In the late Fifties, I had worked in a summer camp in N. Adams, Massachusetts. There was a lovely young counselor there who lived in NYC. When I went back to college, she invited me to visit her at her family home, an apartment in Manhattan.

That evening, there was a party and I learned a lot about her family. Her mother was a gorgeous and charming woman. I don' think I met her father, though. He was a very busy man, a Broadway producer. He had a long-running musical on Broadway at that time and one of he stars was Theodore Bikel. I hadn't seen the show yet so I didn't really know who Bikel was. Late that evening, when he dropped in, he was just Theo to me. After a bit, a guitar appeared (I think it was a Guild) and Theo, sitting on a chair in the living room started singing some of the songs from the show. One I remember in particular was "Edelweiss".

It was a very special evening. He sang songs I'd never heard before, one about a Jewish farm cooperative in The Crimea, another about a dying queen's confession of adultery, some humorous songs and then he played Moor Soldaten, singing it in both German and English. This group made up mostly of some of the most privileged people in America who I would guess had minimal first hand experience with evil became silent and thoughtful as they listened to the story of the forced laborers. It was a lovely moment in that the song made it possible for us to share for a moment a fragment of their pain and to file it away as part of our empathy library making it easier for us to rmember how much we share with all people.

Sourdough