Sometimes, we have to wait nearly a lifetime to grasp how certain parts of our lives, certain aspects or events, make sense in the whole scheme of things. While I have come to understand how everything in the world is interconnected some twenty years ago in a philosophy course, it still seemed to me that my life was, due to circumstances, a somewhat random patchwork of zig-zags and detours , often going in several directions at once, and just as often, going nowhere at all.
This week, it all came together. Through an incredible project called “Honeycomb Way”: A Musical Journey into the Sacred” , conceived and produced by Evelyn Tauben and led by Frank London and Yair Dalal, I have been able to combine most of the main directions that interest me, namely Hebrew liturgy, traditional Yiddish music, and my own, newly created Yiddish music. As well, I have been able to further my, until now passive knowledge of Iraqi Jewish liturgy, absorbed by being married into an Iraqi Jewish family. The personal informing the professional (always a good thing, I believe).
And today, a more distant past learning came to bear fruit. As a child, I did not want to learn Russian. It was forced upon us by the communist regime and we did all we could to learn as little as possible. Then, I couldn’t care less about the suffering and sacrifice of the Russian people, and of Russian soldiers during WW II. When we had to learn to sing “Katiusha”, I mocked it as much as all my friends did. Today, I had the honour to take part in a most touching event: a project called “Jewish Life and Death in the Soviet union during World War II”. My Rabbi Tina Grimberg asked me to learn three songs sung by WWII Russian soldiers, because a number of the Jewish Russian veterans were coming to our Shabbat service at Congregation Darchei Noam, and we were going to honour them in word and song. March 2012 being one of the busiest months of my life, it was no easy task to learn Russian songs, but boy- was it worth it. This morning I had the honour to sing Zhuravli (White Cranes) and Tjomnaja Noch (The Dark Night) in front of these brave people, Russian Jewish vets, many of them proudly displaying rows of medals on their jackets… they sang, they cried; I sang, I cried. These were the people that picked my mom off the road as she escaped from Terezin, and fed her. They come from a nation that lost 27 million in the Great Patriotic War. Rabbi Tina asked me to conclude the service with Katiusha. Everybody joined in, and for the first time, my learning Russian, and this song, made sense.
What an incredible journey, this month of March. March 5th, my beloved project with friend/colleague Roula Said, “Bridges” – Jewish and Arabic music in dialogue, - presented at the Al Green Theatre, concert and our CD release. Then, writing arrangements and new music for a new Yiddish music recording (a.k.a. Fray 2), rehearsing and recording almost the entire album in a span of 10 days. Done! With no more than 24 hours to regroup, here comes Honeycomb Way – intense workshops, rehearsals and finally a performance at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts on March 28th . March 29th, the Fray band and myself record the final cut for our new CD, with Yair Dalal. My arrangement of his haunting “Perfume Road”, in Yiddish. With maestro Dalal on oud and violin… This is the music I have always dreamed of making. And here it is… am I blessed, or… am I BLESSED!?? Coming home that night, I started learning these unbelievably touching Russian songs for this morning’s service, and today, we all cried. It all makes sense, just sometimes… you really have to wait. A lifetime. It’s worth it.

February 29th, 2012: the last moments of an extra day...leap year!

This has been a crazy month. Maybe even more than usual. The last four years or so it seems that life is getting more frantic every day. February was supposed to be relaxed, working towards a new recording, new projects. Instead, it was a mad rush to keep up. I had to go to Europe unexpectedly, to attend to some pressing family matters, and came back with a dreadful stomach sickness of some kind, I believe an epidemic that many had over there, and it seems even here in Canada. That threw my timing really off, and I never managed to catch up.

Despite of that, Fray had a beautiful experience traveling to the Chutzpah! festival in Vancouver. First of all, it is a magnificent festival, with the best leadership an artist could wish; secondly, it is in my beloved Vancouver where I can just move in to my childhood best friend's condo and feel like I have never left; and finally, the band and I spent a day like a dream at another good friend's amazing house and I thought I was in heaven. Imagine: a charming house on the hill, overlooking the water, with the mountains on the other side; and there we are, 7 musicians, learning each other's music and creating our own kind of beauty. All day, with great food to sustain us in between songs, with my friends providing us their warmth and hospitality. I am trying to figure out how I can return the favour!

But the main topic of this blog is actually Yiddish. I am having some trouble understanding how this works. I certainly don't like how it works, and am trying my best to change that. Most Jewish people think that Yiddish is useless, the old language somebody's East European grandparents probably spoke; it is the language of nostalgia, of the more or less (usually more) painful past. Elderly Jewish audience will request old songs they still remember singing; one generation younger will ask for songs they may recall from their early youth; and the still younger generations will not care to hear Yiddish at all, as they don't understand it, and deem it the language of the elderly members of their families. Why would you choose such a difficult, narrow medium for your music? Such a limited market? - asked the only Jewish patron at a recent concert. This is where I get lost. Why would young Jewish audience have an issue listening to my new, original Yiddish song set to Middle Eastern rhythm, when they have no problem listening to a song from Africa, South America- where a foreign language seems to be of no concern. It pains me a little bit that a non-Jewish audience may actually be more accepting of the new Yiddish music that I am offering, than Jewish. Ideally, I would like this music to be accepted by everyone, as just another "world music", something different and interesting, which may initiate in some people the desire to learn more, to see where this came from, and to discover the riches of Yiddish culture. This is an intriguing challenge, and I am hopeful.

For this past year or so, I have been working on 4 (FOUR) projects at the same time. This must mean that I am a double-Gemini (as in, Double chocolate...), since each Gemini posseses two personalities. As a result, it felt now for a while like NOTHING is happening, even though I could hardly be more busy or working harder. Well, I guess this is the year when everything is bound to come together, to ripen, to bear fruit, what have you. Hopefully, there are enough buttons on this new site of mine for everything! :-)  And just to make sure that I don't get bored, I have now also jumped head first into all the new tools available (ok ok a little slow off the mark here..) - getting this website where I can communicate with everyone and update as needed, signing up for Bandcamp (maybe I don't need it...?), soon learning to post on Word Press, creating Facebook pages for all the projects, oh my, lots of tigers and bears in these woods! Hopefully, the result will be interaction with people that are interested in some of this music and projects. Yay! can't wait to learn all these new toys (tools?) and join the ranks of modernity!
Ciao, see you soon!
Lenka