Tag Archives: Holocaust

SILENT TEARS: THE LAST YIDDISH TANGO at the Duncan Theatre November 12th

02 Friday Oct 2026

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Bridging Memory and Music:
Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango
An Award-Winning Concert Based on the
Poetry and Testimonies of Women of the Holocaust
at the Duncan Theatre, November 12th

“Profound, extremely expressive… an unforgettable project, giving voice to those
who lived through the hell of the Holocaust”
Blogfoolk Magazine, Italy

For Immediate Release
Contact:  Carol Kassie
carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244

October 2, 2026

PALM BEACH COUNTY, FL: The Art of Humanity, an organization dedicated to ‘transforming hate into hope’ and combatting antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and bigotry through the transformative power of the arts and education, will present Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango for two performances only at Lake Worth’s Duncan Theatre on November 12th.   

Canada’s world-renowned Payadora Tango Ensemble will perform this award-winning concert which features songs based on the poetry, testimonies, and writings of women who were victims – and survivors – of Holocaust atrocities.   Set to music in the style of Polish tangos from the 1930s – the popular music of the era – the songs tell the stories of unimaginable loss, resilience and survival.  Silent Tears also includes a number of works based on Holocaust survivor Molly Applebaum‘s diary and memoir, Buried Words. As a child, she was buried underground in a wooden box beneath a barn in occupied Poland. (Molly Applebaum is now 94 and living in Toronto.)

The Silent Tears project began when Dr. Paula David launched a poetry project to help survivors deal with long term trauma from the horrific crimes they had experienced during the Holocaust – some of which they hadn’t even told their own families.

Silent Tears won the Weltmusikpreis in Germany, reached #1 on World Music Charts Europe, won the 2024 Ontario Folk Music “Album of the Year” award, and “Producers of the Year” at the 2024 Canadian Folk Music Awards.  

The concert will be performed in Yiddish, with English supertitles. Carolina Simon scholar, author, educator, and founding Executive Director of The Art of Humanity will conduct a talk- back after the 11:30 am performance, and professor, author, historian Dr. Robert Watson will do the same after the 7 pm performance. 

Payadora is an award-winning chamber music ensemble that performs original compositions and arrangements drawn from Argentinian and Uruguayan tango and folk traditions. Made up of players who are each musical powerhouses in their own right, this “superstar group” combines deep knowledge of tango with classical, jazz, and world music backgrounds to create something entirely new. Founded in 2013 in Toronto, the ensemble has performed sold-out concerts across Canada, the United States, South America, and Europe — from Canada’s National Arts Centre to the Rudolstadt Festival in Germany, with a sold-out 2023 European tour that included a live-to-air BBC performance.

The Art of Humanity is building Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango into a Palm Beach County Community Event through coordinated outreach with Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, educators, students, young professionals, Christian and interfaith communities, and the performing arts audience. Supported by community partners and cross-promotion across social media, email, print, and digital platforms, the campaign aims to bring people of different backgrounds, faiths, and generations together through Holocaust remembrance, education, music, poetry, and conversation—and a shared commitment to confronting antisemitism and hate.

Tickets for Silent Tears:  The Last Yiddish Tango are on sale now and are available online at
https://ci.ovationtix.com/35256/production/1290996?performanceId=11867597.

For more information about Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango, to speak with anyone involved in the production, or to arrange to attend a performance please contact Sheri Smith at sheri@purplehairdev.com / 561-254-5494 or Carol Kassie at carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244.

For more information about The Art of Humanity visit: https://www.theartofhumanity.org.
For more information about the Payadora Tango Ensemble visit: https://payadora.com
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Silent Tears – The Last Yiddish Tango
Bridging Memory & Music
Performed by the Payadora Tango Ensemble
November 12
Performance times: 11:30 am & 7 pm
Tickets: $36 Adults/$10 Students
For tickets:  https://ci.ovationtix.com/35256/production/1290996?performanceId=11867597
Both performances will take place at
The Duncan Theatre
4200 South Congress Avenue
Lake Worth, FL 33461

Payadora Tango Ensemble (Photo credit Payadora Tango Ensemble)

YI Love Jewish to Present GOD & THE HOLOCAUST Commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day

30 Monday Mar 2026

Posted by in Avi Hoffman, Clients, YI Love Jewish, Yiddishkayt Initiative

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YI Love Jewish to Present
God & The Holocaust
Commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day

A multi-media concert event honoring memory, courage, and resilience at the
Aventura Arts & Cultural Center on April 13th

For Immediate Release
Contact:  Carol Kassie
carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244

March 31, 2026

AVENTURA, FL:  On April 13th, 2026 in commemoration of International Holocaust Day, YI Love Jewish founder and CEO Avi Hoffman along with Maestro Aaron Kula and his Klezmer Company Jazz Orchestra will present God & The Holocaust, a stunning multi-media musical concert at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center.

