by admin_harrietbennish | Apr 12, 2021 | Uncategorized
*Direct link to the Yom HaShoah event is at the end of this blog My friend said, “Don’t publish a link to your virtual presentation because if people see it they won’t want to come hear you perform live when it is safe to do so.” Here are some of the comments I...
by admin_harrietbennish | Mar 27, 2021 | Uncategorized
Truth be told, I never know what I am going to write about until I sit down at the computer and start typing. So much has happened in the last two weeks. Do I talk about the heinous crimes the Asian American community has been subjected to recently? Do I bring...
by admin_harrietbennish | Mar 13, 2021 | Uncategorized
*Special recording included Who could have known that the title of my concert, “Tears, Joy, and Hope would parallel the human experience of a Pandemic so closely? Jews experienced their own lockdown and uncertainty between 1939 and 1945 by being forced to live...
by admin_harrietbennish | Feb 28, 2021 | Uncategorized
*Special recording included Last week It was getting down to the wire. My most immediate budget proposal deadline for my upcoming April Holocaust Memorial presentation on Zoom (more on that later) was due. As I was working on the budget I was suddenly up against...
by admin_harrietbennish | Feb 13, 2021 | Uncategorized
Have you ever woken up with a knot in your stomach and it doesn’t go away? I thought to myself, “Should I take a walk to relieve any built up stress?” I took my three mile power walk, rehearsing my Yiddish songs behind my mask as I walked, but the knot was...
by admin_harrietbennish | Jan 31, 2021 | Uncategorized
Last week I struggled to even begin writing this blog. Can I blame my procrastination on the inauguration? YES, of course I can! It was a life-changing event for many people. For the first time ever, young African American girls were seeing someone...
by admin_harrietbennish | Jan 15, 2021 | Uncategorized
My husband said, “Don’t bring up the attack on the Capitol! No one wants to read about that on your blog.” But when I saw a man wearing a sweatshirt with large bold letters that read “Camp Auschwitz” and remembered how 1.1 million people were put to their...
by admin_harrietbennish | Dec 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
Looking Back at This Year This blog is more of a ‘Thank you’ to all of you who have taken the time to read my blogs over the past few months. During the pandemic, without the opportunity to have in-person concerts, being able to write about my journey and this...
by admin_harrietbennish | Dec 12, 2020 | Uncategorized
The title of my program, “Tears, Joy, and Hope” reflects the emotions stirred within me every time I rehearsed these songs for my concert. These Yiddish songs written in the Jewish Ghettos are both profoundly beautiful and haunting. Because I had researched the...
by admin_harrietbennish | Nov 29, 2020 | Uncategorized
When I made up my mind to create a concert of Jewish music I wasn’t entirely clear what my direction would be. Should I do a concert of Yiddish theatre songs? Or maybe a program of Jewish folk songs? To help me decide I called on the late Ethel Weinstein for...
by admin_harrietbennish | Nov 7, 2020 | Uncategorized
In my last blog, I wrote about wanting to attend a Jewish sleepaway camp and how my parents told me they could not afford it. Something I failed to mention though, is that my child-like persistence continued and I soon tried another approach. “Can I go to music...
by admin_harrietbennish | Oct 24, 2020 | Uncategorized
In 2018, if someone asked me if I had plans for the summer, I would respond enthusiastically “I’m going to sleepaway camp!”. Everyone looked both amused and surprised at my genuinely excited response. In truth, I had every reason to be excited. I had never been...
by admin_harrietbennish | Oct 5, 2020 | Uncategorized
My first formal introduction to Jewish music took place in my Rabbi’s kitchen when I was just a young girl. I must have been about nine years old when Rabbi Schick would stop our Hebrew class about fifteen minutes before it was over, point to me, address me by my...
by admin_harrietbennish | Sep 14, 2020 | Uncategorized
“There had not been a marriage at B’nai Israel Synagogue in 20 years, but I always knew I would return to get married there.” Growing up in the 1950’s, the only synagogue in my hometown of Shamokin, Pennsylvania was the B’nai Israel Orthodox Synagogue. ...
by admin_harrietbennish | Aug 31, 2020 | Uncategorized
May 31, 2020 was to have been an eventful day for both Yiddish and my emerging career. The Los Angeles Central Library offers a series of eclectic concerts and performances entitled “LA Made”. Funded by The National Endowment for the Humanities, the concerts are held...
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