Cantors Assembly Journal of Synagogue Music

Journal of
Synagogue Music

Vol. XXV . No. 2

From the Editor

Articles

Report from Hamburg
Alive and well in Munich

The Rejection of Chazzanic and Synagogal
Influences in the Search for an Original
Style of Israeli Song Composition -

Daniel S. Katz 3
Elizabeth and Steven Berke 8
Rebecca Carmi 18

We Hung Up Our Harps: Rabbini
Restrictions on Jewish Music

Prof. Joshua R. Jacobson 33

Eric Werner, The Jew

Philip E Miller 54

Hazzan Samuel Rosenbaum

Hazzan Gregory Yaroslow 60

A Personal Reflection

Reviews

Music Review

Kol Nidrei - Synagogue Music

For The Beginning To Intermediate

Cantor Stephen Freedman 67

Israel Adler, The Study of Jewish
Music, A bibliographical guide

Music Section

Mi Khamokha Yehe Shemeh

Jeffrey Nussbaum 69

H. Dardashti 71

JOURNAL OF SYNAGOGUE MUSIC

Vol. XXV . No. 2

EDITOR: Eric M. Snyder

REVIEW E Dl TOR: Robert Scherr

EDITORIAL BOARD: /ra Bigeleisen, Kenneth Cohen, Stephen
Freedntun, Edwin Gerber, Paul Kowarsky, Brian Mayer, Eugene
Rosner, Robert Scherr, David Silver-stein.

OFFICERS OF THE CANTORS ASSEMBLY: Henry Rosenblum,
President; Sheldon Levin. Chaim Nujman, Robert Scherr, Vice Presi-
dents; Jacob L t Gale, 1
Samual Rosenluium :"1. Executive Vice President: Abraham B.
Shapiro, Executive Administrator.

JOURNAL OF SYNAGOGUE MUSIC is a semi-annual publication.
The subscription fee is $15 per year. All subscription correspondence
should be addressed to Journal Synagogue Music, Cantors Assem-
bly, 3080 Broadway, Suite 613, New York, N. Y. 10027.

Articles and Letters to the Editor should be addressed to Hazzan Eric
M. Snyder, Editor, Journal of Synagogue Music. 307 Cameron Manor,
Broomall, PA 19008-3621. Telephone: (610) 325-0865. Fax: (610)
325-3530. E-mail to: 103211.3415@compuserve.com. Articles should

be typewritten and double-spaced. Music and musical examples should
be photo-ready. Material can also be sent on computer disks as
follows: IBM-compatible 5 1/4" or J 1/2'' using Microsoft Word for
Windows 6.0 software or Macintosh 3 1/2" using PageMaker 4.2
software. Forfurther questions, contact the editor.

Copyright © 1998; Cantors Assembly

FROM THE EDITOR

The celebration this year of the fiftieth anniversary of the State of
Israel results not only in the joy of today, but in reflection on the history
leading to today's jubilation. In keeping with this spirit of reflection, the
Journal presents two articles from two completely different and fascinat-
ing perspectives dealing with Germany as it exists today.

Hazzan Rabbi Dr. Daniel Katz has this past year been engaged by the
Jewish community of Hamburg to help establish a new Jewish community
in the city of Kiel. He presents a short introduction to two articles written
in the Hamburg press detailing his efforts.

In November, 1996, Hazzanim Elizabeth and Steven Berke were
called upon to lead Shabbat services and give concerts in Munich,
Germany. They present here various excerpts from the journals they kept
of their experiences.

In keeping with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the State
of Israel, Hazzan Rebecca Carmi examines the development of Israeli
Song Composition. Her article, taken from her Masters Thesis, addresses
the Israeli bypassing of synagogue and cantorial influences, which makes

Continuing on the theme of the history of Jewish music, Professor
Joshua Jacobson, in an article drawn from a D'var Torah which he
presented in early 1997, examines a topic addressed at some point by all
Hazzanim as we guide the constant evolution of Jewish music.

This coming summer will mark the tenth anniversary of the passing of
the eminent musicologist Eric Werner. In an article entitled "Eric Werner,
the Jew", Philip Miller presents a personal (and humorous) peak into the
life of Eric Werner, the man.