This stirring performance will delve into the profound and complex bond between Jews and their God, as depicted through the haunting music and literature born of the Holocaust.  Drawing deeply from the words and melodies of legendary Jewish and Yiddish playwrights, poets, and authors, the concert will feature songs and stories that echo with heartbreak, resilience, and hope.

YI Love Jewish and the Yiddishkayt Initiative, founded by Hoffman and his mother, Professor Miriam Hoffman is a not-for-profit organization that utilizes the performing arts, education, language, literature, and publishing to challenge antisemitism, and to celebrate and promote Jewish history, life, and culture and their far-reaching impact on the world.

Carbonell Award-winning actor Avi Hoffman has been awarded Congressional recognition, was invited to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, and was inducted into the Bronx Jewish Hall of Fame for his lifetime work advancing Jewish culture, Yiddishkayt, and Holocaust awareness through the organization he founded – Yiddishkayt Initiative, Inc. (YILoveJewish.org). As an actor, he was nominated for a NY Drama Desk Award for his Yiddish language portrayal of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. He is well known for his Too Jewish Trilogy: Award winning one man shows Too Jewish, Too Jewish, Too! (PBS, Performer of the Year ’95 – NY Press Magazine; L.A. OVATION award – Best Actor in a Musical 2001; NY Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award nominations) and Still Jewish After All These Years. On TV, he was featured as Sid Raskin in the Starz TV series Magic City, as well as on Netflix’ Bloodline, A&E’s The Glades and on the NBC series Law and Order. Avi has performed all over the world, has numerous acting and directing credits and has received multiple awards and nominations.

Aaron Kula is a nationally recognized conductor, educator, composer, accordionist, and producer.  He is a Fulbright Music Specialist; in 2018 he was awarded a grant to lecture in Israel, with appearances at the U.S. Embassy, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and music conservatories in the Negev and Western Galilee.  Maestro Kula’s interdisciplinary career in classical, jazz, and folk music led him to form the award-winning genre bending Klezmer Company Jazz Orchestra in 1997.  He is an innovator of concert programming, and has conducted concert performances of multiple Broadway musicals, including My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, and South Pacific.  He is currently Artist in Residence at the Levis Jewish Community Center in Boca Raton, and Artist Liaison for Community Engagement for the Elevar Foundation.

God & The Holocaust will take place at 8 pm on Monday, April 13th at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online at https://tinyurl.com/ms2xd5xw.  Tickets range in price from $23 – $89. 

For more information about God & The Holocaust, to speak with anyone involved in the event, or to attend the performance, please contact Carol Kassie at carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244.

(Click on each image to enlarge it, then right click on the enlarged image and ‘save image as’ or ‘copy image’)

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God & The Holocaust
Monday, April 13 at 8 pm
Tickets:  $23-$89
Direct ticketing link:  https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0D00636A9488640B?brand=aventuraacc&camefrom=cfc_aventura_web&webview=1
The performance will take place at the
Aventura Arts & Cultural Center
3385 NE 188th Street
Aventura, FL  33180

Avi Hoffman
Aaron Kula
Aaron Kula
Avi Hoffman

ANNE BEING FRANK to be Presented at 3 Venues in South Florida in November

21 Monday Oct 2024

Posted by in Clients, YI Love Jewish, Yiddishkayt Initiative

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Anne Being Frank
Reimagines an Iconic Story to Pose Philosophical Questions

The Award-winning play will be presented at 3 Venues in South Florida

“An important play” … “a powerful reminder” … “heartbreaking” … “chilling” … “very moving” … “thought provoking” ~ Broadway Radio

For Immediate Release:
Contact: Carol Kassie
Carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244
Contact: Jenna Swanson
Jswanson@piersongrant.com / 954-776-1999, ext. 235

October 22, 2024

AVENTURA, FL:   YI Love Jewish in partnership with the City of Aventura, and in collaboration with the Rose & Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center and the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts will present Anne Being Frank, a new play by Israeli-born Australian playwright Ron Elisha. Directed by Amanda Brooke Lerner, the production will run at three venues in South Florida: November 9th (at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center), November 10th (in the Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center) and November 12th (at the Miniaci Performing Arts Center).

Performed Off-Broadway to rave reviews, this one-woman show starring Alexis Fishman is a total reimagining of the iconic story of Anne Frank. The play, which received the 2023 Broadway World – Best Production award, takes place within three worlds: Anne and her family’s secret annex hiding place, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where Anne died, and an imagined world where Anne survives WWII to go over the manuscript of her diary with her editor at a publishing house in Manhattan. But now, with her devastating new insight into the depths of human depravity, she has rewritten her entire diary at the great personal cost of constantly having to justify her choices to her editor, who wants to maintain the purity and innocence of the original story.

Anne Being Frank poses the philosophical question: “Had Anne known precisely what was in store for her and her family at the hands of the Nazis, would she still have written, ‘In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart’?”

Australian-born Fishman is a Helpmann Award-nominated actor and singer who currently lives in New York. She is a board member of 3GNY, an educational non-profit for the descendants of Holocaust Survivors and tells her grandparents’ story in New York public schools.

