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Yiddisher sheep breeder who shepherds refugees

October 1, 2015 10:57
The shepherd with his flock in the hills above Vienna

By

Toby Axelrod,

Toby Axelrod

2 min read

As Europe is gripped by the refugee crisis, one Austrian farmer with Jewish roots is playing his part to alleviate the suffering.

Hans Breuer - who runs a sheep farm near Vienna - has been picking up refugees from a Hungarian camp and driving them to a location close to the Austrian border, to help them on their way into the heart of Europe.

On one occasion, Mr Breuer, 61 - who is also a performer of Yiddish songs - regaled his Palestinian-Syrian passengers with the tune Oyfn Veg, Shteyt a Boym ("There is a tree along the road…", a poem by 20th-century Yiddish poet Itzik Manger).

By the end of the trip, which a friend documented and put on YouTube, they were all singing the Yiddish refrain together.