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Velvel Zbarzher: Jewish Bard

12 March 2021

The Old Country? How did it smell? Sound? Was it as unified and cosy as the proponents of Heritage Travel would have us believe? Was there really a strong sense of community? Did Chagall’s phantom figures tap their toes to the familiar tunes of Fiddler...
The Vanished Jewish Farming Community of Edenbridge in Western Canada

09 January 2021

Three hundred and seventeen kilometres north of Regina Saskatchewan, out on the empty flat Canadian prairie, is the Beth Israel Synagogue of Edenbridge. This region is the one of best wheat-growing areas in the world, although that fact was unknown to...
The Ports and the Immigrant Ships in the 19th century

23 January 2021

Shipping Company Port Dormitory Immigrant trade was the staple of European steamship lines. Timber and cotton filled the holds on the inward voyage, and people on the outward. Liverpool, Southampton, Rotterdam, Cherbourg, and Hamburg were the major ports...
A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher, Bard

17 June 2021
A Very Simplified History of Eastern Europe, the Slavs and the Jews: Part One

08 April 2022 ( #Slavs and Jews, Early History of Eastern Europe )

The origin of the Slavs The Slavs are Indo-Europeans who, during the Neolithic period, became separated from the larger linguistic family. By 1400-1200 BCE these Balto-Slavs split into two language groups: Baltic, the ancestor of both Latvian and Lithuanian,...
The Romanian Jewish Fusgeyers

27 December 2020

The Fusgeyers and the Jewish Pedestrian Movement After 1899, those who organized themselves into groups to walk across Romania called themselves fusgeyers (pronounced “foosgayer” — the Yiddish word for foot-goers, pedestrians or wayfarers). Fusgeyers...
Itsik Manger: Bard

11 April 2021

photo from https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com The “Father of Yiddish Theatre”, Avrom Goldfaden, and the Jewish bards Velvel Zbarzher, and Elyokem Tsunzer, came back to life in the 1930s via the poet Itsik Manger. Born Isidor Helfer in 1901, son of...
How Jewish Theatre Began

01 January 2021

In 1661, the Jewish Council of Vilna issued a decree banning merry-making fire dances, plays, and masquerades although the badkhonim (wedding jesters) were allowed to continue their acts during marriage ceremonies. Theatrical performances were limited...
Budapest and Rural Exodus

03 December 2020

Hungarian Jewish Farmers (Photos Courtesy of the Memorial Museum of Hungarian Speaking Jewry, Safed, Israel) After 1900, Jewish society glittered in Budapest. Although comprising only a tiny six percent of the population, f orty-two percent of journalists,...
The Romanian Jews and the Fusgeyer Movement

31 January 2021

The Barlad Fusgeyers with their horse, wagon, and the three women who were part of the group In 1858, ten years later, after the Peace Treaty of Paris concluded the Crimean War, the principalities of Moldavia and Walachia united to become the new country...
The Haskalah

19 December 2020

Former shtetl street, Ukraine Like the earlier eighteenth century European Enlightenment, [1] the late eighteenth century Jewish Enlightenment — the Haskalah [2] — fought religious orthodoxy and abuse. Its advocates, known as Maskilim, [3] pointed to...
Jewish Life in The Ward, Toronto, 1900

29 March 2021

A Privy in the Ward The district that lies between College and Queen Streets, Yonge Street and University Avenue (known as the Ward) is generally regarded by the respectable citizens of Toronto as a strange and fearful place into which it unwise to enter...
A Very Simplified History of Eastern Europe, the Slavs and the Jews: Part Two

21 November 2022

After the collapse of Kievan Rus Large-scale migration of Jews out of the Holy Roman Empire and into Kievan Rus (later Ukraine) began in 1096 in the wake of the First Crusade. In 1348-49, accused of being agents of the devil and responsible for the outbreak...
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

02 December 2020

Photo: Former Polish castle in today's Ukraine Ask around: how many people know about the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth? Few. Yet, after Poland and Lithuania united in 1569, their powerful bi-confederation stretched over Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, most...
Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb

09 February 2022

Q&A with Jill Culiner Sunday, January 9, 2022 Jill Culiner is the author of the new book A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher, Bard . Zbarzher was a 19th century poet and singer. Culiner's other books include Finding Home in the Footsteps of the Jewish...
Jewish Book Peddlers in Eastern Europe

11 January 2023 ( #Jewish peddlers, Eastern Europe, )

The life of a Jewish travelling merchant wasn’t easy. Required to possess special licences, they were easy prey for bandits and roving bands of soldiers. Roads, always rutted and treacherous, were studded with tollgates, some official, some arbitrary,...
The arrival of Eastern European Jews in Nineteenth Century France

