March 2020

This past January, we marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation from Auschwitz.  Unlike Yom Hashoah, when Jews mark the day to remember the Holocaust, this date, mandated by the United Nations as International Holocaust Memorial Day, was observed by all.   World leaders converged in Jerusalem and commemorations took place all over the world.
 
   Soon, in April, we will be observing Yom Hashoah, and so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity in this season to offer a Spring Adult Ed session on music from this period. 
 
   The impulse to express oneself through music is not easily suppressed, and for Jews trapped in Europe during the Nazi Holocaust, music was a means of expressing both anguish and hope, and a means of maintaining one’s humanity.  The composers of the poems and songs were murdered, but their music lives on, and it speaks to us today.
 
   A violin maker in Israel has begun to restore instruments that came from that period.  Through a project called “Violins of Hope,” these instruments are being repaired and will be heard in concerts in a world-wide tour over the next several years, bringing new vitality to what was once silenced.
 
   On Sunday, March 15, 2020 at 10am, I will present a class entitled “From Vilna to Violins of Hope:  Music of the Holocaust.”  Our task is to never forget, and this will give us a chance to remember.