Miller: Marc Blattner is the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. The federation is putting on its first ever Jewish cultural festival this Sunday. It is from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Zidell Yards in South Portland.
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