A train leaves a station platform. A man who was once a child sits and watches the changing landscape, and the sights flash before his eyes. The views that look out the window remind him of images from a distant past. The man who was once a child returns home, to his neighborhood, and he is a different man, an adult. He tries to sort through the memories, to decipher them, but everything has changed here: the birds' voices are almost not heard as they were then, the greenery of his childhood is disappearing, the dirt paths have become asphalt roads, and the trees along the avenue, which once seemed to touch the sky, now seem smaller, wrapped in brown dust. This was once his home. This is where he first opened his eyes. My shadow and I bring pictures from the childhood and adolescence of Yehuda Poliker, one of the most talented and beloved musicians and singers in Israel: pictures of childhood in a suburban city, in an immigrant neighborhood from the early days of the state, and especially – in a house where the horrors of war continue to live on and darken its peace. The past of the parents – both from Thessaloniki, a city where the vast majority of its Jews were sent to the death camps – seems to cast a heavy shadow over the child who is just trying to grow up and be like everyone else. So no, he won't be like everyone else, but whatever he is – will be an essential part of our culture. My Shadow and I is a moving document in its honesty and directness, in its ability to observe, in its childish and adult gaze. A book that is hard to put down.
