Album Notes

The Youngers of Zion, headed by four-time Grammy nominee Henry "Hank" Sapoznik with fiddler Marlene "Cookie" Segelstein and tubaist/bassist Mark "Doctor" Rubin, reinvigorate traditional Yiddish music with their concise and drivingly intimate sound.
The Protocols, their first CD, re-imagines the visceral feel of old-time klezmer fiddle tunes, forgotten ballads, introspective instrumentals, and Second Avenue vaudeville songs played in a cozy trio setting.
Recorded live and mixed in a single day, The Protocols champions the tight acoustic environment the Youngers of Zion deliver in performance. Onstage or on record, the trio's easy sense of ownership and understated virtuosity establishes a salon feel that forges a powerful link between the musicians and their audience.
Singer/tenor guitarist Hank Sapoznik, a pioneering architect of the worldwide klezmer movement, is the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award-winning author of Klezmer! Jewish Music From Old World to Our World (Schirmer Books) and founder and director of "KlezKamp: The Yiddish Folk Arts Program," the world's leading venue for the teaching and training of traditional Yiddish music.
Fiddler Cookie Segelstein is principal violist of both the Orchestra of New England and the New Haven Symphony and a critically acclaimed interpreter of Yiddish fiddle music.
Mark Rubin, a longtime klezmer stylist, has been called "the Musical Mayor of Austin, Texas," where he is a mainstay on diverse bandstands from polka groups to Tex-Mex conjunto ensembles to Western swing orchestras. Both Segelstein and Rubin are longtime KlezKamp faculty.

"...'The Youngers of Zion' is a great little band...really on the mark. Cookie is a great old-time klezmer style fiddler and I really liked the tenor guitar playing. It is one of the best contemporary music CDs that I've heard in recent years..."

R. Crumb
Sauvre, France