The director of the Shalom Foundation is the initiator of its creation - Golda Tencer. She is an actress and director of the National Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. She is well known by the public, not o­nly for her roles in plays that belong to the classical Yiddish repertoire, but also for her interpretation of songs. She is the best interpreter of dramatic presentations of Gebirtig, Manger and of anonymous authors of popular songs.
Golda Tencer, a cultural expert, can transform these songs and poems into theatre - a theatre of emotions, of reflection, of skeptical wisdom, of humor - the o­nly weapons of the weak.
No wonder that her presentations o­n television have brought her millions of grateful listeners, who enter with her into the paintings of Chagall, the stories of Alejchem, the poems of Kacenelson, and the tales of Asz. Wherever she appears, the audience responds with enthusiasm - be it in a small hall in a Jewish Club in Cracow or a large auditorium at a university in Boston. The power of Golda Tencer, the daughter of a leather goods craftsman, is the truth about the bygone people, which she received from her family home in Lodz-about the color of daily life, and about the power of dreams that made the heroes of the prose of Bruno Schulz able to fly higher and higher into the autumn sky.
In Israel, she was awarded with the honor of the Golden Harp. In Warsaw, she gets less honors, but much more work, responsibilities and deadlines. It shouldn't surprise or astonish anyone. Such is the fate of people who are o­ne of a kind, and evidently patented by the Creator.

Every time I listen to voices of singers that are light years removed from sugary banality, a question returns: where do they come from, what landscapes and climates do they wish to rescue, what world view do they attempt to impose, leading us to the beginnings of their art. Sometimes it is in the lights of a cabaret, a blue smoke suspended over tables, a laughter released suddenly by a joke of the emcee. Sometimes it is different: a street out of childhood emerging from the darkness of years, the smell of roasted chestnuts, dispersed in the alleys tones of an accordion sounding the melodies of a Parisian waltz. Golda Tencer emerges from a world that today exists o­nly in the pages of books, in old photographs, in the film of memory moving in front of the eyes of those, who did not forget the small towns, where as in the verses of a Polish poet "the watchmaker was a philosopher, the barber - a troubadour", and where white-bearded wise men "lamented over the holy walls of Jerusalem". In the singing of Golda Tencer o­nce more returns all that through hundreds of years was the substance of Jewish life in the common land: joy and pain, love and maternal tenderness, the burden of care and the strain of labor, the flight of thought in search of God, rattling o­n heaven - the dark heaven of autumn, to which the wind carried the characters of the stories of Bruno Schulz - in a whirlwind of yellow leaves and unfulfilled dreams. Song after song brings near the images: a girl at the town's square is still awaiting the arrival of her fiancé, the sentimental song becomes a drama: we know that the fiancé will not come - he, the girl, and the town are now o­nly ashes. The disciples will never see the next miracle obtained by the prayers of their rabbi. Hunger will never again be satisfied by "varnichkies". o­nly the lamentation "Ejli, Ejli" is real: hate sets the stakes o­n fire. Golda Tencer is able to turn these works into a theater of emotions, of musings, of skeptical wisdom, of banter, which is the o­nly weapon of the weak. No wonder then that her television performances have earned her millions of grateful listeners, who enter with her into a world from the pictures of Chagall, the stories of Aleichem, the poems of Kacenelson, the novels of Asz. An equally lively reception accompanies her recitals everywhere she appears - be it in a small hall at a Jewish club, or a University auditorium in Israel. She sings in Yiddish. But Yiddish, as claimed by Isaac Bashevis Singer, is not a language of ghosts, nor a dead language; it is a language of the dead. Golda Tencer grew up in a household, where Jewish culture, customs, language and tradition were cultivated. At that time, in Lodz, there still happened to exist such households that were o­n the margins of great and small politics, filled with work (Golda's father, Szmul Tencer, ran a purse-making shop) and family life, understood in the old way, in which the mother was the central figure: a confidante of secrets and the best adviser.

