Arkady Gendler

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Arkady Gendler (born November 29, 1921 in Soroca , Bessarabia , Kingdom of Romania ; † May 22, 2017 in Zaporozhye , Ukraine ) was a Jewish-Ukrainian chansonnier , composer and collector of Yiddish songs. He only became known after the end of the Soviet Union , as public concerts with Yiddish songs were forbidden during communist rule. Since then he has performed in Saint Petersburg , Moscow , Kiev , Paris , Berkeley , Vienna , Krakow and Weimar . He lived in Zaporizhia, where he headed the Yiddish Academy "Alef", which he founded, until 2008.

Life

He was born the tenth child into an extended Yiddish-speaking family. There was a lot of music at home and the children also performed in the theater. The city of Sorok had belonged to Romania since 1918 and had a mainly Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish population. In the interwar period, the city experienced an economic and cultural boom, which, however, was more and more destroyed by the global economic crisis in the 1930s . After the German French campaign in 1940 Romania had lost its most important ally and the Soviet Union took the opportunity and occupied Bessarabia on June 28, 1940. Gendler became a citizen of the USSR. At first he was still able to work as a tailor, but when war broke out in 1941, he was drafted into the Red Army . While he was withdrawing eastwards with the army from the advancing German troops, his hometown was occupied by Romanian troops until early 1944. Gendler survived the Second World War, but it turned out that of his large family only he and his brother had survived, all others had perished in the course of the fighting or in camps (see Romania and the Holocaust ). After the war he was able to attend a workers' evening school. He then went to the Mendeleev Institute for Chemical Technology in Moscow , where he trained as an engineer for plastics processing. However, he could not live out his musical talent. The Yiddish cultural and music scene that flourished in the early Soviet Union had been suppressed by Stalin and many protagonists fell victim to his purges . After Stalin's death in 1953, the persecution ceased, but Yiddish culture continued to be suppressed. The aim of the communists was to assimilate the Jewish population into Russian-speaking Soviet citizens. Public appearances and concerts in the Yiddish language remained banned or were prevented by harassment by local authorities.

In addition to his work as an engineer, Arkady Gendler therefore began collecting Yiddish songs privately in order to at least preserve them for posterity. For 50 years he built up one of the most extensive collections of Yiddish chansons and klezmer songs . In addition, he composed himself and had small appearances with friends. Only after the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 was he able to go public with his underground work. In the city of Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine, he founded a Yiddish school, which now teaches the language that is threatened with extinction. His huge collection of old songs served as teaching material. In 1995 he founded a folk ensemble with Michael Gaisinsky, which performs Yiddish music in Ukraine. At the same time he began to perform the songs of his collection as a solo singer in front of larger audiences, first in the Ukraine, and later in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1999 Elli Shapiro heard him at the Klezmer Festival in St. Petersburg and was impressed by his voice and his repertoire of old songs, some of which were completely unknown in the USA. She persuaded him to come to Berkeley, California. There he gave a concert and the first recordings were made. As a result, other organizers in Western Europe became aware of him and appearances at various festivals followed. Roman Grinberg , the director of the Vienna Jewish Choir, also from Bessarabia, brought him to Vienna. On this occasion, the ORF shot a portrait of him with the title “A bissele Glik” and also visited him in Ukraine. In Germany he performed at the “Yiddish Summer” festival in Weimar in 2009 , where a video was also made.

In Zaporozhye he was director of the academy he founded until August 2008. He was also chairman of the charity "Hesed Michael" and the Jewish community center "Mazl Tov".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography , accessed January 12, 2018
  2. ^ Obituary , accessed January 12, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Gendler, Arkady
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ukrainian chansonnier, composer and collector
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Soroca , Bessarabia , Kingdom of Romania
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 2017
Place of death Zaporizhia , Ukraine