Home for Jewish Elderly in Croatia Hosts Choir Festival

From outside the meeting room in the Lavoslav Schwarz old age home in Zagreb, dozens of elderly could be heard practicing their vocal scales. At the front of the room, a piano was being set in place for the accompanists. Guests, primarily participants' families as well as directors and social workers from nearby retirement facilities, were greeted warmly by the home staff and soon invited to take their seats. The festival of choirs from elderly homes was about to begin…

Participants from singing groups of 11 old age homes and pensioners' associations around Zagreb, Croatia, gathered to demonstrate their musical prowess. "It is special to be able to bring people together around the subjects of music and artistic expression," said one of the participants.

During socialist times in the former Yugoslavia, the Lavoslav Schwarz old age home was the only private facility of its kind – all others were run by the state. Today those homes, still under town authority, organize activities for residents and other neighborhood elderly, including work therapy, art therapy, and drama groups. And the long tradition of festivals and competition among the residents of the state homes, which dates back to another era, is still alive and well.

In this spirit, Paula, the director of the Lavoslav Schwarz home, decided it could be beneficial for her institution to participate as well. "We felt that it was necessary for our residents to show the results of their work to the others," she explains. Of the many private homes that have sprung up in the past decade, Lavoslav Schwarz is the largest and only one with a residential part of the home and programming specific to those residents. "We began to join in the events organized by other facilities and soon discovered that very few people knew anything about Jews and our culture," she says. "That motivated us to organize an event that would bring residents of other homes to ours."

Since the Schwarz home was proud of its choir – initiated some years ago by JDC and led by Sara, a former piano teacher and the mother of the Home's director – it was decided to initiate and host a festival of choirs. "We didn't like the idea of organizing a competition," says Paula. "What was important was to bring the people into the home, to be together and to enjoy the music. It was not important who was the best…although we still believe we were," she says, then winking.

The second annual festival, which lasted two days, enabled more than 200 people to come to the Home, experience its hospitality, and be introduced to Jewish culture. The Schwarz choir, "Shalom", prepared a vocal program that included two Croatian folk songs as well as Jewish songs in Yiddish, Ladino and Hebrew: "Mansanica Corilada," "Jume, Jume," "Hava Nece Bahamol," "Heivenu Shalom," and "Jerusalem of Gold".

Given the event's great success, the Schwarz Home plans to host another similar festival next year.