29 March - Tales from my bubbe’s lips

Stories from the drut’syla* (Jewish storytelling) tradition about Miriam, midwives and more…

Traditional Jewish Storytelling

Shonaleigh @OyVey

Date: Sunday March 29, 2026

Time: 3 pm to 7 pm-ish

Place:  Amsterdam

Join drut’syla Shonaleigh Cumbers and her apprentice Esther Kornalijnslijper for a Sunday afternoon filled with story, discussion and soup. Oy! What a good way to prepare for this year’s Pesach!

*What is a drut’syla?

This is what Shonaleigh tells us:

The drut’syla is a storyteller within the Jewish tradition, with the storytelling tradition passed on from grandmother to granddaughter. The drut’syla repertoire comprises twelve interlinked cycles, each of several hundred tales. The drut’syla would act as hereditary storyteller-in-residence to her own immediate community. However, the tradition was uprooted, and came close to extinction, during the Second World War in the mid-twentieth century. 

About Shonaleigh

Born in the Netherlands, raised in the UK, Shonaleigh was trained in the oral storytelling tradition by her bubbe Edith Marks from the age of 4 to 16.

She holds over 3000 stories in her being, as well as a deep and playful way of working with story, without a single letter on paper. These stories have been transmitted through the female line from grandmother to granddaughter. This is the drut’syla tradition (from the Yiddish word ‘dertzeyler’, storyteller).

About Esther

Esther tells us: These stories are woven as an incredibly rich tapestry and legacy, and I’d really love to spread more knowledge and enjoyment about it in our community. We are not only people of a vast and exciting written legacy, but also of a glorious oral one! It is a living tradition, connecting us to our humanity, ourselves and others. I am honored to recently have been taken on as an apprentice, working alongside Shonaleigh to bring the stories home.

Sign up now!

 

For more about Shonaleigh, see: www.shonaleigh.uk

For those who read Dutch: Jiske Benedictus wrote an article about Shonaleigh: https://babelmagazine.nl/2025/06/24/duizenden-verweven-verhalen/