Claude Berger is certainly an interesting man.. Born and raised in Marais, the jewish district, this writer, philospher, marxist, and a dentist to boost and a lover of jewish culture and yiddish and its music.. now runs a yiddische restaurant in the heart of Marais... while writing books, singing and hosting klezmer and gypsy musicians.
Train of Life (in French Train de Vie) is a 1998 French language tragicomedy film. It tells the story of an eastern EuropeanJewish village's plan to escape the Holocaust. Some of their members pretend to be Nazis in order to ostensibly transport them to a concentration camp, when in actuality, they are going to Israel (Palestine).
The movie starts off with a man, named Schlomo, running crazily through a forest, with his voice playing in the background, saying that he has seen the horror of the Nazis in a nearby town, and he must tell the others. Once he gets into town, he informs the rabbi, and together they run through the town and once they have got enough people together, they hold a town meeting. At first, many of the men do not believe the horrors they are being told, and many criticize Schlomo, for he is the town lunatic, and who could possibly believe him? But the rabbi believes him, and then they try to tackle the problem of the coming terrors. Amidst the pondering and the arguing, Schlomo suggests that they build a train, so they can escape, and so, the Train of Life is born.
In this well appointed restaurant in one of the alleys of the jewish part of Paris, one can hear Klezmer music and also gypsy music sometimes visitors joining in. while eating the typical eastern european jewish meal... matzoball soup, gefillte fish, cholent, latkes, kashe etc etc...
the first day of seder his place was full from the jewish people from the neighbourhood attending the seder, wtih a few visitors. the second night was far more relaxed, the strain of conducted the first night still showed on his face... so this night we hear: French, English, Yiddisch... songs and chants from the shtetl..
a nice experience indeed..
Ce restaurant est actuellement le seul à proposer de la cuisine yiddish.
La déco rappelle les anciens restaurants art-deco d'europe centrale. En cave on assiste à des diner-spectacles. Musique yiddish tzigane et klezmer.
I thought of all the mischpochah scattered all around the world.. and it was nice to celebrate the second night of Pesach at Tren de la Vie in Paris..
