Category Archives: Theater

Jewish Women in Music and Dance

Editorial Notice: http://www.hartung-gorre.de/Brenner_VI.htm
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Excerpt from the preface by Rita Calabrese: “[…] Dieser Band VI und hoffentlich nicht letzter ist der Musik und dem Tanz gewidmet. Nicht nur Stars wie Barbra Streisand, Amy Winehouse und Bette Midler sind zusammen mit Sängerinnen aus vielen Zeiten zu finden, sondern auch Pianistinnen und Violinistinnen zusammen mit Komponistinnen, die in Fanny Mendelssohn ihre Vorläuferin hatten, sowie auch Dirigentinnen. Auffallend ist die lange Liste der Künstlerinnen, die ein tragisches Ende in Auschwitz-Birkenau und anderen KZs gefunden haben, darunter die Pianistinnen Mathilde Borgenicht und Leopoldine Oppenheimer, die Violinistin Alma Rose, die Nichte Gustav Mahlers. Andere hingegen haben dank der Musik überleben können, wie Esther Bejarano und Fania Fenelon, die über das Orchester in Auschwitz geschrieben haben, Yvette Assaeler, Grete Klingsberg, Rachel Knobler und andere. Zu erwähnen ist auch Lin Jaldati, die während der Deportation Anne Frank kennengelernt hatte. Als eine der ersten hat sie die jiddische Musik in der DDR bekannt gemacht. Noch etwas zu diesem wertvollen Werk muss man hervorheben, und zwar die verdienstvolle Verfasserin. Geboren im k.u.k. Czernowitz, das später rumänisch wurde und längst zur Ukraine gehört, ist Hedwig Brenner über politische, geschichtliche und sprachliche Grenzen nach Israel gekommen, wohin sie das kostbare Erbe der deutschsprachigen jüdischen Kultur mitgenommen und einen neuen Anfang als Schriftstellerin gewagt hat.Im Hebräischen heißt Leben Chajim und ist Plural. Wie kaum eine andere zeigt Hedi Brenner die Vielfalt und Unschätzbarkeit der menschlichen Existenz, und dafür danken wir.”

Hedwig Brenner in April 2014

Meyer Ebner on Leibu Levin – 1935

From Ruth Levin, an article from the “Ost-Yiddishe Zeitung”, 2.6.1935:

“…Dr. Landau introduced to the audience a young man whose name
should not be forgotten. Probably, we’ll hear from him again and again.

Levin isn’t a singer, rather he’s an artistic reader. He’s not a reader, rather
he’s an actor. As a matter of fact he’s all in one: singer, artistic reader, actor
and poet. Why also poet? He reads to us only the poems of others, does he not?
That being so, this is the secret of his art. He reveals what is hidden between the lines.
He brings the poet to completion. He draws from the poet’s soul riches the poet himself
did not know of, riches that were hidden in his sub-conscious…

Frequently the words of the text in his mouth serve solely as a stimulus that awakens –
just for a passing moment – the poetic spiritual inheritance of his own, and that has
always to be born anew, like the music.

The art of Leibu Levin needs not only to be heard, though, but also to be seen. He himself
one has to hear and see, how he breathes into the dim hall, into the pearls of strangers’
poetry, his young burning soul, the creative, sometimes ecstatic, and sometimes weeping
soul…  His profound understanding drew one deeply into the fables of
Eliezer Steinbarg and the ballads of Itzik Manger.

From time to time the reader becomes singer, and only when he was seen as well as heard,
did I finally understand the meaning of the old expression “to sing and to say”
regarding troubadours and minnesingers. When his spoken word passes to song, it reminds me
of a flying ship hovering above the earth and taking off to the blue heavens…

Talent is as rare as gold. From the gold it is possible to forge a holiday crown for
priests who serve gods and it is possible to pay with it the penance for sinful impurity…

Talent can be refined to capture surpassing art, or can descend to cheap popular
entertainment. It seems to me that all in Leibu Levin aspires toward and is uplifted to the
shining heights of noble art .”

Dr. Meyer Ebner
The newspaper “Ost-Yiddishe Zeitung”, 2.6.1935

Ostjüdische_Zeitung_1935_00169 Kopie

Joseph Schmidt- 110 birth anniversary in Berlin

From Hedwig Brenner:

Hi, I got this poster about Josef Schmidt and Czernowitz.from  Leonid Flyderman,  born in Czernowitz and a researcher about Josef Schmidt. He presented his research also last year in Vienna.. May be some members of the list will be at this time in Berlin, I am sorry, I could not be there, I will be, I hope, 3 to 10 November, to present my new book, the 5.Volume of the Lexicon”Jewish Women in Visual Arts” in some galleries and the Bauhaus.
Hatima Tova
Hedwig

schmidtposter

Sidi and Falik

Czernowitz going Hollywood.
Stars of fame for Sidi Tal and her husband Falik Pinkus.  On top of the circles are the first names and on the bottom are the last. Looks like those stars are in front of the Philharmonic Hall (across from my childhood home)  Sidi and Falik look just like I remember them. Only the stars are there, the pictures are for illustration  purposes only.
Enjoy
Anna Kofner

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