Silent Tears, The Last Yiddish Tango

 

On April 17th, 2023, to mark Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), The New Classical FM presented Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango, a concert with the The Payadora Tango Ensemble. The UJA Committee for Yiddish was a proud supporter of this project.

This award-winning program featuring haunting vocals by Juno Award-winning Lenka Lichtenberg and Aviva Chernick is based on poems, testimonies and writings of women who were victims of horrific atrocities during the Holocaust. Some are from a project led by Dr. Paula David, a social worker at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care who helped survivors process their trauma by writing collective poetry. Others are from Molly Applebaum, a Canadian author, who, during her adolescent years, was buried underground in a small wooden box in a barn in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland during World War II. 

Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango is a story of incredible resilience by women who overcame unimaginable horrors and wanted to share those stories with the world about the dangers of racism and xenophobia.

The project won two "Bubbe Awards" at Kleztival, the highest honour in Yiddish music (for Best New Yiddish Song and Best Jewish Music Video), and sold out its premiere at Ottawa's National Arts Centre.

Featuring: Rebekah Wolkstein (violin, composer), Lenka Lichtenberg (vocals, composer), Aviva Chernick (vocals), Drew Jurecka (bandoneon, violin, musical director), Robert Horvath (piano), Dan Rosenberg (narrator)