The Past to the Present: The Red Hot Chachkas

by Julie Egger

Music has been a vital element in Jewish culture, life, and religion throughout time as far back as the Torah. Jewish music has been part of our story telling, our healing, our prayer, our celebrations, our mourning. Music has been there for every part of our lives. Even in the most desperate times in Jewish history, music has been there to help salvage our souls. There are stories of people in the concentration camps whose "job" was to remember the songs of the Holocaust. Because of these people there are archives of "Holocaust songs".

In more recent times, another element that held together millions of Jews, specifically those from Eastern Europe, or Ashkenazi Jews, as they are referred to, was their language: Yiddish. This language was widely used throughout all of Eastern Europe, and as Jews traveled they would always find other Jews and be able to communicate in this universal language.

Although history tells us a story of hard lives filled with poverty, pogroms, enforced conversions, and other miseries, these people, my ancestors, found solace in their families, their prayer, their celebrations and their music. The music of their celebrations was played by men who for a few kopeks would perform virtuous melodies for every part of each simcha. For weddings, the most wonderful simcha, the musicians, or Klezmorim as they became known, would play different melodies for many days to celebrate every segment of each ritual.

When Eastern Europe became a less favorable to live, many Jews fled to the United States for a better life. Thousands came between the 1900's and 1920's . My Bubbie and Zaydee were two of those Jews. With them also came many Klezmorim--amazing musicians like Naftule Brandwein, Dave Tarras, Leon Ahl, Abe Schwartz and many others. (Dave Tarras played at my aunt's wedding.) The music these artists brought with them filled the streets, radios, wedding halls, and theaters. Again, while struggling with poverty and finding a new way of life, music helped to ease the strain.

My grandparents' and even more my parents' generation were set on "assimilation". Yiddish was only used in our house when they wanted to say something they didn't want us to understand. Although I studied Yiddish at the Workman Circle in East Meadow, I was not encouraged to become fluent. Klezmer music was in my home and at the celebrations we went to, but more-popular music and folk music like Pete Seeger and the Weavers were pumped through our hi-fi.

As a full-fledged child of the the 60's and 70's, I rebelled against my parents and their influences. I have completed a circle with my ancestors of the shtetl. I now speak a bisel yiddish, (which I teach to my children) and I perform Klezmer music, as it is known today.

Which brings me to why I wrote this article. My band "The Red Hot Chachkas" have helped me to discover and understand more fully my roots and connections to Eastern Europe Jewry - not just to understand the music as a musician would, but to cross time and celebrate their lives with mine. Our new CD "Family Album" is a celebration of this journey. "Family Album" is filled with many traditional melodies that have been played "for so long", mixed with more modern original songs written by the band. We continue the traditions of our ancestors and keep them alive.

Come join us in a celebration of our past, present and future at our CD release party September 21st, 8:00 at the San Geronimo Culture Center.

See you there and Zai Gezunt!!

—from our September 2002 Newsletter

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