RACHEL WESTON ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is August 22nd, 2014.  I'm here at KlezKanada, and I'm going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Do I have your permission to record?

RACHEL WESTON: You do.

CW:  Thanks.  Can you just start by telling me your name and where you were born?

RW:  My name's Rachel Weston.  I was born in London, England -- just north of London.

CW:  So to start, can you just tell me briefly about your family background?

RW:  So my parents are -- well, my dad's English.  My mum's Welsh; she grew up 1:00in Cardiff, in Wales.  My dad's grandparents were from Poland -- my family's Eastern European, so basically Poland, Russia, and Lithuania.

CW:  Are there any family stories that have been passed down about life in Eastern Europe?

RW:  Not really, to be honest.  My great-aunt, who died about a month ago -- she told me the story of how her mother came here from Poland when she was fourteen.  She had lived not too far from Białystok.  And she witnessed a pogrom at the age of fourteen and traveled here on her own and started working in a tailor's shop in -- I think central London.  So that's something that 2:00she's kind of communicated to me.  But that kind of part of my family is kind of quite cut off from me now, 'cause we've sort of been here for three generations.

CW:  Do you know anything about what life was like for them in -- for, let's say, the previous generations coming to England?

RW:  Not so much, no.  I remember that when I first did a Yiddish course in London, my grandpa wrote me a list of Yiddish words and phrases.  And the phrase that he heard the most was, "Nit tsvishn di kinder [Not around the children]" -- so, you know, what his parents would use to not have him kind of understand.  And it was interesting -- all the words that he gave were in the 3:00Polish dialect, and I was obviously learning klal [standard] Yiddish, and he sort of sort of didn't really understand the distinction that -- he didn't know that there was a kind of -- like, different -- that was kind of his Yiddish, you know?  That was his, like, accent of Yiddish.

CW:  Can you just explain for someone who doesn't understand about the different dialects in Yiddish?

RW:  So my understanding is that Yiddish was standardized in the 1940s, and that -- well, still, but also before then, Yiddish was completely dialectical and dependent on the region that one was from.  So, the language being in direct correlation to the area and to the surroundings.  So yeah, different dialects according to different locations.  You know, in the same way that English is dialectical.

CW:  Do you remember any of those phrases from your grandpa?

RW:  Do I remember any?  I'd have to think about it.  I'd have to think about 4:00it.  But yeah, the one -- oh, quite a few insults.  Yeah.  Like, "Ikh hob dir in varshe" -- as in, like, "Go back to Warsaw."  (laughs) You might not want to put that on film.  Yeah.  Like, pretty standard stuff -- quite standard vocabulary.  But the one that sticks in my head is the "not in front of the children" one -- which I think is quite reflective of that generation, using Yiddish as a way of having their children not understand -- you know, because they were sort of -- I guess, moving away from passing that language and that knowledge on after they emigrated or whatever.

CW:  Can you describe the home that you grew up in?

RW:  Yeah.  So I grew up in a United Synagogue which, I guess, is the 5:00equivalent of Modern Orthodox.  So I grew up hearing a lot of synagogue melodies.  A lot of these melodies are sort of really in my head -- but not singing them myself.  And now I do a lot of cantorial work and singing in a Reform synagogue -- which is really interesting kind of making that transition from having these melodies inside me in quite an abstract way to actually singing them.  Because most of them are so ingrained in me that I know them, yet kind of singing them -- like, you know, being a woman, kind of singing this music is something that's quite different to the upbringing that I had.  Yeah.  I have a brother and a sister -- a younger brother and an older sister.  Yeah, I mean, I guess it was fairly traditional.  My family are very 6:00culturally Jewish.  We keep all the festivals.  We kept Shabbos to an extent when I was younger -- like, we didn't drive on Shabbos and we always went to shul.  Yeah, shul was a big part of our lives.  Yeah, so I guess very sort of culturally and traditionally Jewish.  Yeah.

CW:  Can you describe your shul?

