Search - Chava Alberstein :: End of the Holiday

The noted Israeli singer-songwriter has fashioned a suite of wry modern tales, related via literate yet colloquial Hebrew lyrics and easy-going folk-pop arrangements. Her rich, chesty alto sings of people who are trying to belong or just passing through. A poorly-paid Romanian immigrant must suddenly deal with unfamiliar Jewish funeral rites. A single worshipper waits in vain near a synagogue. Noisy post-holiday crowds return to mundane concerns, crowding the streets as they head back to their cars. Drunkards carouse amid the Sabbath hush, racism appears in insidious guises, a couple exists in polite estrangement, and tourists wander about with video cameras, seeing nothing. In a New York coffee house without reading glasses, Alberstein squints at a neighboring patron's newspaper, trying to figure out why Federico Fellini is front page news. Daily life consists of minute indignities and triumphs. Alberstein enlightens us about this process with humor, sympathy and tact. --Christina Roden