Russian Version
Press Release
SONG LIKE LIFE ITSELF
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Young hosts of numerous TV hit parades use now a very fashionable word-combination - "songs about the
essentials". In this way they politely draw a boundary between the melodies that were popular long before
their birth, and the hits of the present day. The division is certainly a naive one: if a song is not
about anything very essential, it is not destined to live. And you understand it particularly sharply
when you hear Jewish songs in Yiddish. |
Merged in them are the language and the lot of the European Jewry
who was brought to the American continent by the ships of travels and who preserved here its language
and song traditions.
The 15th annual Jewish Music Festival in Berkeley, California is expected to gather many performers from
different countries, among them, from the former Soviet Union. Arkadiy Hendler, a teacher of Yiddish,
tradition and history in the Jewish high school "Alef" from the south-Ukrainian city of Zaporozhye, will
also take part in the festival. His American friends, well-known performers of Jewish songs Ellie Shapiro
and Jacob Picheny, invited Hendler. He got acquainted with them in summer 1999 at the Klezmer festival
of Jewish music and songs in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Ellie and Jacob heard then quite a few old folk songs, which are little known or totally unknown, in the
rendition of the Jewish singer from the faraway Ukrainian city. They made friends and agreed to meet
again. We talked with Arkadiy on the eve of his American tour, which includes his performance at the
festival and also a program of meetings with representatives of Jewish organizations of New York. The
trip is financed by the New York-based Fund for the development of Jewish communities in Russia and
Ukraine.
How did it happen that the Jewish song became part and parcel of his life, where does this repertoire
diversity come from, as well as a subtle knowledge of melodic traditions, and a marvelously rich Jewish
word? - All these questions arise by themselves. "The song is my entire life, - Arkadiy is smiling. -
Till this day I maintain correspondence with the friends of my childhood, whom destiny scattered all
over the world - Israel, the USA, Canada - in mome loshn. I never parted with it, even during the most
grave years of the Communist rule, though that was far from unsafe". Indeed, the Jewish boy from the
small town of Soroka (the Rumanian territory at the time) had to go through the horrible cataclysms of
the XX century. The tenth kid in a big Jewish family, he acquired a traditional education. He studied at
Talmud-Torah, where, apart from the general educational subjects, children mastered two Jewish languages.
Later Arkadiy continued his studies at a high school and simultaneously worked so as to pay for
education.
But he wasn't destined to further continue studies: in 1940 Bessarabia was included in the composition
of the USSR, and soon after the war began. And since its first days Arkadiy found himself at the front
as a private soldier, fought against Nazis within the ranks of the Soviet Army, and was badly wounded.
During the years of war he knew nothing about his near ones, who remained on the occupied territory.
Already after the war he found out that his distant and close relatives - all without exception - had
been exterminated. Meanwhile life went on, Arkadiy graduated from an institute in Moscow, acquired a
rare at that time engineering specialization and was directed to one of the country's largest plants in
Zaporozhye. He gave many years of his life to industrial production. Both Yiddish and Jewish songs could
be used only within a narrow family circle, among his own people and for his own people. Right after the
fall of Communism, in the early 90-ies, Arkadiy got involved in the renascent Jewish movement in Ukraine.
That was when his Jewish education and upbringing, brilliant knowledge of the language, song folklore and
the people's traditions proved really useful to him. He teaches at a Jewish school, becomes the
chairperson of the Council of the former inmates of the nazi concentration camps and carries out a
charitable activity in Hesed. At the same time he doesn't give up what he liked throughout his entire
life: as before, in the years of his pre-Soviet youth, he takes an active part in the Jewish cultural
programs, writes music to his new Jewish songs, goes to various festivals. According to specialists,
Hendler possesses a well trained from birth, wide range voice, lightly and freely sings to the
accompaniment of the orchestra, piano, bayan or a guitar. At one of such contests he found new American
friends - connoisseurs of Jewish songs.
"I am going to Berkeley with a whole bunch of Jewish songs for my friends, both chamber and pop songs,
which are almost unknown to anybody, the songs created in Eastern Europe (Poland, Rumania, Hungary) in
the 20-30-ies. Once they enjoyed great popularity. And today the Jewish young people with whom I happen
to meet and perform at various festivals, receive them with enthusiasm, absorbing the melodic intonation
of every Jewish word".
"And only ever wandering and ever singing Jews/ Can find no shelter, nor repose/ In this so big and
restless World!, - these piercing lines were written in the late 30-ies, in presentiment of the
Catastrophe, by the outstanding Polish-Jewish poet Yulian Tuwim. The Jews, thank G-d, have survived,
found their own shelter and have preserved their song despite the tests of time. This song is being
listened today, and will be always heard in future.
The main editor of the newspaper
"The Jewish Meridian"
Yuliy Veliunskiy
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