RW:  Um -- (laughs) -- I remember sounds and smells.  So I could tell you how it smelt on Yom Kippur and the fact that, like, no one had brushed their teeth and it was all a bit -- I remember how it felt under my dad's talis -- so when I was younger, and the kohenim [Hebrew: priests] would do their blessing, my dad would take me under his talis.  And I remember that feeling quite well, and the smell of the old cloth, for example.  Yeah.  They had a children's service, 7:00and I was sort of quite a big part of the children's service, and I remember sort of getting quite a lot of validation out of that -- doing well in the children's service was a like a mark of respect, you know?  And they used to have -- when it was Simchat Torah, they had an eshet chayil [Hebrew: strong Jewish woman, lit. "woman of valor"] and a chatan Torah [Hebrew: wise Jewish man, lit. "bridegroom of the Torah"], da-da-da.  And I remember one year, I was eshet chayil, and I felt so important and da-da-da, I got to parade around da-da-da.  (laughs) But yeah, I mean, I would not -- I don't really set foot inside a United Synagogue now if I can help it, 'cause I -- I just -- you know, I find the whole segregation offensive.  And it's not something that I want to engage in at all, 'cause my life is completely different now.  But yeah, I remember believing in God.  And I remember praying as a young child.  I remember when my cousin was born, when I was eight, I remember very clearly praying for him -- that he would be okay.  And I found a lot of comfort in the 8:00fact that there was this -- like, even as a really young child, that I could sort of have that kind of center, you know?  That was a really big part of my life.  As it still is, but in a completely different way.  (laughs) Yeah.  Yeah, I mean, I guess I have a lot of memories that I could share about shule [Yiddish secular school], because it was such a big thing.  I went to Bnei Akiva, which is a quite religious Zionist youth group.  And I went to Israel with them when I was sixteen.  And was about eighteen before I realized -- before I knew about the Israel-Palestine con-- you know, there was not very much education around that at all.  Like, we'd go to Israel all the time as a child, but my parents never really told us about the fact that we were going on holiday to a conflicted land or whatever.  So I remember that being quite a shock.  Yeah.

CW:  Can you just give an example of some of the sounds that you would hear in the shul growing up?

RW:  So they had really good singers.  I don't think we had a hazan [Hebrew: (synagogue) cantor], but there were -- what do you call them, baal tefilah [Hebrew: leader of prayers], baal tefilot? -- who had really beautiful voices.  I remember the rabbi was Scottish, and he had a really heavy Scottish accent.  And that's quite a memory.  And I can't really do the accent, but he used to say to you, "A hearty mazel tov!"  And he'd say that in a really thick Scottish accent, which we'd all make fun of.  I mean, male voices, I think -- male voices singing together.  Yeah, singing prayers.  The women didn't really sing 10:00that much.  Although it wasn't prohibited -- it wasn't that kind of synagogue.  But it was just -- you know, the women sat at the back with their hats, and they talked a lot.  And that's kind of my memory of women not really having an active role in the service.  So I grew up in this kind of dynamic of women being the observers -- of women observing men leading the service.  And that's something that -- you know, like I say, that I'm not interested in engaging with now.  But yeah, male prayer-leading.  And there's lovely stuff about that as well.  But that is, yeah, primarily -- yeah.  And it was quite echoey -- like, it was all quite ech-- you know, there were stained glass windows and there was a wonderful choir.  They had a great choir.  And they 11:00all -- I don't know if you know the tune to "Shema beni [Hebrew: Listen, my son]"?  (singing) "Shema beni" -- (sings wordlessly) -- (singing) "Shema beni, nay nay nay nay nay-nay-nay" -- beautiful.  And the father would sing that on his son's bar mitzvah.  And a lot of those tunes come up again in the Reform movement as well, so there's a lot of parallels with that -- which is really nice.  And I have tunes that I sing now which I know from when I was younger, because I heard them.  So, yeah.  Yeah, a wonderful choir.

CW:  What was the other music that you grew up hearing?

RW:  A lot of Israeli music, actually.  My mum had a lot of cassette tapes of Israeli music, so I really grew up with all of that.  That's what I remember.  Yeah.  I didn't grow up with Yiddish music -- that came much later.  Yeah.  12:00Like, Israeli -- kind of Israeli pop music, Israeli more religious music -- that's what I remember.  Yeah.

CW:  And looking back on your childhood, were there values, practices that you felt your parents were actively trying to pass on to you?

