Nehama Lifshitz

Nechama Lifshitz (Russian: Нехама Юделевна Лифшиц, Hebrew: נחמה ליפשיץ; born 1927 in Kaunas, Lithuania, died 2017 in Tel Aviv, Israel) was a Yiddish language and later Hebrew language soprano and art song performer who came to be a key representative of Soviet Jewish culture in the 1950s and 1960s. Her seemingly innocent concerts were the heart and soul of Lifshitz's contribution to keeping Jewish culture and identity alive in the Communist bloc. Her father, who played the violin, was a musical influence on her, as well as her mother Batya who sang regularly. In her youth, she attended the Kaunas Real Hebrew Gymnasium. In 1946 she returned to Kaunas with her family. Other forms of expression, such as the publication of Yiddish language books, remained banned. Even with Yiddish folk music concerts, they were strictly controlled in terms of who was able to perform them, and even whether the word Yiddish could be mentioned on the poster, and so on.

In the early 1950s Lifshitz often appeared with Ino Topper, a singer who had studied with her. Around 1955 she became acquainted with Mark Braudo, a Jewish actor in Lithuania. He proposed that they start a troupe that would perform songs and scenes in Yiddish. The group was soon founded under the umbrella of the Lithuanian SSR Philharmonic For the rest of her career in the Soviet Union she was essentially an employee of the Lithuanian Philharmonic.

However, they had little access to Yiddish music in the Lithuanian SSR, and so Lifshitz went to Moscow to meet the composers Shaul Senderei and Lev Pulver. Pulver had been director of the Moscow Yiddish State Theater for years, and gave her material by Avram Goldfaden, Sholem Aleichem and others. In addition they sang songs by Mordechai Gebirtig and various Jewish folk songs.

In 1958 she won the First prize in an all-Soviet Competition for variety artists. According to Braudo, her success in that contest caught the attention of the press in Moscow, which rarely gave any coverage to Jewish artists. Thus her first concerts in Moscow were in May 1958. Many of the surviving members of the prewar Yiddish cultural world came to the concert, including Shmuel Halkin (whose poems she had performed), and the widows of Der Nister, Itzik Fefer, Perets Markish, and others. In Moscow she performed alongside Paul Robeson.

However, during this tour she encountered some hostility from officials, such as in Minsk, where Party Secretary for Propaganda Timofei Gorbunov forbade her concert, or in Vinnitsa, where her concert was partly censored for containing 'nationalist' materials. In 1959 she also performed in the Hebrew language for the first time, something which was forbidden and had barely been heard on Soviet stages since the 1920s. During 1960 and 1961, two LPs of her music were released by the state music label Melodiya, which would be reprinted a number of times.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s she continued to give regular concerts in the Soviet Union, although it became difficult for her to get permission to perform in cities with a large Jewish population.

As her career progressed, she added more Hebrew language materials to her concerts, and her clandestine connection with Israel increased. This close relationship would cause her problems with the Soviet authorities. After studying at Bar-Ilan University, in 1976 she became a librarian in the Tel Aviv municipal music library and later on the director of this library.

Selected discography Еврейские Песни В Исполнении Нехамы Лифшицайте / Recital By N. Lifshitsaite (Melodya, 1961) Chansons Populaires Juives Interpretées par N. Lifchitzaite (SovDisc) Nekhama Lifshitz - Yiddish Folk Singer - Sings the Songs of Her People in the U.S.S.R. (Collector's Guild, 1963) Recital N. Lifshitsaite (Melodiya, 1969) Nehama Lifschitz In Concert (CBS, 1969) Nehama Lifschitz in Concert - Tel Aviv & Jerusalem 1969 (Columbia Records, 1969) Nehama Lifschitz (CBS) Mayn Farmeygn: Nechama Lifschitz Live in Moscow 1964 (2003)