October 23th, 2020. Shabbat is almost here
And a virtuoso Gypsy musician brings us the Jewish tunes of another time from Maramureș: Ion Covaci
October is the month with more professional events for world music. I want to recover our lifes… In the meantime, there are still some online events that can be inspiring.
I come back to Maramureș region, in the North of Romania, following two previous editions: the one about the zemirot with melody from Sighet and the one about the recovery of Jewish music from Hungary.
The lady in the picture is Peninah Zilberman. I met her thanks to the edition dedicated to the zemirot Asader L’Seudasa with a melody from Sighet, in the North of Romania. Peninah is part of the team of Tarbut Foundation Sighet (FTS) and she answered my email thanking them for their website with the wonderfiul pictures. And we have been in touch since them. I decided to dedicate this edition to the Jewish music of Maramureș when she told me she is will offer an online conference next Sunday. Learn more below.
And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom.
Little by little this bunch of friends is growing. If you like this, share it with your friends, they are more than welcome. Thank you in advance.
Our keeper of the beauty, Ion Covaci, or Ionu lu’ Grigore, aka “Paganini”
Ionu lu’ Grigore was born in Săliștea de Sus in 1939. He knew the Romanian, Jewish and Ukranian repertoires for weddings, as he used to sing at them since we was a child. He became known as Paganani because of his skills with the violin: like the Genoese violinist of the first half of XIX century, Ionu played a complete concert despite the break of two of the four strings. Depending on where you read the anecdote, they say Paganini’s violin got two or three strings during that concert. Who cares?
What we know for certain is that Ionu has been one of the pillars in which the recovery of Jewish music from Maramureș has been built. Ion Covavi played in some occasions with the folkloric band Grupul Iza, lead by Ioan Pop, with whon he travelled to play in abroad (here they are in France).
Despite all this, he is not on the list of local personalities in Wikipedia. This is the world we are building… I have just added his name in the Romanian version and it has been removed after a few minutes.
This picture is from the blog by Bob Cohen. Thanks to him and to his partners there are unpayable videos like this. And here you can read more about Ion Covaci.
I wondered why is that in Romania the Jewish tunes are kept by the Gypsies, while in Poland they are the Poles not Gypsy the ones who have been the source for the recovery of that legacy? You will understand this question much better if you check this edition about the Jewish music in Poland on the work Kolberg po żydowsku by Andrzej Bieńkowski and his Foundation Muzyka Odnaleziona, and also this edition about the recovery of Hungarian Jewish music by Bob Cohen. Bob and his partners learnt much about the old style of Jewish music from the Romanian Gypsies. In fact, our protagonist of today is mentioned there in that edition.
So, why this difference between Poland and Hungary and Romania, in terms of who has kept the memory of the Jewish tunes? Because of the different role of the local governments in relationship with the nazis. In Poland, that was directly administrated by them, the Gypsies were sistematically murdered and after the II WW there were almost none. In Romania and Hungary, the destruction of Gypsies was in the plan of the nazis but it was not developed in such a sistematic way as with the Jews and the Roma population remained almost the same.
Ion Covaci died in September 2009. There is a very moving obituary in this newspaper, where it is described his funeral.
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Fancy a trip to Săliștea de Sus? Click the picture, there are some streets you can walk in Google Maps street view:
If you are interested on this kind of music, apart from its relationship with Jewish culture, check these channels in Youtube: Fiddle Music of Transylvania, Altmaer, Dumneazu. |
About Peninah Zilberman and the event of next Sunday
According to her bio in the website of Tarbut Foundation Sighet, Peninah is Founder & CEO, BA Jewish History, Judaic Teacher (United synagogue of America), Principal of Hebrew After School (Conservative), Director of Holocaust Museum in Toronto, Organizer of National Professional conferences across Canada; Served as Sisterhood President-Adath Israel Synagogue, IGS past Chair Modiin Chapter, Israel.
Peninah is the daughter of Romanian Holocaust survivors. Her mother Sary Walter Z”L was originally from Sighet and her late father from Bucharest.
She was born in Israel and she travels to Sighet often. Her work is motivated by the memory of the Walter family, who lived in Sighet for nearly 200 years before they, along with the vast majority of the Jews of Maramures, were deported to and then murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Peninah will offer the online conference “Jewish Romania: A century of upheaval and resurgence” next Sunday. Check the details, get your ticket and learn more about her bio, here.
This is the synagogue of Sighet:
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Enjoy the Gypsy Romanian “Paganini”, unexpected heir of the Jewish musical legacy of Maramureș, Mr. Ion Covaci
Click the picture to listen to the recording:
I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
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