  

Golda graduated from the Perec High School in Lodz (with Jewish language). As to the choice of her future, there was no hesitation: she wanted to be an actress. She thus went to the Theater Studio at the Ester Rachel Kaminska Jewish Theater, and at the same time pursued cultural studies at Warsaw University. Classes were supplemented by performances. First came small episodes, then small parts, and then starring roles. And, of course - songs. She incorporated more and more singing into her repertoire. With it, she traversed Jewish centers in Poland, and sung abroad. Acting means wandering. In an old anecdote, a wagon full of Jewish comedians is rolling along through a darkened small town. "Look" - says o­ne of the vagabonds - "we are driving and driving, and they have to sleep..." The United States, England, Israel, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Australia, Denmark - Golda Tencer's calendar shows dates and auditoriums where the Jewish Theater's performances have been held: testimonials to the vitality of a culture that has its roots in The Book. The strength of Golda Tencer's singing is in its loyalty to o­ne theme, o­ne cause: to relay the truth about the Polish Jews, about Jewish life, and the Jewish spiritual heritage. The constancy of her interest is witnessed by her theater roles: Leah - in "Dybuk" by Anski, Belka - in "The Great Prize" by Alejchem, the fiancé - in "Night at the Old Market Place" by Perec. Likewise, in film roles: "Love and War" - directed by Mizrachi, "David" - by Lilienthal (Golden Lion award at a festival in West Berlin), "Austeria" by Kawalerowicz. In all these pictures Golda Tencer portrays Jewish girls, enriching them with the traits of her own psyche, the material of her own experiences, the climate of her childhood, where despite the passing of years there returned in the reminiscences of her parents the time of the most difficult trial to which humans were exposed.

The consistency in her choice of themes shows also in her directorial pursuits. Golda Tencer adapted to the theater and, together with Szymon Szurmiej, staged "Megile" by I. Manger, a terrifying show "Song of the Murdered Jewish People" ("Pieśni o zamordowanym żydowskim narodzie") of Kacenelson, and "A Troubadour from Galicia" - songs of the old Jewish Kazimierz adapted after M. Giebirtig. Her truth to herself has been noticed: In 1983 the artist was honored by the Golden Lyre award - which is awarded in Israel for achievements in propagation of Jewish culture. In 1984, Golda Tencer had the chance as winner of a scholarship from The Institute of International Education, to get acquainted with theater life in USA, widening the range of her experiences by direct contact with the directors and the stars of show business. The scholarship didn't fall from the sky: the talent of this actress of the Jewish Theater, working under the direction of director Szymon Szurmiej, has for a long time inspired both reviewers and critics. It's enough to say that the famous Dan Sullivan remarked o­n the pages of the "Los Angeles Times" o­n the modern character of her interpretation, o­n her avoidance of sentimentalism, and o­n her distanced acting style. Sullivan saw Golda in the musical "The Jewish Joy" ("Żydowska radość"). The same show garnered compliments (which must have pleased the creators of the show the most) in a newspaper in which Singer, the Nobel Prize laureate, routinely publishes his stories and novels. In "Forward", an old actor from Warsaw, Josef Glikson, stated: "Golda Tencer is a mature artist gifted with a dramatic and deep voice. She is splendid in all her embodiments ". I could quote many further words of praise published in daily and weekly magazines in Germany, Israel, Italy... After the television program "The Small Town Belz" ("Miasteczko Bełz") aired, eminent writer Andrzej Kuśniewicz, devoted to Golda Tencer a text that was extremely accurate in its diagnosis. The author of "The Zones" ("Strefy") saw in the art of the singer - uniqueness. Something that cannot be falsified... Many women today sing Jewish songs: it is trendy, and it is "in", but o­nly Golda Tencer is able to give the listeners the taste of raisins and almonds in a mother's lullaby. The lullaby that she sings most beautifully to her son, David.

"LA Traviata" lined with the devil - Marek Skoczą relates from "Wratislavia Cantans". Before the night concert of Golda Tencer the entrance was guarded by a double detachment of goalies. The excellent recital of Jewish songs ended with "The Small Town Belz" and a few encores.

theatre roles

filmography