Original play tells grandmother’s story through Yiddish songs and personal narratives

Through the first-person storytelling and Yiddish folk songs of “My Yiddishe Bubby,” Karen Fried will recount the experiences of four women during wartime and the Holocaust. Fried will perform the solo show based on the lives of her grandmother and three other women at Beth Am Temple on Sunday, April 26 at 2 pm. The unique program will bridge the past to the present by interweaving songs and spoken personal narratives with accordion accompaniment by Dorie Byrne.

Fried, a trained vocalist and music educator, created and wrote the show to bring to life the stories of her grandmother Clara Notovitz of Hungary; 16-year-old Mirele, and music teacher and opera singer Lyuba Levitsky, both from the Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania; and a Polish widow from Bialystok, Poland.

With monologues relating the histories of the women, Fried imagines what life was like for her grandmother from 1928 to 2018 as she was transported from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp and eventually made her way to Manhattan. The premiere will feature Fried performing forgotten Yiddish folk songs that were written during the Holocaust.

The dramatic performance about life during the Holocaust is appropriate for older children and children ready to learn about it. A print program with texts and translations for each piece of music and background will be provided. The free 60-minute program will be followed by a Q&A session and light refreshments. The public is invited to attend. Pre-registration is required by Friday, April 24 and can be made at [email protected].

A professional opera singer and native New Yorker, Fried has performed in the United States, Italy, Austria and France. Her interest in Yiddish song began 10 years ago and builds on her classical training at Juilliard Pre-College, the New England Conservatory of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Beth Am Temple is a reform temple, which embraces tradition and draws its congregation from
throughout Rockland County, NY and northern Bergen County, NJ. It is located on the New York/New Jersey border at 60 East Madison Ave in Pearl River, NY. Its website is: https://wwwbethamtemple.org