13 December 2020

Established French Jewish businessman Fernand Aaron The Paris train stations — Gare du Nord, Gare de l’Est, and Gare de Lyon — were where, in the nineteenth century, Jewish refugees, fleeing Eastern European’s pogroms and charges of blood libel, first...
Elyokem Tsunzer, poet, badkhn, and the New York literary movements in 1900

04 June 2021

Drawing by Jacob Epstein for Hutchins Hapgood, The Spirit of the Ghetto : Studies of the Jewish Quarter in New York Born in Vilna in 1841, Elyokem Tsunzer was the son of a poor but pious carpenter. Apprenticed to a gold weaver at age six, when his master...
Journey To Dubno

04 December 2020

In Dubno, in the old centre of the town, I pass under a sagging arcade and through a courtyard. Suddenly, here I am: in the old Jewish shtetl. Here, alleyways and leaning houses are just the way I’d pictured them. It’s how things must have looked back...
A Vegetarian Version of a Strange Soup Called Petcha, Petche, or Ptse

19 March 2021

Petcha is an old-world hearty soup when served hot (a calves foot jelly when chilled). Today, we are sharing a recipe handed down through the generations. Author Jill Culiner brings it to life with
Fried Matzo is Boring? No Way! Here’s a Modern Twist to a Classic Recipe

23 April 2021

Rival grandmothers debating the recipe for fried matzo Yogurt is the secret ingredient to this fried matzo, converting a classic matzo brei to a light buttery Passover breakfast with a gluten-free option. Simple, easy-to-make food is sometimes best ....
Another part of our history: how to make authentic Hungarian/Jewish dill pickles

22 February 2021

We are excited to share this Hungarian pickles recipe, along with a fascinating tale by author Jill Culiner. You can read more about her below. No pickles could be as wonderful as those my ...
The Best Fermented Hot Sauce in the World...(maybe)

12 August 2021

Read how to do it on Kibitz Spot: https://www.kibitzspot.com/fermented-hot-sauce-recipe/
All About A Contrary Journey on Kibitz Spot

24 September 2021

We are excited to share with you a new book by Jill Culiner. Entitled A Contrary Journey. It tells the story of the Jewish enlightenment. Jill follows Velvel Zbarzher, a bard in the 19th-century Old Find links to buy A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher,...
Audio Podcast: A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher, Bard

15 December 2021

The beginning of my journey to find Velvel Zbarzher Available from Claret Press Paperback https://payhip.com/b/o7M23 Ebook https://payhip.com/b/HmK5C Or ... A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher, Bard: Chapter One, Paris

Born in New York, raised in Toronto, Jill Culiner has been living in England, Turkey, Germany, Hungary, and France. A social critical artist, narrator, writer, and photographer, her exhibition of the lost Jewish villages, La Mémoire Effacée, toured France, Canada, and Hungary under the auspices of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UNESCO. She can be found at http://www.jillculiner-writer.com

A Contrary Journey with Velvel Zbarzher, Bard, by Jill Culiner (Claret Press, 2021)

Jewish Life in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe

Jill Culiner gives us a romantic mystery and a trip through time. We see the shtetl as a vibrant place of life through the eyes of the unjustly forgotten Hebrew and Yiddish poet, Velvel Zbarzher. Beautifully written and a tribute to a man who seems lost to history, I was mesmerized by what I read. Being a rebel is not easy and facing exile makes it that much more difficult. I cannot help but wonder how many others suffered the same fate and are lost to us.

Reviews by Amos Lassen

In Finding Home: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers, author Jill Culiner has uncovered a largely forgotten corner of Jewish history, The Fusgeyers (the Yiddish word for 'foot-goers' — wayfarers) were Jews who fled persecution in Romania in the early 1900s in order to find refuge, ultimately, in the New World. One hundred years later, Culiner retraces their steps in search of remnants of this lost epic journey. Culiner is a keen observer of eastern European culture, and her acerbic wit and stunning lyrical style have created a compelling chronicle of loss and discovery. Her encounters with the past and the present of the Jewish presence in Europe are both chilling and illuminating.

Rick Kardonne Jewish Tribune

Culiner is a witty and prophetic writer, investigating those stories not spoken of, and the stories that have been hidden amidst a cultural landscape for a century. She holds no punches and takes the wisdom she has accumulated in her life and reflects a mirror towards the past, ultimately opening up a Pandora’s Box of questions. Possibly the most breathtaking paragraph I’ve ever read is when she arrives in Nuremburg and discovers a single piece of Jewish archival history not destroyed. She needs information on the Fusgeyers from 1901, and like a living miracle she finds that exact information within the only eight pages that have not been ruined by history in the Nuremberg archives. As if this were out of a well-timed fictional novel, if Culiner needed a sign that she had to tell the story of the Fusgeyers, nothing could have been more plainly laid out for her than those eight pages.
Culiner’s innate skill as a storyteller, seeker of truth, and photographer of life, has made Finding Home possibly one of the best books written in the last decade. Even if you are not of Romanian or Jewish heritage, read Finding Home, as it may unlock the key to much of your own personal history.

