Soiree honours Tomi Kalinski’s love of Yiddish
Kalinski has been a creative force and beloved figure in the Yiddish cultural world for many years.
Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre and National Library is hosting All My Yesterdays Are Steps – a Soirée with Tomi Kalinski and Friends.
Kalinski has been a creative force and beloved figure in the Yiddish cultural world for many years, and this show honours her artistry. This year Kalinski received an Order of Australia Medal, for her lifetime of contribution to the Yiddish community, especially through music.
The soiree will feature 11 Yiddish poems that Kalinski has set to music, performed by Kalinski as well as musicians including Anita Lester, Elisa Gray, Freydi Mrocki, Noa Coates, Karen Feldman and the Mir Kumen On Choir which Kalinski conducts.
The performance will be MC’d by Kalinski and her long-time creative collaborator and friend Evelyn Krape, with musical direction by Kalinski and direction by Eli Erez.
Speaking to The AJN, Kalinski said that she did not find these poems, rather they found her.
“It feels like that when I respond to a Yiddish poem that it’s already sitting there waiting to be transmitted … The poems find me, and then they come with their own rhythms and their own music.”
All My Yesterdays Are Steps is named after a poem Kalinski performed at Anita Lester’s wedding to Gideon Preiss, and which Lester will perform in the soiree.
The soiree is also tribute to Kalinski’s love of Yiddish, which she has described as being part of the fibre of her being – her “neshome-musik” – soul music.
by Anita Lester.
A graduate of Bialystoker Centre Kindergarten, Kalinski spoke only Yiddish until she began school. She learnt how to write Yiddish from her great-uncle Abraham Chizik and from reading the Yiddish Jewish News.
Chizik came to Australia before the war but sadly lost his wife and five-year-old son in the Holocaust. He sponsored his surviving nephews and nieces to come to Australia.
Kalinski’s parents had escaped Poland by fleeing to the Soviet Union. When they left Poland they decided they would no longer speak Polish and embraced Yiddish.
Kalinski feels that keeping Yiddish alive is part of the “golden chain” of responsibility. She is glad to see it flourishing in Melbourne thanks to the work of Sholem Aleichem and the Kadimah.
She joined the Melbourne Yiddish theatre scene in 1988 and has been part of it ever since, performing in countless productions.
Kalinski has worked in an ongoing creative partnership with Krape to create and stage contemporary Yiddish theatre for the Kadimah.
She is also a member of several bands and a music and Yiddish teacher.
“Just to be able to teach Hebrew songs and Yiddish songs and have kids enjoy it and dance to it and knowing that maybe some part of it would go into their long term memory… I loved watching them love it.”
All My Yesterdays Are Steps will take place on August 24 at 3.30pm and 7.30pm.
To book visit https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1440446
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