Dan Carkner

A Roundup of Yiddish Culture/Klezmer Festivals and Series | In geveb A roundup of new and continuing Yiddish culture and klezmer festivals and series around the world.

salute to @sarahbiskowitz.bsky.social for researching this and writing it up😁

In crime Something funky’s been happening with the US Marshals’ pile of seized crypto — the crypto they’re tasked with hanging on to as cases wind through the courts.b In March 2024, almost $25 million was inexplicably removed from a Marshals-controlled wallet containing funds connected to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. In October 2024, crypto sleuth zachxbt noticed that $20 million of the Marshals’ crypto assets had apparently been stolen, with the thief laundering the funds through various exchanges [W3IGG]. The next day, $19.3 million of those funds were mysteriously returned. Now, zachxbt has linked the stolen government funds — as well as stolen assets belonging to other victims — to a man named John Daghita. According to zachxbt, Daghita was previously known only as “Lick” online, and was active in Telegram chat rooms where crypto thieves boasted about their wealth. When another thief taunted Lick for “only having $6 mil”, Lick evidently decided the only way to defend his honor was to go on a screenshare call to show proof of ownership by transferring funds between wallets. In doing so, he exposed several wallet addresses, and zachxbt was able to trace some of the crypto back to the US government wallet addresses.1415

Shockingly, Daghita’s father is reportedly Dean Daghita, the owner of an IT company called Command Services & Support (CMDSS). In November 2024, CMDSS began a contract with the US Marshals to provide management services for their seized crypto assets.16 The contract is still active. While Coinbase has since July 2024 managed what the Marshals call their “class 1” crypto assetsc — the most popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ether, and Tether — CMDSS was chosen to manage the “class 2” through “class 4” cryptocurrencies.d While it could be that the younger Daghita gained privileged information or access to the Marshals’ crypto wallets through his father, it’s not clear how that would have enabled thefts in the months prior to the contract award. I am hopeful that a FOIA request I filed with the Marshals earlier this week will shed some light on that. It’s also curious that many of the assets Lick siphoned from government wallets fall into the “class 1” category, which CMDSS is not involved in managing. The Marshals have declined to comment on the matter, citing ongoing investigations.17

The incident has renewed concerns about the US government’s ability to prudently manage crypto. In 2022, a Department of Justice Inspector General report identified “challenges” in the Marshals’ crypto custody practices, including “lack of comprehensive inventory management” and “inadequate, incomplete, and conflicting policies and procedures”.18 Last year, the Marshals struggled to provide even an estimate of how much crypto they held. An IT contractor who was passed over for a contract with the Marshals explained to CoinDesk, “As far as I’m aware, the USMS is currently managing this with individual keystrokes in an Excel spreadsheet. ... They’re one bad day away from a billion-dollar mistake.”19 Later in 2024, the Marshals disclosed in response to a FOIA request that they held around 28,988 BTC (more than $2.5 billion at today’s prices), though they did not provide an accounting of their other tokens.20 After zachxbt’s allegations, a wallet linked to the thefts launched a “John Daghita” token, with the ticker $LICK, on the pump.fun memecoin launchpad. I couldn’t help but laugh when I read reporting from Cointelegraph that “The deployer of LICK held 40% of the total supply at launch, according to blockchain data visualization platform Bubblemaps, a level of concentration often viewed as a red flag in early-stage token launches.”21 I’m not sure the degree of concentration is really the primary red flag here.

$40 million in seized crypto held by the US Marshals was stolen in 2024, and crypto sleuth zachxbt has now linked the thefts to the son of a contractor managing the agency's crypto assets. The incident has renewed concerns about the government's ability to manage its crypto holdings.

I meant to say shtetl culture above but it autocorrected it, but yes people are disdainful of shtetl cuties too I suppose!

... the worst mass produced and low quality version and never necessarily being exposed to the real variety that is out there and the rich history🤔

Not only is the food history and hands on cooking stuff cool on its own, I think it really makes sense to involve them in dialogue with the music history and appreciation stuff. The conceptual overlap can be productive in terms of kitsch, disdain for shtetl cutie, people's notions being based on...

Gefilteria

Although I saw a lot of great music stuff and took a cool workshop on creative harmonization in klezmer, the workshops of this duo were probably the other highlight to me. They're just so knowledgeable and thoughtful about food history and understanding different Jewish dishes and how to adapt them

I remember seeing him at the Montreal anarchist bookfair when I used to drive to it from Ottawa 25 years ago but I never spoke to him back then or knew who he was. Only in the last 5 years I started hearing about him as the Yiddish teacher of friends of mine in Montreal and elsewhere. A character

Not from a place of snobbery or "no one gets it but me" but in an earnest desire for people to have deep and conscious uses of that history and to understand where 125 year old bundist politics may simply have had nothing to say about 2020s concerns.