Kindah Mardam Bey, Lucid Forge

Part storyteller, historical researcher, a bit of the medicine sideshow, and just a touch of the actress from the Kabuki theatre tradition, Jill Culiner is a fascinating speaker. Finding Home is a very interesting read, and a remarkable experience. Culiner regales the reader with her adventures as she walks through each of the communities in Rumania and then travels by train or car to those in Europe or Canada through which Finkelstein traveled. I encourage you to take similar adventures; they foster journeys of the spirit and soul.

Ellen Fine, Mass-Pocha

Jill Culiner has written a significant and often gripping account of her personal odyssey. She traverses Jewish history and geography from the towns and shtetls of Romania, through some of the major cities in Europe, to the Canadian cities, towns and settlements where Jews wandered. In the many places she visits she recounts not only her immediate impressions but often brings in important elements of Jewish history. She has introduced a new way of looking at history.

Abraham Arnold, Jewish Historical Society of Western Canada

Interview with author Jill Culiner by Kindah Mardam Bey

To walk in the footsteps of our ancestors is to learn who we are as human beings. Take this literally and you have found Jill Culiner’s travels in her first non-fiction novel Finding Home: In the Footsteps Of The Jewish Fusgeyers. In 2001, Culiner decided to travel the path of the Jewish Fusgeyers (Yiddish term foot-goers or wayfarers) who were Romanian Jews that fled persecution in the early 1900s in order to find refuge in countries such as Canada, US and England. Finding Home is a vivid story that heralds back to some of our world cultures most basic truths and often unprogressive changes; I wanted to converse with Culiner about her journey one hundred and one years after the Fusgeyers, but along the same roads.

You were a photographer before you became a writer, how did telling the journey through the lens differ from writing about the experience?

How is it possible to compare those two forms of expression? I can't. I find writing richer – for me, at least – than photography. You can add emotions, thoughts, history. True, photography can be a very powerful medium, but I found it wasn't quite enough for me. I wanted all the words that accompany a picture. I guess the best bet is to do both at once.

How was it to write about such a personal experience that might have possibly paralleled your grandfathers, for your first book?

As far as paralleling my grandfather's experience goes – I didn't. My grandfather came from the Ukraine, but the Fusgeyer movement was uniquely Romanian. My grandfather probably never heard of Fusgeyers and the only thing he had in common with them is that he walked to a border of what was once the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Jews left Russia in this same way because they were either fleeing military duty or because it was impossible for them to get passports. But still, they were not Romanian Fusgeyers. Fusgeyers trained themselves in long-distance walking, they put on plays, wrote newspapers, had choral groups. They were protesters and, as such, were very visible. They wanted to attract international attention to the injustices of the new Roumanian government in 1900.

What was it like to walk the same journey as your ancestors most likely did? Did you find that the experience had explained a lot about your family history, traditions and even secrets? Was this a cathartic experience for you?

Unfortunately, no one in our family talked about the past. No one passed on interesting stories about the Old Country. My grandfather mentioned his life in New York and Canada, but not in great detail. He wasn't much interested in chatting to mere girls anyway. I would love to have learned some family secrets – especially murky, embarrassing, highly unsavory ones - wouldn't we all? But I guess I never will. Perhaps my family was too dull to even have them.
Even if my ancestors didn't walk through Romania, the Fusgeyer's journey is certainly part of Jewish history; for that reason, doing it was very exciting. Imagine reading in Jacob Finkelstein's tale that he and his group stopped by a river some three hours out of a certain town, and then, one hundred and one years later, walking out of that same town and finding - at exactly three hours distance – that same river. Experiences like that are truly rewarding. Looking for the fields where the Fusgeyers might have slept, seeking out the Jewish areas where they stayed in towns, those were equally challenging. And equally satisfying when found.

You came across a stark change of culture compared to the memoirs of Jacob Finkelstein, what were the most shocking changes? Were you prepared for this aspect of your journey? What did this teach you?

No, I suppose I wasn't at all prepared for the total destruction of the architecture of Romania – much of it done in the communist era, but still going on. I was especially dismayed to find the wonderful, traditional houses being covered over with cement, their little windows being replaced by huge PVC horrors. One should be proud of the old houses; they are an irreplaceable part of our heritage. Some people in some countries do manage to be proud of their architecture: the Swiss, for example, many Americans and the English.
I suppose another thing that shocked me was the terrible pollution, seeing the ubiquitous sweating, smoking piles of rubbish everywhere – plastic, shoes, tires, animal corpses etc.
But did these changes teach me anything? Well, I suppose they taught me not to be surprised or shocked. That this is modern life.

