29Jewish Telegraph

Friday January 11, 2019

‘Candy man’ Mr Ziedman lived for manyyears in musician Pierce’s notebooks IT would have been no mean featto locate a Jewish resident in asmall town in Alabama in the1950s and 1960s.

Yet, perhaps the only Jewishperson living in Fort Payneinspired Pierce Pettis to write asong about him on hisforthcoming album.

Father’s Son, which will bereleased by Compass Recordsnext Friday, is Pierce’s firstalbum for almost a decade.

And he delves into hischildhood for the track MrZiedman — the “one and onlyJew” in his little town, whoalways wore long sleeves to “keepan ugly thing from view” (hisHolocaust tattoo).

Musician Andrea Zonn hasarranged the strings on the song,which ends with Pierce lighting acandle for “our one and onlyJew”.

Pierce told me from his homein Alabama: “Mr Ziedman lived inmy notebooks for a long time. Hemade a big impression on me.

“He owned a ladies’ apparelstore in our town and I knew himvery well.

“There are some details in thesong which I have added, butsongwriters, like novelists, takeliberties!

“My grandmother always toldme not to let facts get in the wayof a good story.”

Pierce believes that MrZiedman, who was from Poland,was a Holocaust survivor.

He said: “I don’t know for sure,as it is an assumption of mine,but, looking at the timing ofwhen he arrived in America, in1946, and the fact a couple, who

lived in Fort Payne, sponsoredhim to come over.

“It is hard to think that anyonewho came out of Poland at thetime would not have been affectedby the Holocaust in some way.”

The 64-year-old was later toldthat Mr Ziedman retired, sold hisbusiness and moved to Miami,where he married.

But Pierce was also told thatMr Ziedman committed suicideby jumping off his balcony inMiami.

“I am not sure if that was a facttoo, but I was shocked by it and itstayed with me for a long time,”he explained.

Mr Ziedman’s shop was next toPierce’s father’s hardware storeand the two were friends.

“Mr Ziedman was a very kindman and whenever children cameinto the store, he would fetch a

big bowl of candy to give tothem,” Pierce recalled.

“As far as I recalled, he was theonly Jewish person in town andprobably in the entire county.

“I learned about the Holocaustfrom my father and he had a lot ofaffection for Jewish people.

“He grew up in a town smallerthan Fort Payne and, when I tookhim back there, he showed me hishouse and a house across thestreet and told me, ‘that’s wherethe Cohens lived’ — they were theonly Jewish family in town.

“He and his brothers, and theCohens’ sons grew up together, soI was raised in a home with a lotof respect for Jewish people.

“There was no antisemitism inmy house.”

� Watch Pierce perform Mr Ziedman attinyurl.com/ZiedmanJT

‘Sabrina’facing awitchhuntSABRINA the Teenage Witch starMelissa Joan Hart is at the centreof a witchhunt after telling her six-year-old son that only people whobelieve in Jesus are “good”.

Hart discussed her religiousobservance on the Journeys ofFaith with Paula Faris podcast lastweek.

“We don’t know if these peopleare good people. We don’t know ifthey believe in Jesus . . . and hereally took the Jesus part toheart,” Hart said she told her sonwhen he moved from a Christianpre-school to a secular school.

Her son made friends with aJewish boy on the school bus andasked his mother: “If you’reJewish, how do you get toheaven?”

Hart said the Jewish boy’smother called her after their sonsstarted discussing religion and theyhad “chats” about their son’sreligious questions until they werein the sixth grade.

She said the conversationsbecame “a little more heated” andled to “some problems”.

Hart said she told her son theimportance of “respecting eachother’s beliefs and listening to eachother”.

She was pilloried on social mediafor her remarks, and for using aninstance with a Jewish child as theexample in the interview.

“Holy c**p that’s some casuallydropped antisemitism in acompletely mainstream fluff piece .. . this is fairly terrifying and justgross,” one tweet read.

Another wrote: “I found herquestioning of Jews & theirbeliefs/character to be quiteoffensive. It’s antisemitic & worseshe’s raising her kids to beantisemitic. Didn’t the Pittsburghtemple massacre teach anyoneanything?”

