To Life!

No wonder Ruth Weintraub is bitter. She’s being moved from her comfortable home to a modern soulless place in Berlin. But the sight of a young moving man named Jonas takes her breath away – mid-suicide. Jonas rushes her to the hospital, then goes back to her place. He gets her old film projector running – and finds himself onscreen. At least it’s a man who looks like him, interviewing young Ruth on film. Ruth was once a vivacious Yiddish cabaret singer, and Jonas persuades her to tell her story. How she was born in Lodz. How she was put in a truck and moved east. How her mother shoved her out of the truck so she would live. As Ruth’s past unfolds, we learn Jonas, too, has secrets. In forging an unlikely bond, they now find reasons to go on living. TO LIFE! features snazzy new arrangements of Yiddish standards, sung by fabulous Sharon Brauner. (In German with subtitles) – B.B.