The song “Tumbalalaika” (translates to play the balalaika) which is a Russian Jewish folk song sung in Yiddish. The song presents a series of riddles and offers insight into life’s deeper truths and reveals that love is not merely about attraction, but about a shared understanding of life’s mysteries. My father would often listen to the Barry Sisters’ Jewish songs with his family and it reminded him of his home and of his heritage. My father, Gene Trogan was born in Chisinau, Moldova and moved to Athens, Greece when he was 3. He lived in a 1 bedroom apartment shared with 8 people and helped his family resell caviar at a street market to survive. He was in a strange land where people spoke a different, unfamiliar language and he was a part of one of the few Jewish families in Athens, attending the only yeshiva in the city. When my father moved to America with his family at the age of ten, the song became his quiet refuge in a foreign land. Even when he was a first generation college student at Duke University, surrounded by rich old money southern families as the only Moldovan Jew, the song brought solace and supported him in a place that felt so unfamiliar. He still listens to the song to this day to remember his grandparents who first introduced him to it.

-Joshua Trogan

– JT

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant