JAFFA - YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Timna Brauer and Nadine Sayegh in conversation
JAFFA - YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Nicolas Sayegh, a Palestinian „Tom Sawyer“, roams the sun-drenched streets of orange-blossom-scented Jaffa in the 1940s with his friends. But his carefree childhood comes to an abrupt end when his family and many others are forced to flee their hometown in 1948. Nadine Sayegh is Nicola's daughter. In her book Oranges from Jaffa she has written down her father's memories of his childhood in Jaffa; she tells of the life and culture of a middle-class Palestinian family before their expulsion from Palestine and the founding of the state of Israel. Nadine lives in Vienna, she hardly knows the Jaffa of today.
Timna Brauer is the daughter of Neomi, a Yemenite Israeli, and the Austrian painter Professor Arik Brauer. Together with the Israeli jazz pianist Elias Meiri, she founded an ensemble in 1985 that still regularly performs internationally today. Timna Brauer lives part of the year in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
Timna Brauer and Nadine Sayegh, who have known and appreciated each other for many years, talk at the Kreisky Forum about Jaffa then and now, about Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Christian family memories and about what connects them and what separates them.
Nadine Sayegh, born in Beirut, grew up in Vienna, studied business administration at McGill University in Canada and worked for over twenty years as a manager for Coca-Cola across Europe in the areas of finance, risk management and human resources. She now lives in Vienna with her family.
Timna Brauer, born in Vienna, grew up in Vienna, Paris and Israel. She studied guitar, piano and singing at the Vienna Conservatory, then completed a degree in musicology at the Sorbonne in Paris and masterclasses in classical music, jazz and Indian singing. She taught jazz singing at university. Since 2010, she has managed the art collection of Prof. Arik Brauer in her parents' villa in Vienna-Währung. Her musical work focuses on cross-over projects, chansons, children's programmes and, above all, Jewish music in all its facets. She recently released her first songwriter CD, a love song cycle entitled Minnesang & Drang.
Book tip:
Nadine Sayegh: Oranges from Jaffa - A true story about the end of the golden era of Palestine
Publisher edition a, Vienna, 2022, ISBN: 978-3-99001-554-4
Music tip:
Timna Brauer: Minnesang and Drang. With the Vienna Tango Quintet. Preiser Records