In the Middle Ages, German
Jews migrated eastwards to tsarist Russia to escape persecution and settled in the ghettos - segregated areas of Christian cities - or in shtetls - towns and villages in the countryside. In the first of two programmes, Alex Knapp presents traditional songs and dances reflecting life in that now lost world of the Jewish communities of eastern Europe, including a medieval lament by impoverished Jewish troubador Suesklnt von
Trimberg and songs of childhood, love and marriage.