"My life is split in two: a wild childhood outside the home, and a captive childhood inside the home – two different worlds, not merging. The hardest thing for me is stuttering, this terrible thing that distances me from people... I'm stuck, tied to the barbed wire fences of Auschwitz, Birkenau, and other names that I hear every day." (p. 216).
"My Shadow and I" / Yehuda Poliker
Yehuda Poliker Responsible for a significant part of the soundtrack of my life, from childhood to today. Seeing him standing on stage, he always seems to me so larger than life itself. Stage presence they might say, but for me it is much more than that. The combination of the melody, the words and one polychrome – make me fly far away, just like in the song that is also the title of his book, "My shadow and I".
As we reach adulthood, we look for less material and more experience in birthday gifts. So I decided I deserved a date with my two older brothers, just me and them. And what better way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the record? "My eyes""In Caesarea? So I booked us a place of honor, close to the cultural legend that the three of us love. In the meantime, I've already dug in my heels by listening to the songs over and over again. It's always a mystery to me how there's no time for anything in life, but there's always time to hear a favorite song a thousand times. As the date of the show approaches, I decided to advance Poliker's book to the list of books waiting for me to read.
The book is written in the first person, Judas or Judeko, as he is called in his childhood home, tells us about his rich inner world, the world of his beloved family and everyone who comes across his path, from the world of man and animal. He does not spare himself and puts on paper the good, the bad, the painful, the funny. In fact, this is a very private diary of Judeko, which Judas shares with the reader.
I tried to understand whether he was so fascinating to me because it was about Yehuda Poliker or if I would have enjoyed reading it if it had been the same person. It's hard to answer the question exactly, because while reading it, I imagined the adult Poliker writing about the child in him, and that added a touch of Edna and also a kind of relief to know that he had reached some kind of safe haven for himself through music. However, Yudeko's stories will touch any heart, even if they are not related to the artist's story. His inner world is so rich and you can see with your own eyes the journeys he invites us to join.
This is a story about a boy who wants to be seen and "sinks" into photographs, to have a record of his existence, at the same time as his fear of the spotlight being on him, "I'm ashamed to point and speak in class, lest they laugh at me for stuttering. Fear sits inside me and swallows my words. I build a thick marble wall around myself that can't be penetrated." (p. 127).
It's a story about a child whose fear of losing his parents suffocates him and brings tears to this reader's eyes. Because how could it be otherwise when he says to his mother, "I don't want you to die, mom! What will I do without you?"(p. 195) When throughout the book he is busy taking care of his parents, just so they don't die for him. How could it be otherwise when he "Crawling into my parents' bed and hugging Dad, because Dad is all I have in the world." (p. 120). And how can one not cry when, at the moment when Yudeko has the opportunity to make a wish from a falling star, all he asks for is that his parents not die.
This is a story about a boy with an unusual connection to animals, a boy who always "I envy the birds that fly free in the sky." (p. 158). One story among many teaches about the soul of those who want to protect the weak and help them on their way. "I once picked up a sparrow that had fallen from a tree. I was afraid that cats would eat it, so I built it a cage with a mesh opening. I fed it until it got stronger. When it recovered, I opened the cage and it spread its wings, waved goodbye to me, and flew away to freedom." (p. 130).
Still, alongside the stories that bring tears to my eyes, there are those that make me burst out laughing, like his stories about the neighbors. "Our neighbors are a collection of strange types. Neighbor Shoshana, for example, bought a device one day that shakes her ass and shakes her body to go on a diet. Dressed in training sports, she ties the machine's leather strap to her, and the device shakes her stomach or buttocks for hours on end, to the sounds of an Elvis or Cliff record." (p. 93). Although everyone has their own childhood, the story about the other neighbor took me straight to my childhood in Haifa and to the building.
"Another neighbor of ours," Thus he writes, "She, who shares a wall with us, rattles pots and pans in the wee hours of the night and wakes up the whole house. Mom gets angry and "retaliates": she hits the wall with a pot lid. Entire nights are spent with this pot war." (p. 93). There is no one who grew up with me on France 63 and does not now remember Mrs. Kimmelstein, whose children in the building disturbed her siesta between 2 and 4 in the afternoon, and she came out with two huge pot lids, stood in the first-floor stairwell, and like cymbals, knocked on them over and over again while shouting in a heavy German accent, "I won't sleep, no one will sleep!" The center of the building is built so that the stairwells create a bottleneck and an enormous echo from the ground floor to the eighth floor, the apartment doors opened and heads peeked up and down with their hands over their ears. Foxy, her dog, must have had her ears ringing for many days afterward. How I miss her. One of a kind, like many of my childhood neighbors.
Finally, Yudeko meets a healer for his soul when he discovers the world of music and what happens within it when he holds a guitar in his hand. "A musical language began to develop in me, a language that didn't stutter, and I felt happy with it." (p. 223). Maybe I'm poetic and romantic, but from an admiring sidelong glance at the boy who became a cultural hero, I see Judas the child flying far away as he always dreamed, his shadow making him wings and we, the lovers of his music, enjoying that imaginary connection, which was once impossible for him.
Regarding the question whether remaining או loose From My Private Library – My Shadow and I by Yehuda Poliker remaining In the family. Like his songs, his words filled the chambers of my heart and I have no intention of emptying the house of them. There are many more quotes that I marked and wanted to share and write to you, but in 1,000 words it is impossible to summarize the life story of one Yehuda Poliker, Yehudeko, not just any Greek boy – and you will have to read his full story for yourself. And I, when I sit in the orchestra in Caesarea, alongside my older brothers, the familiar songs from 40 years of "My Eyes" will take on an additional hue and deepen my listening experience. Yaso Yehuda! Thank you for the words and the melodies.
Book details:
My Shadow and Me by: Yehuda Poliker, Attic Books, Yedioth Books, 2019.
Pleasant reading and may good words be by your side always,
Lily
From my deep acquaintance with the Poliker family from Kiryat Haim, every word in the rock, I knew his parents, his sister, and his brother well as humble, kind-hearted, and sometimes withdrawn people.
Thanks Aryeh, it's nice to know that the character portrayed is indeed authentic. Have a good week.
His moving life story reminds us of our home.
His songs are moving, I loved them.
Yes, the neighborhoods, the streets, the people, the sea…
And Poliker is so exciting, even as a child it turns out.
Thank you for giving me the book to read ☺️
Happy and blessed Shabbat 💗