Klezmer on Fish Street (2004)

Synopsis: If klezmer, a centuries-old style of Jewish folk music, expresses the soul of its people, will its meaning fade as its popularity grows in areas with scant Jewish population--especially if the Holocaust has caused their absence? Klezmer musician, author, and filmmaker Yale Strom... If klezmer, a centuries-old style of Jewish folk music, expresses the soul of its people, will its meaning fade as its popularity grows in areas with scant Jewish population--especially if the Holocaust has caused their absence? Klezmer musician, author, and filmmaker Yale Strom struggles to answer this question in KLEZMER ON FISH STREET. Mixing musical history and cultural identity, Strom travels to Poland, along with American klezmer group the Klezmaniacs, for a Jewish music festival and a study in paradox. With its Jewish population almost completely eliminated during the Holocaust, Poland has long provided many in the Jewish community with a painful reminder of the horrors of genocide and anti-Semitism. However, increasing numbers of Jewish visitors and a growing interest in Polish-Jewish history and culture have created a cottage industry that boasts kosher-style food, concentration camp tours, and a substantial community of non-Jewish klezmer musicians. Strom tries to sort out the significance of this "Jewish" community in a culture that contains very few Jews through interviews with Holocaust survivors, festival-goers, and some a couple of Polish Jewish people. Particularly moving moments include a mournful song performed by the Klezmaniacs as they travel to a concentration camp, and interviews with Polish-Jewish children. Like other films that explore the sorrowful legacy Poland must bear for its role in the Holocaust, including Roman Polanski's THE PIANIST, this film holds out hopeful promise for the reconciliation of a permanently scarred society. [More]