An interesting theme he returned to several times was his critique of modern Jewish activist uses of old working class Yiddish radicalism and where he thought it sometimes fell short due to surface level understanding of the history and discourse of the Bund and other groups.

It was also about ADHD, his reminiscing about big cultural shifts in speaking and "politeness" norms and different methods of "talking Yiddishly" even in English.

The talk was partly his reminiscing about Yiddish speaking working class Montreal of the postwar era, partly some of his translations and thoughts about old Montreal anarchist organizations, partly jokes and yiddish sayings that he thought had interesting anti militarist or anti cop themes.

I wanted to mention a great talk I saw at Yiddish Culture Jam last weekend with this Moishe Dolman. I think I've even linked this before. But he's quite a funny character and a sharp guy in his own way. When I saw him on the schedule with a 90 minutes topic TBD lecture I knew I had to fit it in😂

I was a hater from the start but I cannot recall him every mentioning it while running for office. I would say it was clear he was a pro cop conservative but not clear he was going to make crypto a big part of his mayoralty

Vancouver city staff recommend dropping Mayor Ken Sim's bitcoin motion | CBC News Vancouver city staff are taking stock of what council motions they should work on for the rest of the year — and one of the motions on the chopping block is a pet project from Mayor Ken Sim.

Here’s my story on Vancouver staff recommending that the city stop considering Ken Sim’s bitcoin dreams

I’m told there’s very little chance the mayor ends up “dying on this hill” as he promised last year

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Before cars all klezmer bands were marching bands too☝️😁 there are whole genres of processional melodies based around it (gas nigunim, dobridens, tsu der khupe etc)

In the end a lot more people wanted to buy these off Instagram than at the festival boutique lol. I should get back into making zines more

The music of his people and his childhood - Jewish Community Voice In a small Brooklyn apartment, surrounded by shelves stacked with tapes and records, a lifelong passion for music and culture comes alive over the airwaves. For Aaron Bendich, radio is more than sound...

Nice to see @Aaron Bendich getting some props for his radio show, music label, other Jewish music activism: www.jewishvoicesnj.org/articles/the... #yiddishmusic #yiddishradio #klezmer

They're just mad their guy is making a fool of himself 🙄

Klezmer Workshop & Jam with Rebecca Mac Klezmer Workshop & Jam is a Monthly Sunday session consisting of two parts. The workshop is a great way for amateurs to learn. The Jam is fun for pros & spectators! Check the calendar for dates! Amat...

Boston Synagogue, Klezmer Workshop & Jam w/@RebeccaMac, Sun, Mar 8, 2pm www.eventbrite.com/cc/klezmer-w... #klezmer #klezmerjam

The Joy of Jewish Music and Dance - KlezCalifornia with Qadim and Miriam Peretz

@VeretskiPass w/Bruce Bierman leading dance, Mar 15, 2-5pm, Berkeley, CA klezcalifornia.org/events/the-j... #klezmer #klezmerdance #yiddishdance

One was a farmer/NRC scientist/inventor of electric devices and the other was a farmer/horse trader/real estate agent/small town cop

AI Translations Are Adding ‘Hallucinations’ to Wikipedia Articles AI translated articles swapped sources or added unsourced sentences with no explanation, while others added paragraphs sourced from completely unrelated material.

Whew. Important read. #translation #AI via @404media.co

www.404media.co/ai-translati...

It would be nice if stuff like this would stop happening in Toronto.

Yup. Librarians at my college can take them, even though they aren't expected to do research, because they are in the faculty association. But us library technicians cannot because we are in the staff union. Likewise for research funding and even being allowed to request interlibrary loans 😂😭

Yes! I made a similar point a couple months back. The productive struggle is the point.

A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council

"Make people dependent enough, and then make it shitty"

Still giggling at this hilarious video from the Norwegian Consumer Council "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator" which seems a perfect embodiment of Silicon Valley and tech generally these days

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

Great mayor I have🫣

Evidence links Indian officials at Vancouver consulate to Nijjar killing New Delhi had long accused the B.C. Sikh leader of being a terrorist and called for his arrest

Canadian national-security officials were presented with evidence that Indian consular staff operating in Vancouver supplied information to assist in the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, @mikehager.bsky.social and Greg Mercer report:
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

There's a statue of two kids kissing about this size on one of the bike routes in east van that always makes me do a double take even though I've passed it so many times