During the Cantors Assembly convention in May, 1997, Hazzan
Gregory Yaroslow delivered the hesped for our beloved colleague and
friend, Hazzan Samuel Rosenbaum, z"l, during the Memorial Service for
departed colleagues. Due to time constraints, Hazzan Yaroslow was not
able to say everything he would have liked. Herewith he presents the full
text of the remarks he had wished to make at that time.

In our Music Review, Hazzan Stephen Freedman examines a work by

Freedman's opinions are insightful, honest, and backed up with rationale

In the Book Review section, a recent and enthusiastic contributor,
Jeffrey Nussbaum, reviews the 1995 work by Israel Adler, "The Study of
Jewish Music - A Bibliographical Guide."

In the Music Section, we present three pieces: Mi Khamokha, Yehe

Shemeh (Rabbah), and Shiruh Hhackisliuli, composed by Hazzan Howard
(Hamid) Dardashti of Temple Beth Sholom, Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
These are particularly useful settings for Hazzanim since each is written
in the Ahavah Rabbah mode, each is very singable for the congregation,
and yet contains a bit of more elaborate Hazzanut, to give the congregation
a taste of the beauty of that style.
Enjoy!

-Hazzan Eric M. Snyder

REPORT FROM HAMBURG...

by Daniel S. KATZ

In the summer 1996 I participated in the Fulbright program
"Germany and Jewish Studies Today. " Although the focus of the program
was to explore the study of Judaism as an academic field of study in
German institutions of higher learning, I also had the opportunity to visit
some Jewish communities.

In 1997 1 was invited by the Jewish community of Hamburg to
help establish a new community in the city of Kiel. I arrived here on Sept.
15, two weeks before Rosh Hashannah.

Kiel is the capitalofthe state of ' Schleswig-Holstein. located
about fify -five miles north of Hamburg on the western shore of the Baltic
Sea, it was known as a centerfor submarine building. Consequently, very
little remains ofpre- War Kiel. Due to rampantanti-Semitism, no survivors
returned to the area and Jewish life is only now beginning again with the
influx of refugees from the former Soviet Union. I have been told that my
services erev Rosh Hashannah were the first tcfilot in Kiel since the Shoah.

The following two newspaper articles discuss my work in Kiel. I
have translated them for the Journal with the permission Of their authors.
I have added occasional comments in square brackets. Although the
quotations in the first article are not infelicitous, they represent the
author's creativity rather than mine, particularly in the last paragraph.

From the Allgemeine Judischc Wochenzeitung, Nov. 1997

Hamburg Helps The J ewish Community of Kiel To Get Started

by Gabriela Fenyes

(board member andfonnerpresident of the lewish Community of Hamburg)

On the High Holy Days, the Jews in Kiel held services for the first
time since the Shoah. This was a moving occasion, particularly for the
Jews of the state of Schleswig-Holstein. One-hundred-fifty men and
women, all immigrants from the former Soviet Union, came together to
participate in the services. Most of them had never been to services before
in (heir lives and were visibly moved.

Daniel Katz, a recently ordained rabbi from Tifereth Yisrael

DANIELS KATZ received

the Jewish Theological Seminary of America ar
Rabbinical Yeshiva

Rabbinical Yeshiva, led the services. The musicologist, who also received
cantorial training at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New
York, came here just a short while ago at the invitation of the Jewish
community of Hamburg in order to help build up the Jewish community
in Kiel.

complete, the services had to take place in space provided by two local
churches. Pastors and church officials, as well as members of the Board
and the Executive Committee of the Jewish community of Hamburg, were
present to celebrate the New Year festival. The president of the City of
Kiel, Frau Silke Reyer, came on Yom Kippur morning [the city president
is not the same as the mayor].

