Winner: 
2024 Weltmusicpreis (World Music Prize, Germany)

Winner: Album of the Year, Folk Music Ontario

Winner: Producers of the Year, Drew Jurecka and Dan Rosenberg, Canadian Folk Music Awards

Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango is a collaboration between executive producer Dan Rosenberg, The Payadora Tango Ensemble (Rebekah Wolkstein: violin/composer, Drew Jurecka: bandoneon/arranger/producer, Robert Horvath: Piano, Joseph Phillips: Double bass, singers Aviva Chernick, Lenka Lichtenberg, Olga Avigail Mieleszczuk and Marta Kosiorek 

Through music, the project tells stories of Holocaust survivors in Canada. Much of the material is based on Dr. Paula David's Terrace Holocaust Survivor's Group Poetry Project. Others are from Molly Applebaum, a Canadian author of the diary and memoir, Buried Words, who, during her adolescent years, was buried underground in a small wooden box in a barn in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland during World War II.

The project premiered at on online concert in collaboration with KlezKanada, with introductions by MP Ya'ara Saks (York Centre) and Toronto city councillor James Pasternak for Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2022 to rave reviews. In March, 2023, the album reached #1 on World Music Charts Europe.

The project was made possible with the generous support of Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto's Workmen's Circle Foundation, with additional support for outreach by Toronto's Committee for Yiddish and the UJA Federeation of Greater Toronto.



Videos:

"Sabina's Letter" featuring Olga Mieleszczuk and the Payadora Tango Ensemble.
Based on the book, Buried Words: The Diary of Molly Applebaum (Azrieli Holocaust Memoirs)

"Silent Tears" Composed by Rebekah Wolkstein. Featuring Aviva Chernick and the Payadora Tango Ensemble. Based on the poem "What We Went Through" from the Terrace Holocaust Survivor's Group, led by Dr. Paula David.

"A Victim of Mengele" Composed by Rebekah Wolkstein. Featuring Aviva Chernick and the Payadora Tango Ensemble. Based on the poem "In the Aftermath of Dr. Mengele" from the Terrace Holocaust Survivor's Group, led by Dr. Paula David. 
 

Press: Silent Tears – The Last Yiddish Tango  

"One of January's best new reelases... an album you must hear" - Grit Friedrich / DeutschlandFunk Kultur (German National Radio) (January 30, 2023)

“Astounding, both musically and conceptually” - Kim Hughes, Everything Zoomer (January 2023)

Report about "Silent Tears" on BBC's World Service, with Michael Rossi (August 2022)

"One of the best albums of Jewish music - ever" - Bernard Clarke / RTE's Blue of the Night (Irish Public Radio), a 4-part series on Silent Tears (Jan 26, 2023)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

"An incredibly moving work of musical art" - Denis McGilvray / NPR's The Rhythm Atlas (Jan 2023)

“Beautiful, sad, powerful and empowering” - Nicole Martin, CBC Fresh Air

“An extraordinary new album” -Roots Music Canada

“Moving, harrowing… with a feeling of hope and survival”- John Clewley / The Bangkok Post

“The music is elegant, yearning, and beautiful. The lyrics are unsparingly graphic, honest and heartbreaking.” Karl Nerenberg, Rabble (Jan 27, 2023)

“Poignant”- John Schaefer, NPR’s NewSounds WNYC Radio (Jan 31 2023)

"How the legacy of Holocaust survivors lives on through poetry" - Hannah Alberga, CTV News (January 27, 2022)

“Silent Tears: The Last Yiddish Tango, musica basata sulle testimonianze di donne sopravvissute all’Olocausto” - Marcello Lorrai, Radio Popolare (Italian Public Radio) (Jan 26, 2023)

“Songs of Unspeakable Sorow” - CBC All in a Day with Alan Neal 

“Sounds of Survivors” – Andy Muchin / / Sounds Jewish (PRX, National Public Radio affiliate Mississippi Public Broadcasting) (10-minute feature begins at 8:10 into broadcast) (January 19, 2022)

A moving tribute to the power of music and the resilience of survivors” - Simon Nakonechny, CBC TV Toronto News, (January 26, 2022) 

Music highlights plight of women who faced sexual violence during the Holocaust - Yoel Matveyev – The Forward (in Yiddish) (January 27, 2022)

“I cried while watching it”  – Araceli Tzigane, Music Before Shabbat (Spain), reviewing Silent Tears, February, 2022

The Jewish Radio Hour (Winnipeg) previews Silent Tears – Raquel Zucker, CKJS - (Canada’s only Yiddish language radio program) (10 Minute feature on Silent Tears starts at 8:20 into broadcast) January 23, 2022

“Moving” – John Gilks, OperaRamblings, February 4, 2022

Previewing the premiere of Silent Tears – The Last Yiddish Tango – Ilana Jackson, The Canadian Jewish News – January 26, 2022

https://thecjn.ca/perspectives/first-person/jewish-nomad-16/

15-minute features on Silent Tears on CKCU-FM Ottawa’s “Saturday Morning” with Mike Regenstreif – January 29, 2022

Preview of Silent Tears on “Musical Migrations”  WSFM, Asheville, NC  – Gypsy Flores – January 26, 2022

“Silent Tears” is among 2022’s highlights to mark 2022’s Holocaust Remembrance Day – Rokhl Kafrissen, Tablet Magazine January 2022

Silent Tears featured on special Yom HaShoah episode of Sounds Jewish Radio with host Andy Muchin - April 23, 2022

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-383-lets-go/clip/15891734-holocaust-remembrance-silent-tears



The Silent Tears project uses poetry to express unbearable Holocaust memories -words now set to music - CBC’s Metro Morning (Toronto) – Jan 28, 2022

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-39-metro-morning/clip/15891824-the-silent-tears-project-uses-poetry-express-unbearable

“How art can immortalize” – Sabrina Marandola, CBC’s Let’s Go (Montreal) – Jan 27, 2022