Feldman's Faves: March 10, 2025

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

For those of you with children on March Break I feel that the Chappell Roan song, “Goodluck Babe” applies. That said, I hope you all have a wonderful time entertaining them 24/7 for the next week or so.

It is with a very heavy heart that I want to take this opportunity to wish Aryan all the very best in his upcoming adventure of moving to and working in New York.  We will really miss you but hope you have an incredible experience when you are there. And please don’t forget us.

Finally, I just want to say that I know many of you are very anxious these days about world events, which is completely understandable. We are facing unprecedented times and it is very scary. That said, we have faced unprecedented times before (think about all the toilet paper you were hoarding just five years ago) and how we got through that insanity (and nobody drank any bleach, as far as I am aware). It is hard to know how everything will shake out this time but I am confident that Team Goodmans will continue to be strong and find a way to thrive in the face of adversity. We always have and we always will. Hang in there everybody.

No theme this week – just topics of interest.

TWO ROADS HOME – HITLER, STALIN AND THE MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL OF MY FAMILY By: Daniel Finkelstein –  As I was reading the first of this book that tells the story of two families living in Europe during the rise of the Nazi’s in Germany, Stalin in Russia, WWII and the Holocaust I had a constant feeling of dread and stress. While I am very familiar with this history and many of the stories of families who lived through this period and those who didn’t it is always gut wrenching to hear what people had to endure in their own ways. The fear, humiliation and sheer terror that these families endured is well known and knowing what we know now and seeing how people made decisions that they thought would be the right ones (e.g., escaping Poland by moving to Holland) you want to try to reshape their history and you can’t.  At the same, when you learn about the strength, dignity and resilience that these people had to have to survive (albeit being scarred for life) it is, like many of these similar stories, a story of hope.  Daniel Finkelstein, in telling the story of both sides of his family and what they went through in Two Roads Home should be required reading for everyone. As one reviewer notes, “Two progenitors survive the Holocaust, against all the odds, in this extraordinary narrative. “Fascists and communists both believed…that the individuals who made up the elites needed to be eliminated by force,” writes Finkelstein. His mother’s side of the family was afflicted first by the former, forced into exile from Germany in the rise to power of a Nazi Party that paterfamilias Alfred Wiener foresaw after returning home from World War I. His father’s side of the family, meanwhile, was similarly exiled from their home on “one of Lwów’s most prestigious and expensive streets, forced on Stalin’s orders onto the steppes as agricultural laborers. Wiener organized and edited the largest Jewish newspaper in Germany before Hitler rose to power. When the Third Reich emerged, he traveled to England and the U.S. to continue his campaign, trying desperately to secure exit visas for his family. As Finkelstein writes, grimly, of Wiener’s children’s playmates in Amsterdam, most died in concentration camps far to the east. That the Wiener family survived involved moments of good luck coupled with small acts of defiance. The same was true of Finkelstein’s forebears in the east, whose paterfamilias joined a Polish contingent of the Red Army. Stalin tolerated but mistrusted the surviving Poles and finally allowed them to travel to Iran and there join forces with the British. “The problem was that the British didn’t really want them, certainly not all of them,” writes the author, adding, “especially those who weren’t soldiers.” Nonetheless, all were eventually evacuated to England or the U.S. even though neither government wanted them until Henry Morgenthau convinced Franklin Roosevelt to establish the lifesaving War Refugee Board. Finkelstein’s text, richly detailed and full of explorations of little-known corners of history, closes with an unlikely denouement given the slaughter he grimly recounts: “In the battle with Hitler and Stalin, the victory belongs to Mum and Dad.” An excellent contribution to the literature of the Shoah and a moving homage to the will to endure.” Every year David Conklin sends me a very interesting book to kick off the year and he never disappoints. Thanks for this one, David. Here’s a good review from the WSJ - https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/two-roads-home-review-detour-in-hell-98aeb3be

TED Talks Daily - Why do you love your favorite songs? | Scarlet Keys – Like pretty much every person on the planet, I am a HUGE music fan and all kinds of music from Bach, to Led Zeppelin to  Miles Davis and or course, to Taylor Swift.  The question I can never answer is why? Why do we like what we like and how do musicians use the keys on the piano, strings on their guitars and their voices to create connections and memories that are unique to the musical experience. In this PODCAST songwriter Scarlet Keys (great name) addresses this point and explains why certain musical techniques resonate with music fans.  Here’s an excerpt from the PODCAST itself, “Songs are the soundtrack of our lives. But why exactly do they make us feel the way they do? Songwriter Scarlet Keys sits down at a piano to deconstruct the tools musicians use to make a melody unforgettable — from tone and repetition to lyrics and chords — and sheds light on music's ability to transform moments into memories”: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ted-talks-daily/id160904630?i=1000678611164

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation.

And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon