Breman Chanukah Concert Emphasizes History

Music from some of the darkest days of the Holocaust will highlight this year’s Chanukah concert Dec. 2 at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, “From Darkness to Light.” Included in this year’s program are two poems written by Yiddish poets who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

The music is a tribute to The Breman Museum’s current exhibit, “Vedem Underground: The Secret Magazine of Terezin,” the story of a magazine defiantly created by teenagers imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp from 1942 to 1944. Most were eventually killed by the Nazis. It is believed to be the longest-running underground publication created by prisoners during the Holocaust years.

The songs will be performed by Cantor Lauren Adesnik of Temple Emanu-El in Dunwoody, with commentary by Dr. Laurence Sherr of Kennesaw State University. He will also explore the music of the Holocaust in a lecture at The Breman in January.

Cantor Adesnik sees the songs as being particularly important just before Chanukah, a holiday that encourages us to bring light into a darkened world.

“We are really giving a voice to that time,” Adesnik emphasized, “and lifting up that light that has come out of every single dark time that we have experienced in the Jewish world.”

The first song, “Shifreles Portret,” or “Little Shifra’s Portrait,” was written by the Polish poet, Mordechai Gebirtig, who was killed during the Nazi occupation of his ghetto in 1942. It was set to music by Maurice Rauch, one of the seminal figures in the development of Yiddish choral music in America during the second half of the last century.

The second song, “S’dremlen Feygl Oyf Di Tsvagn” or “Birds Are Dreaming on the Branches,” was written by Lea Rudnitzki about a 3-year-old boy who lost his parents in the Vilna ghetto of Lithuania, but escaped being murdered himself. Rudnitzki was killed in the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland.

Also on the program is “Elegy,” an orchestral work composed and conducted by Juan Ramirez with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

It was originally written for the Atlanta community’s commemoration 10 years ago of Kristallnacht, a night of violence against the Jewish community in Germany and Austria in November of 1938. It is thought to have marked the beginning of the end for much of European Jewry.

In sharp contrast to the works that recall the Holocaust will be a selection of light, popular songs written in Ladino, the language of Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean region.

Several are from the personal collection of the conductor, whose mother’s family was descended from the conversos or secret Jews of medieval Spain. Ramirez has traveled extensively in Spain and Portugal to explore the musical heritage of the Jews of the region.

The concert concludes with a selection of traditional Chanukah songs sung by Zamiros, the youth choir of Temple Emanu-El, conducted by Cantor Adesnik.

She noted that the Chanukah candles are lit in succession during the eight nights of Chanukah, with each night bringing just that much more light into our lives.

“The idea of our concert, “From Darkness to Light,” is about bringing light into a darkened world,” she pointed out.  “It is shining a light upon the troubles of the Jewish people.”

Ramirez, who partnered with Cantor Adesnik to create the program, also emphasized the importance of light in all that has happened to Jews over the centuries.

“We are trying to convey to people that history is important,” Ramirez noted, “It is important for us to understand that, and continue to do good things. I think it is very important to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Tickets for “From Darkness to Light” are available through The Breman Museum, www.thebreman.org.