Anne Being Frank is presented as a commemoration of Kristallnacht by YI Love Jewish and Executive Producer Marc Levin. 

Tickets for Anne Being Frank are on sale now at all three venues and can be purchased online at yilovejewish.org/events.  Ticket prices begin at $52.

For more information about Anne Being Frank, to speak with anyone involved in the production, or to arrange to see a performance, please contact Carol Kassie at carol@carolkassie.com / 561-445-9244 or Jenna Swanson at Jswanson@piersongrant.com / 954-776-1999, ext. 235.

Anne Being Frank contains adult language or content.

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Anne Being Frank
A New Play by Ron Elisha
Saturday, November 9 at 8 pm
at The Aventura Arts & Cultural Center
3385 NE 188th Street
Aventura, FL  33180
Sunday, November 10 at 8 pm
in The Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center
701 Okeechobee Boulevard
West Palm Beach, FL  33401
Tuesday, November 12 at 7:30 pm 
at Rose & Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center
3100 Ray Ferrero Jr. Boulevard
Davie, FL  33314
Tickets: $52 and up.
To purchase tickets at any of the above venues, and/or for more information visit
https://yilovejewish.org/events

Production Photos credit: Richard Rivera

Alexis Fishman
Ron Elisha

The Women’s Theatre Project presents ‘The Interview’ January 4-20th

29 Thursday Nov 2012

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Powerful Memories… Powerful Theatre…

The Interview
by Faye Sholiton
 “We awakened a lot of memories,” the interviewer tells her subject.
“They were never asleep,” the survivor replies.

The Interview, The Women’s Theatre Project’s second production in their new venue, The Willow Theatre in Sugar Sand Park, will open on January 4th, 2013 and run through January 20th.  The Interview will be The Women’s Theatre Project’s 30th production since they were founded in 2002.

Faye Sholiton’s deeply moving memory play about the legacy of human suffering, courage and humanity, mothers and daughters, and forgiving and being forgiven, The Interview is at once a powerful documentation of a horrific historical event and one artist’s deeply felt response to it. Written with clarity and feeling, it resonates on all levels.

“It is so meaningful to bring this fine piece of theatre to life,” says the Women’s Theatre Project’s Artistic Director and the play’s director, Genie Croft.  “We are all born into some story that affects our emotional, social and spiritual growth,” she continues.  “The Interview explores the case of children of Holocaust survivors – and that can be an enormous legacy, a stifled mystery, or a complex gift and burden.  It’s exciting to focus on the characters’ evolution as they reveal their intense feelings, traumas, and even dark humor, in terms of individual perception, and communication.”

 Harriet Oser will play Bracha Weissman, who has transformed herself into an emotional recluse – her identity defined by the loss of her family in the Nazi death camps she miraculously survived.  Performing The Interview, particularly for the children of Holocaust survivors and sharing their memories was an unforgettable experience for Oser, who is looking forward to revisiting the character, whom she played in The Women’s Theatre Project’s 2009 production of the play.

 

 Patti Gardner will once again take on the role of Ann Meshenberg, who arrives one day to record Bracha’s testimony for a video archive.  Ann, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, has her own agenda: the need to ask a stranger what she could not ask her parents.

Irene Adjan will play Bracha’s daughter Rifka, and Christopher Mitchell will take on the role of videographer Chris MacDonald.

Playwright Faye Sholiton has developed her work in the Cleveland Play House Playwrights’ Unit since 1996 and in Dobama Theatre’s Playwrights’ Gym since 2009. Her full-length works have been read or produced in more than three dozen venues worldwide and have won more than 20 national honors. She is a four-time winner of Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council. Prior to writing plays, she was an award-winning journalist for local, regional and national publications. A teacher of playwriting workshops, most recently she was the Cleveland Play House Artist-in-Residence at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights. She has also taught scene writing to passengers cruising the South Pacific. Professional affiliations include the Dramatists Guild, which she serves as Regional Representative for Ohio; the Association for Jewish Theatre; and the International Centre for Women Playwrights. She is founder of Interplay Jewish Theatre, a company that produces staged readings of Jewish themed works.

Faye Sholiton will attend the opening night performance of The Interview.

The Interview will run from January 4th through January 20th, 2013, with performances on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.

The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park is located at 300 South Military Trail in Boca Raton, just south of Palmetto Park Road. Tickets for The Interview are on sale now, and can be purchased at the Willow Theatre Box office: 561-347-3948. Tickets for all performances are $25, or $20 if purchased before December 21st.

The Interview
By Faye Sholiton
January 4-20, 2013
Thu-Sat 8pm, Sat-Sun 2pm
The Willow Theatre at Sugar Sand Park
300 South Military Trail,
Boca Raton, FL 33486
Tickets:  $25
Phone: 561-347-3948

www.womenstheatreproject.com
http://www.facebook.com/WomensTheatreProject
http://www.fayesplays.com/