Impossible to Translate, But I'll Try

Compact Disc Review

True-life Israeli Stories

$15.00, plus $2.00 shipping and handling.

Email: noakrbaum@gmail.com

Reviewed By Linda Goodman

This remarkable CD features stories that are constructed in layers, each layer more delectable than the one preceding it. As you dig through the layers, treasures are discovered. The labor is well worth the effort.

Almost everyone will identify with the frightened girl in Sleep, the CD's first story. This child knows that little evils lie in wait beneath her bed, and she has devised detailed strategies to protect herself against their inevitable invasion. Only a grandmother can turn those little evils into dwarfs and soothe her golden girl to sleep. The last story on this CD, Sleep Epilogue, revisits night time rituals a generation later.

In Why Do I Have That Name, a young Noa demands that her mother tell her why she was given such an unusual name. Patiently, her mother shares its source, leaving both Noa and those listening to this story with new insights to ponder.

My Shidech (My Match) features the unlikely pairing of a creative, unique, intelligent young Israeli woman and a down-to-earth American botanist. Some believe that differences are the glue that keep a couple together, but others seek mutual interests in their partners. In this story, taking risks yields rewards not anticipated.

Top Secret is the story from this CD that I will carry in my heart. This story of an awkward elementary school girl and a relationship that changes in ways she is too young to understand hits close to home. As I listened to this story, the ghosts of own past began to haunt me.

Love Comes in Many Packages portrays mature love centered around a rather frightening excursion in the city. Fortunately, time allows anxiety to morph into humor. 

This CD is more than a way to pass time. It is deep and demands your full attention, as all classics do. The stories are set in Israel, but their truths are universal. They are mirrors of our own internal truths.