Art is My Weapon: The Radical Musical Life of Lin Jaldati
Commemorating the Eightieth Anniversary of Kristallnacht

In 1934, at 22 years of age and one year after Hitler came to power in Nazi Germany, Lin Jaldati, the stage name for Rebekka Brilleslijper, gave her first performance of Yiddish song and dance for the immigrant Jewish community of her native Amsterdam. After surviving the Holocaust and informing Otto Frank of the fate of his daughters Anne and Margot, she and her husband moved to East Germany where she spent the rest of her life performing as the Yiddish diva of the communist world.

Performed by University of Colorado Professor David Shneer and composer Jewlia Eisenberg, Lin Jaldati: Art is My Weapon tells the life and work of this remarkable woman in two parts passionate music, one part stunning images, and one part inspiring story.

David Shneer holds the Louis P. Singer Chair in Jewish History at the University of Colorado Boulder. He takes his scholarship off the page and into life through his curatorial and performance work. His book, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust (Rutgers University Press, 2011) was the winner of the 2013 Jordan Schnitzer Prize of the Association for Jewish Studies and finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.

Jewlia Eisenberg is an American composer. As founder and bandleader of Charming Hostess, she coined the term “Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girly” to describe her genre of music which spans an eclectic range of styles. Originally from New York City, Eisenberg became an integral member of the San Francisco Bay Area and the New York Downtown music scenes in the 1990s.

Sponsored by the Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies, School of Languages, Cultures, and World Affairs, and the Department of German and Russian Studies