A Segal Centre for Performing Arts presentation
In collaboration with the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program
and the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre
A PROMISE OF SWEET TEA
BY PINCHAS ELIYAHU BLITT
B.Y.O.T. (Bring Your Own Tea) for a free virtual book launch of A Promise of Sweet Tea, a memoir by longtime DWYT member Pinchas Eliyahu Blitt, onJuly 19 at 7:00 p.m. EST live-streamed on Facebook and YouTube. Don’t miss a rich evening of music, interviews and dramatic readings by the author from this powerful and illuminating book.
| About A Promise of Sweet Tea A Jewish community in prewar Eastern Europe comes alive in this vividly told story of a childhood interrupted by the Holocaust. In the village of Kortelisy, Poland, young Pinchas Blitt is surrounded by colourful characters and the rich language and traditions of his ancestors. Pinchas is beset by fears of Cossacks and wolves and the local antisemitic children, who taunt him for being a Jew, but he finds belonging in the warmth and love of his family, and in Jewish texts and prayers. In 1939, Pinchas adapts to the new Soviet occupation, but when the Nazis arrive, his beloved village is subjected to humiliations and brutal attacks by the Germans, and he and his family must flee. A precarious existence on the run brings Pinchas face to face with his own mortality and faith, and with a sense of dislocation that will accompany him throughout his life. About the Author Pinchas Eliyahu Blitt was born in Kortelisy, Poland (now Ukraine) in 1931 or 1932. Pinchas and his family immigrated to Canada in 1948 and settled in Montreal, where he attended teacher’s college and law school. In addition to a long career as a lawyer, Pinchas was involved in the Yiddish theatre community in Montreal for many years. Pinchas has three children. He lives in Montreal with his life partner, Gisele. |