RW:  Yeah, definitely.  You know, we kept Shabbos because they wanted to give us a grounding in traditional religious life, I think.  Yeah.  Like, we didn't drive on Shabbos.  And my dad goes to Tottenham Hotspurs games on Shabbos now -- he got to a point where he thought right that, you know, they're old enough to make their own decisions.  Yeah.  So I definitely think they wanted to give us the grounding so that we could then kind of go on to make our own decisions.  And we've all made kind of various decisions about what kind of, 13:00like, you know, religious, you know, Jewish life we want to lead.  But it's such an important part of their lives -- my parents.  It still is.  Having that kind of center and that structure and that grounding, that's -- you know, it's at the center of their worlds, I think, in a lot of ways.  And I think they wanted to really pass that on and give that to us.  Yeah.  [BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:  What were the other languages, if any, that you grew up hearing?

RW:  Some in Yiddish, in the sense of words here and there -- in the same way that most people do.  And I guess Hebrew, in the sense that we were going to Israel and stuff, so I was probably hearing that.  We spent some time in France and my mum spoke French, I think.  My mum's quite a language-y person -- like, 14:00she speaks a lot of different languages.  And she came to one of my Yiddish classes with me a few years ago, which was really nice, because she has German and Hebrew.  Yeah.  I mean, not tons of languages, but yeah.  Yeah.  I would say English, Hebrew, French.  Yeah.

CW:  So how did you get interested in Yiddish?

RW:  (laughs) So I was singing in a folk band when I lived in Brighton, and I rediscovered a book that I was given when I was bat mitzvah called "The International Jewish Songbook," which you probably know about.  And I just, like -- some of the really famous songs that I would never, ever sing now, 'cause they've just been done too many times -- you know, "Rozhinkes mit mandlen [Raisins and almonds]," "Tumbalalaika [Play the balalaika]" -- and I just sort of learnt them and taught them to the band I was in and just started performing them.  And I hadn't really learned any Yiddish and my Yiddish was terrible and mispronounced it.  And then I got in touch with the Jewish Music Institute and 15:00they said -- you know, they run these Yiddish courses, so I start-- and that was when Klezfest was happening, in conjunction with a Yiddish language course called Ot Azoy, which still happens -- Klezfest doesn't happen in London anymore, unfortunately.  So I started doing the Yiddish courses.  And that was 2009.  And I came to it through the music.  And that, primarily, is my interest in Yiddish -- you know, through the musical heritage and the culture that the songs kind of perpetuate.

CW:  Can you explain what that book is?

RW:  "The International Jewish Songbook" is a great book with all different types of Jewish songs -- from Hasidic to Ladino to Yiddish to Israeli.  So it's just got a handful of -- it's not -- you know, the translations are quite inaccurate.  But for me, who sort of wanted an overview of the most famous 16:00songs, it was a good place to start for me.  And it was, like, the Bible of the band for a while.  You know, we'd take it to all the gigs and have it on the music stand and you could sort of see it or whatever.  So yeah, I still really like that book, and if I have, like, a wedding where I have to play "Dodi li [Hebrew: My beloved is mine]" or something, then I know it's in the book.  It's like an old, reliable friend or something.  Yeah.

CW:  Did you have any important mentors in terms of the language or music?

RW:  I do now.  Yeah.  I didn't so much back then.  But I would say much more now, having been in that world since, I guess, 2009, I know that I have people I can really rely on to help me with the language or with translations.  And I have people that I can email for, you know, What does this word mean?  17:00And I'm really, really lucky in that sense.  Obviously, the internet has revolutionized the way that we kind of are able to communicate about this stuff.  I can call someone on the other side of the world and communicate about the songs or whatever.  So yeah, I definitely have great, great people to help me.  Yeah.  And in the same way, I've started kind of teaching -- teaching people the songs and passing them on to other people, as well.  So it's nice to have that sort of chain of communication.  (laughs)

CW:  What appeals to you about Yiddish song?

RW:  I think it's a connection with folk music in general, primarily -- which is that the more I discover folk music - the more songs I discover -- the more folk songs I discover, the more people I hear sing folk songs and communicate 18:00culture in that way, the more you just discover that song is the most integral part of communicating human experience.  There are songs about every aspect of life.  And there's something in that, you know?  It's not just a coincidence that there's all these songs about absolutely everything, you know?  It's just amazing to discover more and more how integral singing is to processing human experience.  So that's kind of like the premise of everything.  And I guess narrowing it down to my experience and my heritage -- the fact that even though I don't know a lot about my ancestry, I know that my family are Ashkenazi, from Eastern Europe, and were at some point Yiddish speakers.  And in the way that 19:00it skips generations, it's important to me to really connect with that.  And people say, Why do you sing Yiddish song?  And I don't really know what to say.  I just say, "Because I want to."  (laughs) Because I like it.  Because I connect with it.  Because it's just a part of -- it's a thing that I can express.  It's a thing that I have -- to learn about.  There's so many different types of folk music, and I don't say that Yiddish is any better, but it's the thing that I have -- to give, to learn about.

