Joseph's mother · The songbook
Rebecca Shapiro
The songs are the soul of his people. He must carry them.
Rebecca Shapiro is Joseph Shapiro's mother and the keeper of a handwritten songbook: Jewish songs she sings in Russian, carried from Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, and other older sources.
When she dies, Joseph buries her and finds the songbook she left behind. She comes to him in a dream and tells him the songs are the soul of his people, and that he must carry them.
Her singing is Joseph's deepest memory and the emotional center of his creative life. The songbook becomes the engine of the story: her voice, the older sources, and the family memory become the material his students adapt and rebuild in English and contemporary arrangements.
The film holds two mothers. Rebecca feeds it with songs, and Kate Miller feeds it with food.