Where were the most obvious similarities in culture whether Romania, Canada, or anywhere else on your journey, between Finkelstein’s version of the past and your journey of the present?

Europe and Canada were so different one hundred years ago that one can't compare Finkelstein's world and ours. Canada, Germany, Hungary, Austria – all these countries are very much the same nowadays. Remember Finkelstein's description of London? It was a shocking den of iniquity, as far as he was concerned. But he saw that impoverished, filthy, miserable London, the one that Charles Dickens wrote about. Now, that same city is expensive, chic. And what about the fevered gold and silver mining towns of Canada with their slums, their poisoned water, suffering immigrants, death, and violence? Now those towns are sleepy places, as comfortable as woolly socks.

The physical and emotional essence of the journey is exhausting on any level, what did you discover when taking this journey in your fifties, as opposed to if you were in your twenties, thirties, or forties?

Well, in my twenties I didn't even know that you could cross countries on foot, avoiding roads, taking only ancient green lanes. In Canada, if we don't want to walk on highways, we have to go to national parks. But when I hit Europe, I discovered the footpaths that go from village to village, city to city. That's when I started walking – but I was already in my thirties. I haven't stopped walking since 1976 – and have gone all throughout Europe. The walk through Romania certainly wasn't emotionally exhausting (except when a cold beer wasn't available after hours of hot sun.) Of course, feet get sore, your legs get tired – but that happens at any age. I am sixty-one years old now, and I am no more fatigued by huge treks than when younger. You just put one foot in front of the other and keep on going.

A male friend came with you on your journey across Romania. You originally rejected the idea, but he insisted and you reference that his presence became a safety precaution. What are your thoughts on how western females perceive women around the world, and the freedoms we have that many don’t?

Yes, my crony, Yves. Actually, I was going to do the walk anyway and the whole project had little to do with him. He claimed it was a dangerous thing to do and tried to discourage me. In the end, when he saw I was determined, Yves decided to come along – to save me from myself, so to speak. I had walked with Yves for years – but nowhere near such great distances. He complained bitterly in Romania; he really doesn't like walking all that much, and he certainly wasn't fond of thirty kilometers a day.
As far as women's freedom goes, in Romania, women are as free as anywhere else in Europe or North America. But that wasn't, perhaps, your question. I think that western women are now learning about how women live in other countries through documentaries, films, plays, books, news articles, and of course through contact, in multi-cultural Canada. And there is more and more international protest at the great lack of freedom and injustice in some places. Protest helps, of course. A little bit. But the world is so big, the injustice so great, it's hard to have much effect – especially when women themselves oppress other women in the name of tradition.

You found an astonishing document in Nuremberg relating to the Fusgeyers, did finding this document solidify to you the relevancy of telling the story of the Jewish Fusgeyers?

I was determined to tell the tale. Had I found nothing, I would have told it. For months before, I went to bed early every evening with a Yiddish grammar book to learn that language so I could translate Finkelstein's manuscript. When you do things like that, you know you're going to write a book. It was simply satisfying to find evidence of the Fusgeyers in Nürnberg. More than satisfying, of course. Exhilarating. But it didn't change my determination.

In Regina, towards the end of your journey, ‘sat in the snow’ in a graveyard stating ‘I found you!’ Did you feel relief, or loss, or perhaps both?

When I found my Romanians in the Jewish graveyard out in the middle of nowhere, I climbed the fence, sat myself down in the snow, and prepared to have a chat. It was the end of a journey and I felt a great sense of triumph; here were some of the very people I had been tracking across Europe and Canada. I also felt extremely frustrated and sad – I'm sure you can understand this. I wanted information from them; I wanted to hear their stories. I wanted them to paint a picture of the Old World for me. I wanted to share our experiences. But all of them had been dead for over half a century at least; that rendered conversation quite impossible.

Why do you think this is a valuable story to tell? How is it relevant to today?

It is a valuable story because so many people want to know about how their ancestors lived, what their story was. Not only my grandparents but also the grandparents of so many people refused to talk about the past. Therefore, many people are thirsty for stories. And perhaps it can make people more sensitive, more sympathetic to the newer immigrants, those of today who come with different experiences – experiences that are certainly not less interesting.

What was the greatest piece of advice you were ever given on, or about your journey?

Goodness! I can't think of anyone who gave me positive advice. Some people told me I was crazy. Others said it was a subject of no interest to anyone and that I should do something else with my life, something useful. And pretty well everyone said that it would make a truly boring book.

Besides your own of course, what is your Favourite book?

That's a dreadful question. There are far too many of them. What I find curious is that wonderful ones can arrive at precise moments in life – moments when their wisdom is needed. When that happens to me, I read the book over and over again until I almost have it by heart.