Professor David Peimer
A Grandchild of Lithuania: Leonard Cohen
Summary
An exploration of the music and poetry of Leonard Cohen and his family’s roots in Lithuania, demonstrating the depth and impact Cohen’s music has had on culture and how he drew inspiration from his Jewish background, integrating it throughout his songs in powerful ways.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
Yes, I mean, you’re absolutely right and that history is terrifying and absolutely riddled with extreme cruelty. I agree entirely. I think the connection is, obviously, others far more knowledgeable than me are looking at Jewish history and the history of the Baltic states. All I would say is that if we accept that Leonard Cohen is part of, is a kind of writer who is invested in his Jewish and historical tradition, what is emerging from that, that feeds into him consciously or unconsciously today that can perhaps resonate with us who come from grandfathers, great-grandfathers, grandmothers from Lithuania, Latvia, wherever? That perhaps there’s something that can resonate the minute we look at the story of our own tradition and the broader Jewish story.
Yes, and his lyrics, yes.