World Premiere - Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango at KlezKanada

Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango premiered on January 27, 2022 to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2022, featuring new music composed by Rebekah Wolkstein based on testimonies of Holocaust survivors in Canada, and how they dealt with lifelong traumas after experiencing unimaginable horrors during the war.
Much of the material is based on Dr. Paula David's work with Holocaust survivors at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto. Dr. David is a professor of Gerontology at the University of Toronto - and she worked with elderly survivors at Baycrest on a group poetry project to help survivors deal with their trauma.
Featuring:
Rebekah Wolkstein - composer, violin
Aviva Chernick - vocals
Lenka Lichtenberg - vocals
Olga Mieleszczuk - vocals
Drew Jurecka - music producer, arranger, audio mixing, bandoneon
Robert Horvath - piano
Joseph Phillips - double bass
Arturas Goloburdo, Dan Rosenberg and Ivan Ceresnjes - videography
and video editing
Dr. Paula David (gerontology, University of Toronto) - keynote speaker
Dan Rosenberg - executive producer and speaker
Professor Doris Bergen (history, University of Toronto) - speaker
Thanks to everyone who made this event possible:
Opening speakers: Toronto City Councillor James Pasternak and York Centre Member of Parliament Ya'ara Saks
Host: Sebastian Schulman, Executive Director of KlezKanada
The Canada Council of the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Workmen's Circle Foundation for supporting this project
Toronto's Committee for Yiddish and the Toronto UJA for spending the word about the event