CW:  I know this is probably an impossible question, but do you have a favorite Yiddish song?

RW:  (sighs) No.  But I have songs which I've sung in a lot of -- I think, yeah, maybe one song in particular that's not my favorite, but it's one of the 20:00first Yiddish songs that I learnt, and I've sung it in so many different situations.  And it's taken on so many different meanings because of those different contexts -- you know, I've sung it in loads of sessions -- in Irish sessions, in pubs in England, and I sang it here a couple of years ago -- which was an incredibly significant thing for me, because the way certain people responded to that song created relationships which I still have now, through that song.  There's a lady here -- an Israeli lady -- who keeps coming up to me -- and last year, as well -- keeps coming up to me saying, "Well, when are you" -- like, quite pushy -- "When are you gonna sing that song again?  When can we hear you sing that song? Sing that" -- and I performed it in London, and people come up to -- like, it's this song, you know, people -- yeah.  So it's not my 21:00favorite song, but it's definitely a song which I've sung a lot, and, like I say, was one of the first Yiddish songs that I learnt, and has a tremendous, yeah, significance to me.  Yeah.

CW:  And which song is it?

RW:  It's "A dudele."  Yeah.  (laughs)

CW:  Would you want to sing a little bit of it?

RW:  (singing) "Riboyno shel oylom, riboyno shel oylom, riboyno shel oylom.  Riboyno shel oylom.  Riboyno shel oylom, ikh vil dir a dudele zingen, 'Du du du du du.' [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Holy Being of the world, holy Being of the world, 22:00holy Being of the world.  Holy Being of the world.  Holy Being of the world, I want to sing a dudele for you, 'Du du du du du.']."

CW:  Thank you.  So how did you learn that song?

RW:  Polina taught it to me.  (laughs) Polina Shepherd.  I was doing a master's in Jewish music, and my first MA recital, I was looking at various types of Yiddish folk song and Yiddish art song.  And she taught me that song.  And I listened to various recordings of it.  And I performed it with the band.  I did it with just voice and fiddle.  And yeah, I've performed it in so many -- I performed it in a recital last year.  I did the amazing Leo Low arrangement of it with a wonderful friend and colleague and mentor, Alex Knapp, in London -- a musicologist.  And he's an amazing pianist.  And he introduced me to this arrangement of it.  And it's wonderful, actually, because it's not 23:00an accompaniment -- it's like a concerto in itself.  And it's a duet -- it's a voice-piano duet.  Amazing arrangement.  I can't remember what the question was now.  (laughs)

CW:  No worries.  Talking about that song.  (laughs)

RW:  Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah, a lot of -- and then I sang it with Hankus, as well, a couple of years ago and recorded it.  Yeah, just so many different performances of that song.  Yeah.

CW:  So if you are looking to learn a new song, how do you go about finding one?

RW:  Hm.  That's an interesting question.  I come on courses like this, and I try and mainly -- not so much this year, actually, because I haven't been involved in an improv ensemble.  But I try and go to classes which are quite repertoire-based.  So that's one way.  I have amazing access to songbooks that 24:00have been compiled, which is great.  And I email my teachers who I've met here and ask them for stuff, which is an incredible resource.  And I'm really lucky to have teachers who know my voice and know my personality.  And yeah, a lot by coming on courses and hearing songs that other people do, and listening to them and listening to the connection that they have with that song and seeing if I have that same connection.  I'm quite interested in Yiddish songs which have a crossover with religious experience, as well.  I think that's a really interesting kind of boundary.  I'm interested in anti-Hasidic songs, as well -- looking at that and what that kind of represents.  Yeah.  Yeah, I wouldn't say 25:00I have a specific repertoire.  It's not like I sing songs about this or I sing songs by this person.  I sing what moves me to sing.  Yeah.

CW:  And what inspires you?

