“The show must go on, yeah”
The show must go on
I’ll face it with a grin
I’m never givin’ in
On with the show” (Song by Queen, 1991)
By Mark Wagman, VP Community Affairs, Adas Kodesch Shel Emeth
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When Adas Kodesch Shel Emeth presents Café Tamar, an exciting program of music and dance, on May 25, it will be with a sense of both sadness and determination. This annual concert will be the first one in its nearly 70-year history without either of its founders, Faith and Lou Brown. We lost Lou in 2020, and Faith passed away in January of this year.
Active to her last day, Faith actually helped plan this year’s concert. For the last several years, the Café Tamar planning committee has included Faith, Harriet Ainbinder, Sylvia Wagman, and me. We met in December to begin planning and assigned responsibilities for contacting potential performers. Faith quickly and enthusiastically engaged those whom she had agreed to contact. She also offered her ideas for a theme. Our chosen theme was her suggestion: Am Echad, Lev Echad (One People, One Heart).
Our theme is fitting for the precious legacy that Faith and Lou have left for us. Soon after their marriage in 1948, they left to work on a kibbutz in the young Jewish state. After returning to Wilmington, they founded the annual concert that became Café Tamar as a way for them to perpetuate and share their love of Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish music and dance.
They led the choral and dance groups and produced every year’s show until just a few years ago. It now falls to us to carry on that incredible tradition. (Check out a highlights video of 20 Café Tamar concerts between 1985 and 2019, plus a short clip from 1957-58, at www.AKSE.org/cafetamar.)
As always, this year’s program includes dancers and vocal and instrumental soloists and ensembles, with diverse musical styles, but always with a Jewish connection. In recent years, concert organizers have gone outside the congregation to expand its pool of talent and make the concert a truly community-wide celebration of Israel.
Professionals Eliezer Gutman (violin) and Lotus Cheng (piano) will again share their extraordinary musicianship. Other featured performers include violist Juliana Castillo and vocal soloists Cindy Goldstein, Talia Goren, Sam Romirowsky, and Cantor Liz Pellen of Congregation Beth Emeth. The vocal ensemble, the NOTEables, will again harmonize for us. And we are pleased to welcome for the first time musicians from Chai Notes, the Klezmer Band of Congregation Beth Shalom. As they always do, the AKSE dance group will present both new and classic Israeli folk dances.
CAFÉ TAMAR
Am Echad, Lev Echad (One People, One Heart)
Monday, May 25 at 6:30 PM
Siegel Jewish Community Center
101 Garden of Eden Rd., Wilmington
Admission:
$15 with advance payment by May 20,
$18 at the door, $5 for children 6 to 12
Information and advance orders online at akse.wufoo.com/forms/cafe-tamar-2026 or contact 302-762-2705 or office@AKSE.org
