{"id":2499,"date":"2020-10-23T15:12:02","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T13:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/?p=2499"},"modified":"2020-10-23T15:19:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T13:19:57","slug":"music-before-shabbat-with-the-romanian-gypsy-paganini-who-kept-jewish-tunes-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/musicbeforeshabbat\/music-before-shabbat-with-the-romanian-gypsy-paganini-who-kept-jewish-tunes-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Before Shabbat with the Romanian Gypsy “Paganini” who kept Jewish tunes alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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October 23th, 2020. Shabbat is almost here<\/strong><\/h4>\n

And a virtuoso Gypsy musician brings us the Jewish tunes of another time from Maramure\u0219: Ion Covaci\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Hello! How are you? At this moment I should be in Budapest. As a manager and booker of world music artists that I am (this<\/a> is my company), I should be attending WOMEX fair now. It is itinerant and this year it is taking place, but online, in Budapest.<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
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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.<\/p>\n

<\/span>I come back to Maramure\u0219 region, in the North of Romania, following two previous editions: the one about the\u00a0zemirot\u00a0<\/em>with melody from Sighet and the one about the recovery of Jewish music from Hungary.<\/p>\n

The lady in the picture is\u00a0Peninah Zilberman<\/strong>. I met her thanks to\u00a0the edition dedicated to the\u00a0<\/a>zemirot\u00a0Asader L\u2019Seudasa<\/em><\/a>\u00a0with a melody from Sighet, in the North of Romania. Peninah is part of the team of\u00a0Tarbut Foundation Sighet<\/a>\u00a0(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 Maramure\u0219\u00a0when she told me\u00a0she is will offer an online conference next Sunday<\/strong>. Learn more below.<\/p>\n

And, as usual,\u00a0find the music piece at the bottom<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>\n
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Little by little this bunch of friends is growing. If you like this, share it with your friends, they are more than welcome.<\/span>\u00a0Thank you in advance.<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n
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\"Share<\/a><\/td>\nShare this with a friend, right from here<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Our keeper of the beauty, Ion Covaci, or Ionu lu’ Grigore, aka “Paganini”<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/span>Ionu lu’ Grigore was born in\u00a0S\u0103li\u0219tea de Sus<\/a> in 1939. He knew the Romanian, Jewish and Ukranian repertoires for weddings, as he used to sing at them since we was a child.\u00a0He 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?<\/p>\n

What we know for certain is that Ionu has been one of the pillars in which the recovery of Jewish music from Maramure\u0219\u00a0has 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<\/a>\u00a0they are in France).<\/p>\n

Despite all this, he is not on the list of local personalities in Wikipedia.\u00a0This 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.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0picture is from the blog by Bob Cohen. Thanks to him and to his partners there are unpayable videos like\u00a0this<\/a>. And\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0you can read more about Ion Covaci.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0this edition about the Jewish music in Poland<\/a>\u00a0on the work\u00a0Kolberg po \u017cydowsku<\/em>\u00a0by Andrzej Bie\u0144kowski and his Foundation Muzyka Odnaleziona, and also\u00a0this edition about the recovery of Hungarian Jewish music by Bob Cohen<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ion Covaci died in September 2009. There is a very moving obituary in this newspaper<\/a>, where it is described his funeral.<\/p>\n

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Fancy a trip to\u00a0S\u0103li\u0219tea de Sus? Click the picture, there are some streets you can walk in Google Maps street view:<\/h6>\n
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If you are interested on this kind of music, apart from its relationship with Jewish culture, check these channels in Youtube:\u00a0Fiddle Music of Transylvania<\/a>,\u00a0Altmaer<\/a>,\u00a0Dumneazu<\/a>.<\/h5>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
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About Peninah Zilberman and the event of next Sunday<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Peninah is the daughter of Romanian Holocaust survivors. Her mother Sary Walter Z\u201dL was originally from Sighet and her late father from Bucharest.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Peninah will offer the online conference “Jewish Romania: A century of upheaval and resurgence<\/strong>” next Sunday. Check the details, get your ticket\u00a0and learn more about her bio,\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This is the synagogue of Sighet:<\/h6>\n
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\"Share<\/a><\/td>\nShare this with a friend, right from here<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Enjoy the Gypsy Romanian “Paganini”, unexpected heir of the Jewish musical legacy of\u00a0Maramure\u0219, Mr. Ion Covaci<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
Click the picture to listen to the recording:<\/strong><\/h5>\n