We were all sadened and dismayed to learn to our surprise and deep regret that our revered and admired teacher and friend Pesakh Fiszman passed away on 16 th January, 2009 in New York.

We, like many others, knew Pesakh as an inspired and inspiring teacher, a charismatic, gripping and moving, even theatrical storyteller and furthermore, a passionate messenger of ‘Yiddishkayt' and to all of us a warmhearted, endearing and wonderful person.

We are filled with gratitude for being granted over the years with the opportunity to work and travel with him and the luck which we had in being given the chance to get to know not only the teacher and ‘band colleague' but also the private Pesakh; the thoughtful, loving, funny and even the sad or scornful Pesakh.

We will be bonded with countless others all over the world; Not only in grief but also through our thankfulness and joy to have come to have known Pesakh.

We will never forget him.

 

Translation: Emma Stiman

Information on the programme with Pesakh Fiszman (z''l), in the years 2003 - 2008

PESAKH FISZMAN (New York) und A TICKLE IN THE HEART Swing & Klezmer Trio Köln

Pesakh Fiszman is a Yiddish teacher and storyteller from New York City. He was born in Argentina to parents of Ukrainian-Jewish descent but since the early 1980s he has been living in the USA. He has worked as a lecturer at several major New York institutions, including Columbia University, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Workmen’s Circle.
Pesakh Fiszman teaches in his native tongue, Yiddish, throughout North America as well as all over Europe. He taught Yiddish for two years in Moscow and Kiev and gave summer courses at Oxford, London and Weimar. He is also invited back regularly to the annual international workshops devoted to Klezmer Music, i.e. KlezKamp, KlezKanada, KlezFest. He is universally respected by his pupils as a charismatic and devoted champion of Yiddish.
While instructing his students in Yiddish, he added storytelling as a necessary feature to his classroom instruction: "I wanted to give my students the opportunity to also use that which they had learnt. Therefore I simply create for them stories. Frequently they would come to me at the end of class and say: "Pesakh, I have understood every word!", even though they were still beginners and didn’t truly understand the language yet."
Such reactions on the part of his audience are commonplace. Pesakh Fiszman doesn’t just tell his stories but lives them with gesticulation, intonation and his total personality. Even people with little understanding of Yiddish are able to follow him. His very unique and captivating style and elocution catapults his audiences, almost magically into the unique, far flung Jewish worlds of Eastern Europe and America.

A TICKLE IN THE HEART Swing & Klezmer Trio Köln has been on the road in Germany for the last five years, always in pursuit of accomplishing a little "tickle" in the hearts of its audiences through the power of music. Courses, workshops, and exploratory journeys to Oxford, London and New York have helped the trio to establish and expand contacts throughout the international Klezmer scene. As of most recent, they have enraptured audiences with Yiddish Klezmer Music in Holland and Great Britain as participation in concerts in Amsterdam and London’s Regents Park will attest.
This leads, with ever increasing frequency, to the inclusion of Yiddish Dances (where space permits) under the instruction of Andreas Schmitges. What could be better subsequent to a concert than spontaneous desire of the audience to dance to Yiddish dance music such as Freylekhs, Bulgar, Hora and Sher?

The Program ...

... embraces a combination of Pesakh Fiszmans stories, the Klezmer Music of the trio, Yiddish Songs and, where possible, dancing with the audience. Initial experiences with appearances in London (Jewish Music Institute) and Germany(Synagogue in Cologne) were very positive. Pesakh Fiszman will be in Europe in July and the autumn of 2003 and will be available for workshops and the program with A TICKLE IN THE HEART.