“SOUL TO SOUL” IS ONE NIGHT ONLY IN PITTSBURGH, FEB. 17.
Come Saturday evening, Feb. 17, a concert will be coming to the Hill District that you don’t see every day.
“SOUL TO SOUL,” according to co-creator Elmore James, will celebrate through song the strong historical connection between Blacks and Jews. The show will occur at 7:30 p.m. at the Kaufmann Center, next to the Hill House, on Centre Avenue. It’s presented by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.
Sung by performers with careers spanning from Broadway to the pulpit, the songs one will hear range from spirituals, jazz, civil rights era anthems to Yiddish traditional and theatre songs from the Great American Songbook.
“When (Dr.) Martin Luther King (Jr.) came along, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the leading people who was marching right alongside him,” James told the New Pittsburgh Courier. “So there was a very strong bond between the plight of Jews of Blacks.”
For James, this is the 16th year he’s been involved in “SOUL TO SOUL.” He was initially drawn to the connection between Blacks and Jews when the famed singer, athlete and activist Paul Robeson, who was Black, would sing in Yiddish.
“In the ‘70s, the mayor of New York City was Ed Koch,” James told the Courier. “He began to drive a wedge between Blacks and Jews, because when you separate people, you can divide and conquer. The message of this show (‘SOUL TO SOUL’) is, we’re stronger together.”
Tickets are available at bethshalompgh.org.
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