RW:  In terms of song choice?  Or --

CW:  Well, in terms of your art.

RW:  I'm really interested in art song, 'cause I'm a classical singer.  I like songs which kind of negotiate that boundary between Yiddish folk song and classical music.  I find that something that's really interesting to explore and something that I can do -- something that I'm able to do -- as a classical singer who sings Yiddish folk song, to be able to present I guess what you'd call Yiddish classical repertoire to people in a recital setting.  And I'm 26:00inspired to sing in a recital setting -- I spoke to someone about this yesterday -- because it allows you the privilege of being able to explain -- you know, being able to really engage with an audience and talk to an audience in a way that you maybe wouldn't if you're singing in, like, a café or a restaurant or something -- a place that's really noisy.  I'm inspired by the boundaries and the connections between khazones [Jewish liturgical music] and Yiddish song.  I find that really interesting.  I'm just inspired by songs which say something deeper about what it is that humans experience -- what it is that Jews have experienced throughout history.  Itzik introduced me to the genre of conversion ballads, which is incredibly interesting -- you know, that people sang songs about their children converting.  Amazing.  Every single aspect of life and 27:00experience, documented in this way.  Yeah.  That inspires me.  That inspires me.  Yeah.

CW:  How does Yiddish and your singing sort of connect with your own Jewish identity?

RW:  It's not how it connects with it.  It is it.  Like, that is my Jewish identity, really.  That is my avenue into it, and it's my avenue out of it.  It's the way I hope that people kind of see me.  It's the way I see myself -- you know, being able to express a Jewish identity through the music.  Like, I don't really approach Jewish identity from a God-centered perspective -- from a theo-centered perspective -- but I acknowledge that there is a spiritual or 28:00divine element within the songs.  But I think that's a human thing.  Like, I think that's a -- primarily -- it's a human experience to the divine, which you can express in a song.  Yeah.  I just think that the Jewish musical tradition is just -- it's -- yeah.  I'm not really sure how to explain it.  But yeah, I mean, I approach my Jewish identity primarily from a musical perspective.  Yeah.

CW:  Can you say a little more about the role, as you see it, of the performing artist in transmitting culture?

RW:  I mean, I think it's an incredibly important role, because it gives you a platform.  If you're an artist, if you're a singer, and if you work on that -- 29:00if people respect you as that -- then people listen to you.  You have a platform to communicate things.  And if you learn a lot about something, then you take on a role as a teacher, as well, and people will look to you to teach them things and to show them things.  Yeah.  Sorry, what was the question again? (laughs)

CW:  The role, as you see it, of the performing artist in transmitting Jewish culture?

RW:  Yeah.  The role of the performer is that as they're performing, you have a platform to communicate something.  And you have a role as a teacher, as well -- as a performing artist, obviously, the two go hand-in-hand.  Yeah.

CW:  What's your take on the term -- the idea -- of cultural revival?

RW:  (sighs) What's my take on it?  What do I think it means?

CW:  How do you feel about it, and what do you think it means?

RW:  I mean, I guess if you say "cultural revival" to me in this context, I would, yeah, think of the klezmer Yiddish music revival and Yiddish language revival in America.  And that's really interesting for me, because all of the people that I read about for years and studied for years are all here.  So it's kind of mind-blowing for me to come and sort of see that -- you know, that was my kind of cultural revival, to come to the States and to meet all these people I'd been reading about for all these years -- studying or whatever.  Yeah.  I think it's really interesting, and it's so connected to the movement of people and the way that people move through different places and arrive in a place and build up an identity and build up a culture and a musical tradition -- and to the extent that people have with klezmer and Yiddish music.  And that's -- it 31:00connects to what actually draws me to Yiddish and to Yiddish language and Yiddish music, which is that it's so directly connected to the way people move through land and move through territory and come to different places and arrive somewhere else and move somewhere else.  And I think that's -- yeah, when I think of cultural revival, then I think of movement, you know?  Because it doesn't just happen.  It's constantly building and building and building and building -- in the way that we are here.  And, like, constantly -- constantly moving.  And I guess I see that in a kind of opposition or a dichotomy with kind of nationalism.  For me, it's kind of the opposite of that. Adrienne did this amazing interview for the Yiddish Book Center where she talks about the lack of cultural dominance of Yiddish, and the draw to it being that it isn't 32:00this culturally dominant thing -- entity.  And I think that's quite a vital aspect of it, and why it is seen and kind of why it should be seen as a kind of opposite end of the spectrum to the idea that a people are tied to a land.  Because we know that to not be the case, for so many hundreds of years.  And that's what's great about coming here.  There's so many Yiddish misfits from all over the world who are sort of tied to all these different places and move through identities and move through cultures and musical traditions and kind of gather here and then are scattered again.  And that's something that's quite relevant to cultural revival for me -- having these scattered people coming together and then moving back out again and being so aware of the way people 33:00move and travel.  Yeah.  And travel to me has become so much a part of my kind of cultural revival of all of this stuff -- coming here and moving around and -- yeah.

