For the 8th year, I’ll be heading down to the southern-most tip of New Jersey for the Cape May Singer/Songwriter Festival! I can’t wait to return to the Bed & Breakfast Capital to perform as part of this music industry conference. I will also be hosting the After-Party, a special midnight songwriter’s jam on the last night of the fest, and you’re all invited.
SHOWCASE EVENTS at The Brown Room at Congress Hall
Friday, March 27 (7:30pm) & Saturday, March 28 (7pm) RSVP on FACEBOOK
Winter in Poland. It’s like being in Pennsylvania, but with less vowels.
We boarded a train leaving Warsaw, heading towards Katowice on our way to the next destination: Auschwitz. We put our bags down on a random seat to get our bearings. Neither one of us had any idea how to read the ticket for our seat assignments. I found a very nice older couple who helped me identify our correct seats, which were next to them in a private cabin. I went back to get the bags, as my grandfather sat down with Mr and Mrs Adamczyk and started conversation. I put our bags down and began taking very unnecessary pictures of the train station, not realizing I was capturing the exact moment when my grandfather discovered that Mr Adamczyk grew up on the very same street as him in Warsaw, and that this man he just met had lived in a house very close to the one my grandfather lived in (after he and his family had been evacuated from their home). Though I only understood about every fifth word, we spent the next 2 hours in conversation, from the moment the train left Warsaw Central Station until it reached the end of the line.
After spending the Sabbath with the Beit Warszawa community, it came time to mark the end of the Day of Rest with the ceremony of Havdallah. 3 young girls lit the twisted candle, and we all sang prayers to usher out Shabbat. As is their weekly tradition, the group then pulled me in for some traditional Israeli dancing. We joined hands, clapped, and did a whole lot of grapevining. As my grandfather watched on the side, I could see this look on his face – something like amusement, disbelief, wonder. I could only imagine what he was thinking after the Nazis invaded his homeland, murdered his family, put him in a concentration camp, and persecuted anyone who had the audacity to believe whatever they believed. I could only imagine what he thought he might find coming back to Warsaw. At the end, he walked over to the group. “No wonder I survived Auschwitz. If I can live to see this, I can live to see anything.”
Thank you, beautiful people of Beit Warszawa, for giving us this moment.
Before WWII, Poland had a thriving Jewish community. Over the course of the Nazi campaign, most of them – about 3,000,000 – were killed (along with 3mil Polish non-Jews), my grandfather’s entire family among them. Polish Judaism was decimated and never recovered, but there is now an exciting movement of “renewal” and revived Jewish activity that is slowly happening in the country. On Friday night, my grandfather led services for the community of Beit Warszawa, one of the only organized outlets for reform Jews in the country. (90% of the congregation are converts TO Judaism.) I accompanied him on piano as he sang in the cantorial tradition in which he was trained as a small boy growing up in Warsaw. and then we ate a lot.
After the service, came the jam session. The Beit Warszawa congregation’s illustrious Lay Cantor, Iza Rivka and I harmonized on a new Hebrew song that she taught me, and we sang prayers familiar to these Polish Jews – which happened to be the exact same tunes I have been singing since my summer camp days (of course, because “wherever you go…”), and my grandfather sang 2 of his songs that he wrote during his time in Auschwitz, and then came the jazz standards and the Beatles and the Bossa Nova. and suddenly it was 12:30 in the morning. There might be video of all this some where… My grandfather can hang.
In Warsaw, you wash down a big meal with Zubrowka – bison grass vodka. I love that my grandfather looks so serious in the background there, but don’t worry, he had some too.
Dzień dobry, Poland! We made it. and my grandfather has already made fast friends with the Israeli Canadian on the bus, the Welsh couple eating lunch next to us, and the hotel concierge. Master Schmoozer at large.
It’s the first night in Warsaw and i’ve already put on a show. Today is Grandfather’s Day, which is an actual holiday here. Good thing I have my grandfather with me, or I would have felt very left out. In honor of this special day, he asked me to play a song for him in our hotel lobby. The first episode of sharing much music together this week.