Cantor Katz had made extensive preparations for the services. He
had prepared 100 copies of the traditional prayers in Hebrew and Russian,
and had parts of them made up in a Cyrillic transliteration [I had prepared
100 copies of the Amida in a Russian translation and ten copies in German.
Additionally, I had asked someone to prepare Cyrillic transliterations of
Shehechianu; Barchu; Shma and Baruch Shem; the Torah blessings; L'kha
Adonai; Shma and Echad Elohenu; Adonai melekh, Adonai malakh,
Adonai yimlokh l'olam va'ed; Psalm 150; Avinu malkeinu; Vene'emar
v'haya Adonai l'melekh; and Adon Olam. Actually, I transliterated the
texts into German and a Christian woman who doesn't know Hebrew at all
then transliterated them into Russian. The main problem with transliterat-
ing Hebrew into Russian is that the Cyrillic alphabet has no letter H.
Russians typically substitute G for H, as in Kogen for Kohen and Gamburg
for Hamburg. They read the Gaftarah. 1 now prefer to borrow the Greek
equivalent of H, a reverse apostrophe known as the hard breathing sign.
However, in September I was not yet prepared to make such decisions ( I
can now transliterate from Hebrew into Cyrillic by myself). In Psalm 150,
where the word Halleluja appears about a dozen times, the transliterator
unfortunately chose to render H with the Russian equivalent of diet!]. A
Torah scroll and talitot were brought from Hamburg, as was a cabinet,
which when covered with a white silk curtain served as a Aron haqodesh
[The cabinet required several trips to a local Tischler, or cabinetmaker.
The Tischler brought it to Kiel. We had to hire a Last-Taxi, or cargo-cab,
to take it to the church where we met on Sukkot, and as far as I know it's
still there. We brought the Torah back to Hamburg].

Katz followed an unusual procedure. He commented; "It was
exhilarating to have the prayers recited in Russian, a language that I don't
know, but I wanted the people to understand what I was saying in Hebrew."

To this end. as well as to enhance their involvement. Katz called up men
to read the text aloud in Russian [I can now read well enough to chant all
of Birchot hashachar and occasionally a longer paragraph.]. He distributed
sheets with the word "Amen" [in Cyrillic] and he always held up a pink
sheet when the congregation was supposed to answer "Amen" [I had hoped
to involve the children by giving them the Amen sheets to hold up. I in turn
held up a pink paper as a sign for them. I found that this was not effective:
the children simply weren't interested, so in subsequent services I held up
one Amen sheet myself and didn't distribute the rest. By now, the regulars
know to answer "Amen" when I say "Blagaslyavyen Ti Gospadee (Baruch
Atah Hashem)]. In this way, he revived a tradition from over two thousand
years ago. Signs were used in the synagogue in Alexandria to help the
worshippers follow the services, for the sanctuary was so immense that
they could not hear the prayer leader.

When Cantor Katz sang "Adon olam," the congregation fol-
lowed from the sheet that had the Hebrew text in Cyrillic letters. When the
services were over, there were many questions for the Cantor. One man
stood up to declare emotionally that he had never before attended tradi-
tional synagogue services: "Now I know what it's like. Thank you."

Services were also a learning experience for many of the immi-
grants on Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Cantor Katz showed them how to put
on a tallit. He laid out lulavim and etrogim on a table and explained their
meaning. Before the Qiddush on Sukkot he asked the eighty-something
people in attendance to eash their hands, go quietly to their places, and wait
before eating until he had made the brakhot over the wine and the bread.
They all complied without exception. "I am very touched and moved," said
Cantor Katz. "This is like pioneer work here. It is a challenge."

About a thousand Jews live in the state of Schleswig-Holstein,
and over three hundred in the vicinity of Kiel. The Jewish community in
Schleswig-Holstein is administered by the Jewish community of Ham-
burg. At the end of the year, when the community center in Kiel is ready
(the building is a former public bath-house), Cantor Katz will finally be
able to get started with his work [it still is not ready. Many target dates have
gone by.]. An agreement should be worked out with the state in the near
future for financial assistance to provide a secure foundation for the Jewish
community [the agreement was signed on Jan. 29]. Perhaps one day there
will even be a synagogue in Kiel, [although services will be held in the
community center in Kiel, it is not officially being designated as a
synagogue]. For the time being, the only synagogue in Schleswig-Holstein
is in the city of Lubeck, where services and other events are held regularly.
(This is a beautiful, quaint pre-war synagogue.) One or two members of the

present community in Lubeck were members before the Shoah, and one
remembers his bar-mitzvah celebration there.]

