Karina Zilberman

“I believe in the transformative power of relationships, the comfort of lasting bonds, the warm embrace of community, and the unifying and uplifting value of traditions, old and new. I have felt that connection – to loved ones and to transcendent meaning – since I was a young girl. My family would gather around the piano that my father played and celebrate life through songs from all over the world. Music was a very strong, evocative bridge from past to present for all generations. Tango, Jazz, and Klezmer blended in the voices of my loved ones.”

Karina Zilberman, Director of Jewish Family Life and Culture at the 92^nd Street Y (92Y) in New York City, has been educating and entertaining through music since her earliest days as a singer in her native Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she created the well-known Argentinean Hebrew vocal group Chavaia. In 2007, Karina joined 92Y to develop a Jewish community of families with young children. Today she is widely known as the creator, founder, and leader of the 92Y Shababa™ Community, an intergenerational family Shabbat experience that includes singing, art projects, playground visits, holiday-themed celebrations, and more.

Starting with Shababa Fridays – a pre-Shabbat experience for young children and their grownups featuring music, puppets, and dance – Shababa now serves more than 500 families and has expanded to Saturdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. It includes Jewish Shabbat family experiences, Shababa Challah Bakery, Pajama Havdalah, and the Shababa Mamas concerts. Karina also leads 92Y’s High Holidays Family services, a Passover Family Seder, and the community service-oriented International Mitzvah Day. In addition, Karina leads workshops for educators and clergy in New York and Israel.

“My mother sent my sister and me to Camp Ramah in Cordoba, Argentina, when I was 14-years-old. I returned transformed and wanting more. I created Jewish musical experiences to inspire Jewish youth. My instinct for combining different elements from Judaism with the world of the arts helped develop my passion for becoming an experiential Jewish educator, using the arts to share the joy of Jewish life. Over time, the educator and the performer in me found a dynamic balance in my soul.”

Prior to joining 92Y, Karina served as the Cantorial Soloist, Clergy Assistant, and Jewish Music Educator at Temple Israel of Greater Miami. After she joined the clergy team, Temple Israel grew from 350 to 500 households. Before Temple Israel, she taught music at the Greenfield Day School in Miami and Temple Judea in Coral Gables.

Karina is trained in cantorial singing, as well as musical theater; she sings in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Ladino, Hebrew, and Yiddish. The majority of Karina’s training came through workshops, mentoring, and tutoring in Argentina with specific teachers in her fields of interest. She studied leadership and pedagogy at Comunidad Bet El and Escuela Superior Juan Bautista Alberdi, where she also took classes and workshops on creative movement. She studied singing with international Mezzo Soprano, Noemi Souza, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while also training with international puppeteer Pablo Nojes. She has released four CDs (including Sera Una Noche (1998), Karina Zilberman (2000), and Drawing Close (2005)) and two Shababa recordings (92Y Shababa™ with Karina (2008) and 92Y Shababaland (2012)).