Immigrant Stories Take the Stage in The Braid’s Latest Show

“The immigrant story is truly everyone’s story,” Susan Morgenstern, director of The Braid’s latest production, “Yearning to Breathe Free,” told the Journal.   

This Salon show, premiering March 17 at the Skirball, weaves together true stories from Jewish immigrants across the globe — Ukraine, China, Iran, Chile, Egypt, Turkey and Israel — and takes the audience into the experience of leaving one’s home for a new land.

“Many of us have a profound patriotism and love of this country that’s been hard to express in this complicated world,” Morgenstern said. “Since almost all of us have an immigrant story somewhere in our background, telling these stories shines a light on our various ancestors’ quest for ‘home,’ with all of its hope, optimism, hardship and struggle.”

“We think about those who came as refugees after the Shoah, but rarely do we consider those Jews whose story has a different narrative.“–Ronda Spinak

“When most of us think of immigration, especially if we are Ashkenazi, we think Ellis Island,” Ronda Spinak, The Braid’s artistic director and literary curator of the production, told the Journal. “We think about those who came as refugees after the Shoah, but rarely do we consider those Jews whose story has a different narrative. 

“And more than this, children of these immigrants are making up a new Jewish generation,” she said. “They want to pass on their identity in an often interfaith or mixed culture household, but how do they do that? What are the challenges they face? These are the new Jews.”  

For 16 years, The Braid’s Salon Theatre has shared powerful and heartfelt true stories, brought to life by professional actors. “Yearning to Breathe Free” continues this tradition. 

In his story, André Aciman, who wrote “Call Me by Your Name” and “Out of Egypt,” reveals the ironic pain of celebrating a seder while he and his family are being forced out of their home in Egypt. Aciman and his Sephardic Jewish family immigrated to Italy before coming to America. 

“I want people to remember or learn about Sephardic Jews living in a highly precarious Egypt from which they were ultimately either expelled post-1956 or, if they had any foresight, from which they decided to flee,” Aciman told the Journal. “One may not lament the past, but the past is inscribed in some submerged portion of our identity and it always bobs up at the most unlikely moments. 

“In my case, it might be the wonderful sense of sunlight on one’s skin, or the smell of particular foods in one’s grandmother’s kitchen, or the accent of people speaking French with a Levantine accent,” he said.

“Yearning to Breathe Free,” filled with funny and poignant stories and songs, also shares stories from memoirists Esther Amini (“Concealed”) and Haideh Herbert-Aynehchi (“Neither the Head nor the Tail of the Onion”); songwriter Mike Himelstein; novelist Bárbara Mujica; playwright and performer Danielle Levsky; screenwriter and director Odin Ozdil; and Farnoush Amiri, journalist for the Associated Press and other outlets. Vanessa Bloom, Los Angeles community leader for The LUNAR Collective; Natalya Bogopolskaya, an LAUSD school psychologist; Emiliana Guereca, founder of the Los Angeles Women’s March; and Aharon Zagayer, who was born in Baghdad, Iraq, fled to Israel with his family and immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s, also contributed stories. 

In one tale, two Chilean parents struggle to learn strange new Jewish customs when their daughter marries an Orthodox American man. In another, an adoptee from China discovers surprising inspiration in a nearby bridge that connects her own story with that of her Jewish grandparents from the Balkans. Guereca’s story tells of her experience coming to the United States as an undocumented child from Mexico. “It delves into the challenges I faced navigating the citizenship process, even with amnesty in place,” she told the Journal. “It’s a journey that sheds light on a child’s difficulties while striving to find her way through bureaucratic hurdles and legal complexities, as well as the importance of support systems and family and community solidarity in times of adversity.” Guereca hopes the show will inspire audiences to embrace their own narratives and find strength in their cultural heritage. Natalya Bogopolskaya, a Russian-speaking Soviet Jew from Ukraine who came to America at age seven, hopes “Yearning to Breathe Free” will highlight how the Jewish experience is not just one story. “We may have some things in common but we also bring a unique background to the whole community,” Bogopolskaya told the Journal. “And I think that part of the story is evolving – it’s happening currently and will continue to happen with every future generation who continues to identify as Jewish.” 

The cast is as ethnically diverse as the writers, and includes Kimberly Green, Heidi Mendez, Roxana Rastegar and Marcelo Tubert. 

“Ronda and I considered a number of actors who identify strongly with their own personal immigrant origin stories,” Morgenstern said. “And the variety of writers’ voices in the material Ronda curated so beautifully would require actors who are particularly skilled at language, able to paint visceral pictures using the writers’ words. The four of them weave a beautiful tapestry together of stories from around the world.”

While The Braid shows are entertaining, they also illuminate the challenges and struggles of what it means to be Jewish in America today.

“Being an immigrant or a child of an immigrant in 2024 brings its own set of hurdles,” Spinak said. “Understanding this, makes for a more empathic and unified people.”

“In the present moment, the word “immigration” stirs up so many feelings and controversies,” Morgenstern said. “As we all sit in an audience together, hearing these stories, let’s remember what we all share, how much we have in common, how much we all want family and love and light in our lives. Let’s breathe freely. Together.”

“Yearning to Breathe Free” will be performed in person in Los Angeles and live on Zoom from March 17 to April 7. It will also be performed in the Bay Area on April 13 and 14. For details and tickets, go to the-braid.org/breathefree.