This may be of interest to my 3.5 Jewish readers.

Few days ago Venus mentioned klezmer-punk band Golem in one of  her posts. I looked up few of their videos and one song sounded vaguely familiar:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze6ONmmBBbA

This is their take on the famous Yiddish song Rumania, Rumania originally composed and performed by Aaron Lebedeff. It just happened that the same day I was watching  “The Komediant”  – a documentary about a world famous Yiddish actor Pesachke Burstein. The movie mentioned that his son – Mike Burstyn grew up among famous Jewish performers and that Aaron Lebedeff himself taught Mike to sing “Rumania” while he was still in the stroller. The DVD included this version of “Rumania” performed by Mike Burstyn and Bruce Adler:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISC9f6emB_c

You can pick your own favorite, personally I didn’t care for the punk version. Not everything can be punked up.

If you made it this far, here is a bonus list of words that you may have heard before but didn’t know where they came from. By the way, the word “Shrek” means “monster” in Yiddish.

But wait! If you made it this far you must really be a fan of Yiddish and Jewish music. Enjoy:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vAMgbGEDTY

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Recently through the magic of Facebook an article came to my attention. Bruised Kansas by Jeffrey Ann Goudie laments the transformation of the State of Kansas from a state on the forefront of racial equality and “proud history of women in politics” to a state where Governor Brownback autocratically imposes his “boilerplate political agenda”.

The only thing missing was one of those before and after photos that get passed around on the internet.

When I read the article, I kept thinking that the author must not be living in the same Kansas I live in; one can argue that Johnson County, KS is not representative of the entire state, but I am fairly familiar with a large part of it, having driven thousands of miles on my semi-frequent road trips to familiarize myself with the state where I made my home for the past 20 years. During that time I have met many Kansans, had candid conversations with countless acquaintances and coworkers not necessarily constrained by Codes of Business Conduct and unnecessary politeness, so I have a pretty good idea about the people I am surrounded with in my daily life, and, boy, is this state RED.

I’d be the first one to defend Kansas for being unfairly maligned, but not because the criticism and stereotyping is misplaced, but because, in most cases, it’s coming from places that are no better and not much further along on the scale of progress. I will never stop saying that people of Kansas are some of the most kind, helpful, compassionate people I’ve ever met. But boy, is this state RED.

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Preface:

Germany wasn’t on my bucket list. I don’t even have a list. The only reason I use it to name my travel posts is because I like the way they look on my travel page, all nicely lined up.

The original plan was to stop at Bruges on the way from Amsterdam to Paris, but the prospect of spending a day with my childhood friend, riding on an autobahn, while still adding another country to the itinerary outweighed my desire to see the exact spot where the body of a killer plopped down from the tower in that one movie. A chance to see the famous Cologne Cathedral in person and me having only a vague idea of how to make the trip from Amsterdam to Bruges and still make it to Paris the same night tipped the scale and the next morning we were on the way to Düsseldorf.

Face:

I was underwhelmed by the autobahn. Besides not having a speed limit in some places it wasn’t that much different from the stretch of I-70 between Kansas City and St.Louis. My friend drove fairly fast on some stretches, but just like here we were frequently slowed down by construction and slow drivers in the passing lane. My eye was missing my favorite highway entertainment – the billboards. It took about 2.5 hours to arrive in Düsseldorf.

Düsseldorf turned out to be a lively town with an interesting but fairly generic historic center and a large and expensive shopping district. That one restaurant downtown with a German name serves the best liver I’ve ever had. Make sure to check it out while you there.

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The Holocaust Remembrance day falls on May 2 this year and in the few following posts I will publish several documents concerning the treatment of the Jewish population in my hometown of Odessa, Ukraine issued by the Romanian Authority which occupied Odessa from 1941-1944.

At the beginning of the occupation there were 80,000-90,000 Jews who did not evacuate from Odessa. When the city was liberated on April 10, 1944 there were reportedly only 600 left. Somewhere in the Odessa Region my 6-year old Father survived in the ghetto with help from kind people and lots of  luck. The area where he lived with my Grandmother was occupied by the Italians who were not very enthusiastic about being in the war and their relative reluctance to torture and execute the Jews might have resulted in more survivors than in the areas controlled by Romanians who proved themselves to be ruthless murderers.

Many places in Odessa and the Region have memorial markers where the executions were conducted, such as a place where over 25,000 Jews were burned alive shortly after the occupation started. Unfortunately, I never stopped or paid attention to them, probably like most people. I saw more memorial markers today, while researching this post, than I remember seeing when I still lived in Odessa.

The Russian text is found in the National Archives of the Odessa Region, translation mine. If I have time and patience I will also try to translate a personal memoir written by a survivor; translation is a long and tedious process, and even though I start with a machine translation, it still doesn’t always come out right. Feel free to let me know if I can correct some grammar or spelling errors.

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To those who already know me it comes as no surprise: I ain’t classy.
Today’s episode of me being “not classy” is brought to you by Twitter:

kcklo63:
@kcmeesha You’re making fun of law enforcement at a memorial ceremony? Really? You stay classy.

I guess I wasn’t supposed to post a photo of this gentleman getting ready for the police officers memorial ceremony in front of the KCMO police headquarters.

To quote Larry the Cable Guy: Lord, I apologize, but, on the other hand, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how could I possibly pass this by? I don’t know what law enforcement function this gentleman performs, whether it’s a wide entrance blocking, extreme uniform testing, bear-wrestling or just plain intimidation of the smaller-sized criminals, I am sure he is great at what he does. I just hope he is not tasked with foot-chases, stair-climbing or long jumps.

To my credit, this photo was taken before the ceremony started. Still doesn’t make me classy although even if I could buy class I am too cheap to spend the money.

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