Tag #125955 - Interview #78405 (Rafael Beraha)

My mother Bina Iliya Beraha, nee Bidjerano, was a housewife. She was also a singer. She sang in amateur singers’ groups in Kazanlak. When she was young, she took part in theater performances in the ‘Iskra’ [spark] community house, which was run by the famous Bulgarian writer Chudomir Chorbadzhiski. [Dimitar Hristov Chorbadzhiski alias Chudomir (1890-1967): famous Bulgarian humorist and artist] She sang Ladino, Bulgarian folk songs and German classics based on poems by Heinrich Heine and translated into Bulgarian. One of her favorite songs was ‘Palestine, muestra santa tierra’ [Ladino: ‘Palestine, my holy land’]: ‘Palestine muestra santa tierra,/cuanto sos tu descentorada/matu ermosura me in cante/I inchi me tierpo de templor. [Palestine, our holy land, how unhappy you are, your beauty fills me with sorrow]. The song based on Heine’s poems went like this: ‘A maiden slept in her room/the moon is shining outside/quiet sounds reach her in her sleep/She gets up, looks from the window/who wakes her up – she wants to know/a skeleton is playing the guitar there/noisily he plays and dances…