On Sunday, November 6th, members of the choir performed alongside the Renanim Youth Singers at a retirement residence in north Toronto. The concert was put on in honour of Holocaust Education week and featured Hebrew and Yiddish music and poetry. We sang three songs on our own and two with Renanim, “Oifn Pripitchuk” (By the Fireside), a song that resonates deeply for many, and “Eili, Eili” (My God). The latter was written by Hannah Senesh, who was born in Hungary and moved to Israel at the age of 18. With the war raging, she volunteered to go into Nazi controlled areas in Europe to help save Jewish lives. In 1944, she parachuted into Yugoslavia and was captured and killed.
The English words of “Eili, Eili” are as follows:
May these things never end:
The sand and the sea
The rustle of the water
The lightning in the sky
Man’s prayer.
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