NAZI hunters Serge and BeateKlarsfeld won the American JewishBook Council’s top book award onWednesday.

Hunting the Truth: Memoirs ofSerge and Beate Klarsfeld wasnamed Jewish Book of the Year.

The American Jewish studiesaward went to The New AmericanJudaism: How Jews PracticeTheir Religion Today by JackWertheimer.

Ehud Barak’s My Country, MyLife: Fighting for Israel, Search-ing for Peace won the autobiogra-phy and memoir award, while Wit-ness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’sClassroom by Ariel Burger wasnamed best biography.

The Book Club Award went toThe Girl from Berlin by Ronald HBalson.

All Three Stooges by Erica SPerl won the best children’s litera-ture.

Leon Wiener Dow was victoriousin the contemporary Jewish lifeand practice category with TheGoing: A Meditation on JewishLaw.

The debut fiction prize went toThe Book of Dirt by Bram Presser.

The Talmud: A Biography byBarry Scott Wimpfheimer won theeducation and Jewish identityprize.

The fiction award was won by

Michael David Lukas for The LastWatchman of Old Cairo.

In the history category, the win-ner was Rise and Kill First: TheSecret History of Israel’s TargetedAssassinations by Ronen Bergman.

Holocaust winner was Anatomyof a Genocide: The Life and Deathof a Town Called Buczacz byOmer Bartov.

Triumphant in the modern Jew-ish thought and experience catego-ry was Does Judaism CondoneViolence? Holiness and Ethics inthe Jewish Tradition by Alan LMittleman.

Poetry winner was Erika Meit-ner’s Holy Moly Carry Me.

Scholarship winner was Histori-cal Atlas of Hasidism by MarcinWodzinski.

The Sephardic culture awardwent to Dominion Built of Praise:Panegyric and Legitimacy AmongJews in the Medieval Mediter-ranean by Jonathan Decter.

Alice Shalvi’s Never a Nativewon the women’s studies award.

In the writing based on archivalmaterial category, Rebecca Erbeld-ing won with Rescue Board: TheUntold Story of America’s Effortsto Save the Jews of Europe.

The Paper Brigade for newIsraeli fiction winner was MayaArad for Our Lady of Kazan.

Nazi hunters win top book prize

SOPRANO Béatrice Beer performed musicwritten by her late father in Leeds last night.

Joseph Beer — who died in 1987, aged 79 —was a Jewish composer whose rapid rise tofame in his mid-20s was cut short by the Naziregime. He was the last of the Viennese“silver-age” operetta composers.

He fled to France in 1938 from Austria,where he studied music and had been working.

His family, left behind in Poland, weremurdered in concentration camps during theHolocaust.

Beer continued to compose in Nice after thewar, leaving what his daughter describes as animportant body of work yet to be discovered.

His “lost” music is currently enjoying asignificant revival in Austria, and Béatriceperformed some of it as part of a recital-lecture at the University of Leeds’Clothworkers’ Centenary Concert Hall.

Her visit was joint-funded by the JewishMusic Forum, New York, the Jewish MusicInstitute, London, and the EuropeanResearch Council.

A conference looking to reappraise operettawill end tomorrow at Leeds’ School of Music,called ‘Gaiety, Glitz and Glamour — orDispirited Historical Dregs? A Re-evaluationof Operetta’.

Organised by Professor Derek Scott, fromLeeds’ School of Music, the conference washeld in association with the project GermanOperetta in London, New York and Warsaw,

1906–1939.Professor Scott said: “Béatrice Beer’s

vigorous efforts to make her father’s musicknown are impressive.

“I'm certain that he would have beenrecognised as one of the great composers ofoperetta, had his music not been suppressedby the Nazis after he was forced to flee.”

Béatrice studied at the Manhattan Schoolof Music and Juilliard.

� josephbeercomposer.comOPERATTA COMPOSER: Joseph Beer

Béatrice’s musical tribute

IN FATHER’S MEMORY: Béatrice Beer

MEMORIES: Pierce Pettis

BY SIMON YAFFE