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Treffen Tuesday
September 24 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Schön and Sheyn –The Beautiful Harmony Between German-Russian and Russian Jewish Homesteaders
In 1938, the Andrews Sisters’ Bei mir bist du schön (To Me You’re Beautiful) was a big radio hit. Though many believed it was a German song, it was a song written in Yiddish, a language spoken by Eastern European Jews. The record company changed the spelling of the word “beautiful” from Yiddish (sheyn) to German (schön). This anecdote opens the door to examine the similarities, beyond language, which laid the foundation for the good relationships between the Germans and the Jews, living near Odessa at the turn of the 20th Century.
With an ample sprinkling of heartwarming stories from within and outside of Still (NDSU Press 2019), the book I co-wrote with my dad Kenneth Bender, we will explore the commonalities between these two immigrant groups. As their lives intertwined again in America, a beautiful harmony developed. Their intersecting history, as well as their individual histories, should be preserved.
About the Speaker
Rebecca E. Bender and her father Kenneth M. Bender are coauthors of Still, a biography/memoir of five generations of their Jewish family and their communities. Still is the 2019 Independent Press Award Winner (Judaism category) and the 2020 Midwest Book Award Gold Medal Winner (Religion/Philosophy category). Rebecca’s prose and poetry have appeared in The Journal of The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, North Dakota Quarterly, The Jewish Veteran, the Forward, Australia’s Jewish Women of Words, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Northwest Blade, and Paper Brigade Daily (Jewish Book Council).
She has spoken about her family of North Dakota Jewish homesteading farmers at events sponsored by The Minnesota Historical Society, the North Dakota Historical Society, the South Dakota Historical Society, St. John’s University, the Upper Midwest Jewish Historical Society, the Homestead National Historical Park, and the Germans from Russia Heritage Society, among others. Copies of Still’s second printing (in paperback) are available through NDSUPress.org, library.ndsu.edu/grhc, Amazon.com, or can be ordered through any bookstore.
