In Memorian

The competition in 2024 is dedicated in memory of Alexander Tamir. He was the guest of honor at the first competition in 2018 and his master student, Bracha Bdil, won first prize.

Alexander Wolkovsky (later Tamir) was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1942, as an eleven-year-old boy, he composed a Yiddish song called “Shtiler, Shtiler” (“Rest, Rest”, also known as “Ponar” in Hebrew) for a music competition in the Jewish ghetto, which was run by Wolf Durmashkin. The song was set to music as a lullaby to confuse the Nazi occupiers. Many of the intended singers were killed before they could take part in the competition. The story of this episode and Tamir’s return to his birthplace is told in the Israeli film Ponar.

He changed his name to Tamir after settling in Jerusalem after the Second World War.