A Lutheran Church’s Response to Yiddish Songs Written in the Jewish Ghetto

My recent concert at St. Paul’s Third Lutheran Church located in Easton, PA went surprisingly well. I was traveling back East and decided to reach out to a local church to see if they were interested in having my concert. Michael Smallets, a friend from high school, introduced me to Pastor Dan Brettell and his staff, who whole-heartedly accepted my offer to present my program of Yiddish Songs Written in the Jewish Ghetto.

During a tech rehearsal something unexpected occurred. Pastor Dan revealed a personal story to me. He shared that his father had been one of only two men in his platoon to have survived the first two hours of the Normandy Invasion during WWII. Not only that, but his father was also in one of the American Army platoons that liberated Jews from a concentration camp.  Pastor Dan’s father saw horrific sights and had waited until he was on his deathbed before revealing the truth about what he experienced on D-Day and witnessed during the liberation of that camp.

Similar to many Holocaust survivors who were parents, Pastor Dan’s father chose to protect his young son from the horrors of what he had seen by withholding that information. Hearing that story about his father made me understand why this concert was so important for him.

Pastor Dan’s sermon that Sunday seemed to be influenced by the content of my program.  He compared the 3rd Reich coming to power in Germany of 1932, where Nazis viewed anyone who was not white and Christian as an enemy, to the dangers of current Christian Nationalism. He pointed out to his parishioners how today’s White Supremacists hide their agenda under the guise of Christian Nationalism.  With the recent lethal attacks on both synagogues and churches, I couldn’t help thinking how brave Pastor Dan was to address this topic so openly with his congregation, and with such conviction.

After I returned home to CA I wrote a thank you note to Pastor Dan. In it I told him that even if he had been the only person in the church listening, I would have been content knowing that a Christian Pastor, son of a war veteran, had so deeply appreciated hearing a concert in Yiddish. If you are curious, here is a link to Pastor Dan’s full sermon which begins at 16:10 and ends at 31:55.  https://youtu.be/ME1ZS-WBzaw?t=970

Zay gezunt (Yiddish for ‘Be in good health.’)

Harriet