Special to the JTA Pockets of Jewishness in East Europe

“People assume that there is nothing Jewish left in Eastern Europe — everything has been destroyed and the surviving Jews have assimilated. But what they do not realize is that there are pockets of Jewishness that still remain — and this needs to be documented.”

Yale Strom, an ethnographer in his mid-20’s, set out to do just that out of a “sense of urgency” that the older Jews in the Eastern bloc countries are “the last of my grandparents’ generation.” The result is “The Last Jews of Eastern Europe,” a 199-page book based on research he conducted in Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union over a period of six months in 1984-85. It was published in January by Philosophical Library in New York.

About two-thirds of the book consists of striking photographs of Jews in these countries taken by Brian Blue, a long-time friend and professional photographer who accompanied Strom on his trip. The photos do show abandoned synagogues and deserted cemeteries — but mostly they show Jewish life struggling to continue: gatherings in clubs, meals in kosher kitchens, holiday celebrations, synagogue services, weddings, a children’s choir.

INVOLVEMENT WITH KLEZMER MUSIC

The book grew out of Strom’s involvement with klezmer music which began in San Diego, where he was raised and graduated from college. Strom’s family is unusual: Three of his seven siblings are Black, adopted by his parents when the family lived in Detroit. “My father had been in Hashomer Hatzair (the Socialist Zionist youth movement) and had a strong social conscience, and both my parents loved children,” he said.

A classical violinist for many years, Strom got interested in folk music and swing, and after going to a klezmer concert decided to form his own klezmer band using music never before recorded. “I brainstormed all night — March 22, 1981 — I remember the date. That week I flew to Eastern Europe to collect music in the field. I figured, if there are Jews, there will be people who will remember folk music and have reminiscences of klezmer musicians.”

Everywhere Strom went — synagogues, community centers, clubs — he took his violin “and let the instrument do the talking,” he said. On this and on his later trip, “the violin opened doors. People sang melodies to me.” In Rumania, he met a family of Jewish musicians, and later traveled for a week with a band of gypsies. “The Jews and the gypsies borrowed a lot musically from each other,” he said. He also found reams of old sheet music gathering dust in archives and bookstores.

Returning to the U.S. after three-and-a-half months, Strom formed his own band, “Zmiros,” which has cut several recordings, among them “Eclectic Klezz.” At the same time, he completed a masters degree at New York University in 1984, his thesis being a social history of klezmer musicians from the medieval troubadour days to the present revival, drawing mainly on Yizkor (memorial) books. Strom put himself through graduate school by playing music — all kinds — in the subways and on the street. It was on the subway, when he was playing klezmer music several years later, that he met his future publisher, Ginger Runes Najar, who continues in the footsteps of her father, founder of Philosophical Library.

LEARNING ‘STREET SMARTS’

“Being a street musician gave me street smarts,” he said. This came in very handy on his second trip to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1984-85. He was often asked by border guards to prove he was a musician. One time he played a Slovak song for a Czech guard who then insisted he play “O Susannah.”

He also played klezmer music on the famous Charles Bridge in Prague, directly in front of the giant crucifix. A plaque states that in 1609 after a Jew was accused of desecrating it, the ghetto community was punished and compelled to pay for affixing the Hebrew words “kadosh, kadosh, kadosh” (“holy, holy, holy” from the daily prayers) in gold around the crucifix. Strom felt his playing Jewish music there was a statement of Jewish survival. (A guitarist later joined him and they made $50.)

In Warsaw, he played and gave lectures to groups of 40 to 60 young artists and professionals, Jews and non-Jews, jammed into a room in someone’s home. These “chavurot” (small groups) met to explore Yiddish culture. “We often jammed until four in the morning,” he said.

Strom played another role in Eastern Europe, as well. “I was a messenger between the Jews in one country and the next.” Feeling isolated and forgotten, they had asked him to “let us know what’s happening to our brothers in the other (Soviet bloc) countries.” The itinerant klezmer musician “traditionally played this role of disseminator of news from one shtetl to another,” he said. “I was just doing this in a modern way.”

While Strom was doing research — filling many notebooks with facts and comments — Blue was taking over 6,000 photographs of Jews in both large cities and small towns. About 125 are currently on exhibit at the Spertus Museum in Chicago until the end of March, when they will travel around the country.

COMMITMENT TO JUDAISM

During their travels, he and Blue realized that “every Jew we met over the age of 40 is a survivor.” The old people, in their 70’s and 80’s, are surprisingly active. One 82-year-old man who does all the physical work for the local Jewish club — including chopping wood — told Strom, “I don’t have the luxury of retiring. I have an important job to do and if I don’t do it, who will?”

There are also young people who are committing themselves to Judaism. One man Strom met in Budapest had just had himself circumcised at the age of 42. He would not, however, have the operation performed on his son because of fear of anti-Semitism: “Who knows if there is going to be another Holocaust?” he said to Strom.

“These countries are soaked with their family’s blood.” Strom said. “It’s the easiest subject to portray in a gloomy way — but we wanted to portray life.” He hopes to do a film on his trip for PBS, and to continue his ethnographic work. “As long as there will be a minyan in Eastern Europe I will continue to do research there.”