Zeddy Lawrence
Writer & Performer
Shortly after leaving Oxford University with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics & Economics, Zeddy’s dreams of becoming a philosopher were dashed when the local philosophy plant was forced to close due to an influx of cheap foreign philosopers.
With his future looking bleak, Zeddy turned to TV scriptwriting and found himself working among some of the best known names in the business on several soaps and sitcoms. Credits included EastEnders, The House of Windsor, Dream Team, Byker Grove and London Bridge.
He also studied for a Postgraduate Diploma in Radio Journalism and went on to become a reporter, producer, presenter and news editor at a number of stations, including Fox FM, Mercury FM and News Direct.
Entering the noughties, Zeddy was hired to bring his creative flair to Europe’s first Jewish community website, Totallyjewish.com, where he launched the online soap Baruchside and was shortlisted for Online Journalist of the Year by the UK Press Gazette. He also co-wrote and co-starred in the Jewish comedy sketch show Tower of Bagel, which was staged at the New End Theatre in Hampstead and the Soho Theatre in London’s West End.
After Totallyjewish.com took over the newspaper The Jewish News, Zeddy served as Editor for four years. In 2009, he moved to Melbourne to take the helm of The Australian Jewish News, winning a number of awards for both the paper and website.
In 2022, Zeddy stopped reporting on the Jewish community and started working within the Jewish community. He’s currently serving as Head of Content for the ECAJ.
Based on the life of his maternal great-grandfather, he began writing Morgen Wieder Lustik in 2025.
Zeddy is married to Adina. They live in Melbourne with their daughter Libby and two mini-groodles Bella and Tigerlily.
Tomi Kalinski
Musical Accompanist
A graduate of Bialystoker Centre Kindergarten in St Kilda, Tomi Yurele Kalinski spoke only Yiddish until she started school. She is forever grateful to her“kindergortn” teachers for noticing her musical talent and to her parents for listening to them, starting her on piano at age five.
After finishing high school, Tomi moved to Israel, where she studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, then lived and taught on Kibbutz Yizra’el in the Jezreel Valley. These were formative and unforgettable years.
After living and working in San Francisco for a couple of years, Tomi returned to Australia, became a founding member of The Hot Bagels cabaret group, was “talent-spotted” by Barry Humphries and became his musical director for six years, travelling around Australia and New Zealand in style. (The anecdotes she unwisely related to Mr. Humphries were returned to her in script form, so that Tomi acted out her own life, in caricatured form, on a nightly basis, as part of the Sandy Stone segment of Barry’s show).
Tomi first joined the Melbourne Yiddish theatre scene in 1988 and has been part of it ever since, performing in countless productions, as both musician and actor. Yiddish songs are part of the very fibre of her being; they are her “neshome-musik”, her “soul music”.
She has worked with Evelyn Krape (Australian Living Treasure and founding member of the Pram Factory theatre collective) for over 40 years, on countless projects, from Ginger at the Malthouse Playbox in 1992, to Ek Velt, (with Elisa Gray as a third member making up the Zaftik theatrical troupe) at the Montreal International festival of Yiddish Theater in 2011 and at Kulturfest NYC in 2015.
Tomi has been conductor of Melbourne’s beloved Yiddish choir Mir Kumen On since June 2008. MKO has performed at countless community events and has always provided a multi-generational opportunity to learn Yiddish the easiest and most delightful way: through song!
Tomi has, for many years, run a “Mame Loshn” Yiddish adult class at the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre. She has also worked (for generations!) as a piano accompanist at Melbourne’s unique, trilingual (Yiddish-Hebrew-English) primary school, Sholem Aleichem College.
From 2018-22, Tomi was a member of Melbourne’s klezmer-jazz-funk- fusion 24 piece big band YID!, creating and performing Yiddish spoken-word for their interstate and international performances, including WOMADelaide (twice), the Port Fairy Folk Festival and the Ashkenaz Festival in Toronto, Canada.
During COVID, as well as running classes and workshops onZoom, Tomi wrote a play, La Dorada, which is in development at the Kadimah Yiddish Theatre.
In January 2024, Tomi was astonished and humbled to be awarded an OAM for her services to the Jewish community, especially to the Yiddish culture of Melbourne.
In August 2025, the Kadimah mounted Ale Mayne Nekhtns Zaynen Shtign – All My Yesterdays Are Steps, a tribute-performance of Tomi’s songs written to Yiddish poems over many years, directed, stage-managed, sung and played by Tomi’s amazingly talented musical friends and colleagues.
Since 2023, Tomi has been collaborating with Freydi Mrocki on The Melbourne Yiddish Seyder Project, aiming to bring the songs of Boruch Kaluszyner, a largely forgotten Melbourne Holocaust-survivor composer, to the world.
In her “spare time”, Tomi occasionally tries to practice her soul-nurturing favourite composers, Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Debussy, aims to swim daily, to continue writing music to Yiddish poetry and to decide how best to grow old disgracefully.