During the Holocaust, music provided solace and solidarity. But it was also used as a weapon and as propaganda. We’ll discover the power of music to both inspire resistance to tyranny and serve evil purposes. We’ll also hear how after the war, music helped keep memory alive through commemoration.
Eleanor Shapiro received her doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, in 2018, with a dissertation focused on Jewish culture festivals in Polish small towns. For thirteen years prior to that, she directed the Bay Area-based Jewish Music Festival. Currently an independent scholar, she has recently taught courses on Jewish music, Polish-Jewish relations, and Israel/Palestine (where she worked as an educator and journalist from 1982-1990)