CW:  And where can you find Yiddish in the UK today?

RW:  Okay, so there's several Yiddish courses at UCL -- University College London.  And Oxford, they have Yiddish courses.  There's quite a few different Yiddish groups in London.  It's small -- like, it is very small.  My kind of take is that there's quite a sort of dominant Jewish identity in the UK which is quite Conservative and quite synagogue-based, and I still get the sense that 34:00Yiddish is patronized somewhat.  I feel that when I say I sing in Yiddish, it's like, Oh, isn't that lovely, da-da-da-da.  And it is respected, to an extent.  Yeah.  So they have a Yiddish course -- a Yiddish language course -- in London every year called Ot Azoy, and that's in conjunction with the Song School, which is called "Di Goldene Pave," which is great.  That happened last week -- so, the week before KlezKanada.  And it's really wonderful.  They have four different levels.  And conversation classes and films and performances.  And it's really, really wonderful.  The teachers are amazing -- absolutely incredible.  All the faculty are female, as well, which I think is really quite interesting and quite significant -- I'm not sure how.  I mean, you can make of 35:00that what you will.  But it's just quite a great thing that the whole thing is completely female-led, and you can really feel that kind of -- you know, that fierceness and that fierce desire.  Yeah.  It's wonderful.  So, yeah, it's small -- it is small.  But it's great.  Yeah.  It's great.

CW:  Can you hear Yiddish on the street anywhere?

RW:  So I lived in Stamford Hill for two and a half years.  Stamford Hill is in northeast London, and it's one of the biggest Hasidic communities in Europe, I think -- to my knowledge.  Very, very insular community.  It's where the Satmars and Chabad -- you know, a lot of Chabad, a lot of Satmar.  I was living right in the middle of a really, really Hasidic neighborhood in Stamford Hill.  36:00And yeah, I would leave my window open, and Yiddish was the main language you could hear on the street -- like, a little bit of Hebrew, but mostly very, very fast, garbled Yiddish that I couldn't really understand.  There were about three yeshiva on my road.  And Friday nights, I could hear really loud nigunim [wordless melodies] -- and, like, wonderful.  I made some recordings, as well -- really great recordings -- of, yeah, Stamford Hill Hasidim.  (laughs) Which is a great way to learn new repertoire, as well.  Yeah.  So that's mostly where you would hear Yiddish in London.  Yeah.

CW:  Well, I have just a couple of other things to ask, but is there anything you want to add about these topics?

RW:  Um -- no.  No.

CW:  Well, what are you working on now?

RW:  What am I working on now? (laughs) So, I'm just about to start a new group with three musicians in London -- three female musicians, one of whom is a clarinet player, one of whom is a fiddle player, and one of whom is a cello player.  They all play a lot of Eastern European, Transylvanian, Bulgarian, Balkan music.  And we're about to start a group that, yeah, I guess would be exploring that, and a lot of Yiddish stuff, as well.  I'm really quite interested in Yiddish music in London -- you know, historically.  Me and a storyteller friend, we started putting together a performance looking at a song 38:00cycle that was written by a Yiddish folklorist in London called Derek Reid.  And his family emigrated to East London -- you know -- where all the immigration happened, end of the 1800s, beginning of the 1900s -- where people moved.  And the song cycle was poetry that was set to music and really influenced by English folk music.  And it documented, as poetically, his experience growing up in East London during the -- I guess the '50s and '60s, and really kind of situated himself and his relationship to the Yiddish language and to his upbringing, and really gives this incredibly beautiful and distinct flavor of his experience and his relationship to that area of London.  So we did this performance that was 39:00looking at that song cycle and then connecting the themes to Yiddish folk songs -- so kind of seeing where there were melodic and thematic connections between the songs -- which was great, 'cause there were so many, so many kind of common themes, and it's really beautiful.  So that's something that I'm really interested in -- kind of looking at kind of cultural parallels between London -- what it was like in the Yiddish East End of London and what it was like in Eastern Europe, and kind of looking at that through the songs.

CW:  Can you give an example?

RW:  Okay, so an example would be -- I don't know if you were here last year, but Jenny Romaine put on this incredible performance.  Yeah, you know about that?  And one of the songs in it was a piece that I think Itzik found called "Shteyt oyf [Rise up]."  And it was a song that was sung by the shulklaper -- 40:00so, the guy in the shtetl [small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish population] that would knock on people's windows and wake them up for prayer in the month of Elul -- so, leading up to the High Holidays.

CW:  Itzik Gottesman?

RW:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Yeah.  So we sang this in the amazing production that Jenny put on last year.  And then I learnt it to sing for a concert that I was giving on Friday night with this particular storyteller that I was working with.  And the storyteller is the daughter of the folklorist that wrote this song cycle.  And she said, "Oh, my dad wrote a song about exactly the same thing, but about the guy that would do that in East London."  So it was amazing to sort of perform these two pieces in parallel with each other, 'cause the song was in English -- the song that he wrote -- and it sort of -- if you listen to it, it's English -- I guess it's a type of English folk music.  You know, a Yiddish folk song from East London became Anglicized in its own way.  So yeah, 41:00that's an example of -- and he created this character called Nakhmen Gates, who was the shulklaper.  I can sing you a bit of it.  (singing) "Nakhmen Gates looked older than the years he owned.  Time and persecution had pared flesh from bone -- now unto his daily bread, he would wake the sleeping head, call to rest the righteous dead -- calling all to prayer.  Calling like a muezzin in the early morn, his job to wake the world up for the coming dawn.  I was told that years ago, through the village he would go, falling rain or driving snow, 42:00calling all to prayer.  He stood outside the window and he rapped till you rose, through the darkened morning as he called on those who he knew would come when called -- follow when he sang or bawled -- though his voice was somewhat drawled -- calling all to prayer.  Last upon his journey was the shul itself.  He stood outside the door there and he knocked in stealth.  Three times he knocked, then pushed the door -- to let the shades of night withdraw -- to those that they had gone before -- calling all to prayer.  Calling all to prayer.  Calling all to prayer."  So you see the kind of direct parallel between those 43:00two worlds.  They're quite cool.  (laughs)

CW:  (Speaking at the same time; unclear) cool.  Well, I just have one other question, but is there anything else you might want to sing?

RW:  Oh.  Yeah.  (pause) Yeah, so this is a song from East London, which I learnt from my really good friend and colleague, Vivi Lachs, who's doing amazing research on Yiddish life in East London through poetry and music at that time -- so she's doing incredible research on that.  And I learnt this song from her, and it's based on the character of Old Solomon Levi, who springs up in all these 44:00different folk songs.  And in this particular version, he's a fiddle player -- a Jewish fiddle player -- that played outside the London Hospital on Whitechapel Road in East London.  And it goes: (singing) "Old Solomon Levi, tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.  Di mame gemakht di kliskes [The mother makes noodles], tra-la-la-la-la-la-la.  A froy mit finef kinder kik aroys fun di vinde, a noisy krekhts, a noisy lakhts, fun [A woman with five children looks out of her window, a noisy whine, a noisy laugh, from] Old Solomon Levi."  So you see, like, the Anglici-- like, "di vinde," like "the window."  Yeah.

CW:  I just want to end and see if you have an eytse -- if you have any advice to someone, I don't know, younger than you who's interested in this stuff.

RW:  Talk to people who know about it.  Yeah.  Be humble, I think.  I don't 45:00know if I always kind of managed to do that, but yeah, I think that's good advice.  There's so many people who will give so generously of themselves and of their time and of their knowledge and of their experience, if you show willing and willingness to work hard.  And so really, really honor -- you know, honor the tradition, honor the language, honor the people who are sort of paving the way and teaching you things.  Yeah.

CW:  A hartsikn dank [Thank you very much].

RW:  You're welcome.

[END OF INTERVIEW]