At any rate, Cantor Katz is optimistic. "We're going to make it.
The High Holy Days were just the beginning. The winds of Kiel Bay don't
bother me; the Hudson River can also be stromy, "he said, putting on his
baseball cap. "I'd like to give the congregation a feeling for Judaism-that's
the main thing."

From the KielerNachricht, Jan. 27, 1998 [Jan. 27, the anniversary of

the liberation of Auschwitz, is the German national memorial day for

the victims of the Nazis.]

Refugees from the Former Soviet Union Found a New Jewish

Community in Kiel

In Search of Identity

by Karen Ossowski (journalist)

After the Second World War, there was no Jewish community left in Kiel.
The few survivors fled abroad. Now Jewish life is stirring again in Kiel.
Unlike before the Shoah, the new community members in Kiel know little
about their religion. Almost all of them are refugees from the republics of
the former Soviet Union. "Since religion was illegal there, the refugees
know nothing about it--they are familiar with neither Shabbat nor Yom
Kippur, " said Dr. Daniel Katz, cantor of the Kiel community. His religious
services, therefore, are somewhat like coaching sessions and take place not
in Hebrew or German, but in Russian. There is no shortage of members in
the community. Katz said, "we have 200 members and more and more
refugees are always coming."

"The paradox is that we have a refuge in Germany only because
of our Jewish heritage," said Viktoria Ladyshenskaja, social worker for the
Jewish community in Kiel [and my indispensible translator!]. The Jews
have various reasons for immigrating to Germany. "I left Kiev in 1991
principally because of the antisemitism, "said Ladyshenskaja. "There was
a general hatred there among the people. You would be abused on the
streets as a Jew and discriminated against in various other ways. The worst
was Paragraph Five of your Personal Identification Card. There under
'nationality' was written not 'Ukrainian,' 'Russian,' or 'Moldavian,' but as
a Jew, she had no chance of being admitted to a course of study in these
fields at a Ukrainian university.

Another woman said that she had lived in the vicinity of Chernobyl
and had come to Kiel for reasons of health. Families from Tadchikistan,
Uzbekistan, and Moldavia came because of increasing Islai

corruption, or war. "Here in Kiel everything is different," Ladyshenskaja
translated for the community members. "Here we feel freer. We can
experience something of Judaism and find a piece of our Jewish identity."
None of them is a firm believer. "Neither do we eat kosher food, nor do we
pray every day," confessed Ladyshenskaja. Cantor Katz was understand-
ing: "You can't come from nothing and suddenly follow all of the mitzvot."

Although Jews from the former Soviet Union form the majority
in other Jewish communities in Germany, the situation in Kiel is special.
After the end of the Third Reich, some Jews came to live in other cities. Not
in Kiel. "That makes it harder," Katz said. " Nothing has been established
here already. There are no German Jews There is no synagogue. " The
former public bath-house in Gaarden [a district primarily of Turkish
immigrants on the eastern side of the city, on the other side of the train
tracks and the harbor from downtown] is currently being renovated. It is
supposed to function as of April as a community center with offices and
a chapel [Only the ground floor is being renovated, and when it is ready we
will have two rooms that will have to serve all purposes].

Now the people meet in a rented room on Saturdays for prayer
and on Thursdays for discussions, chess, and coffee. Cantor Katz teaches

he completed his rabbinical training in New York and has been working
in Kiel since September. Previously, the cantor from Lubeck used to come
to Kiel once a week.

Both of the communities in Schleswig-Holstein [i.e., Lubeck and
Kiel] are administratively dependent on the community in Hamburg.
Accordingly, both cantors formally work for that community. Viktoria
Ladyshenskaja has worked for a year as a social worker primarily for the
community in Kiel. "I deal with the refugees' social concerns. I call offices
for them, help with their correspondence, and translate when they are in the
hospital or are having problems in school."

More than anything else, linguistic problems haunt the everyday
life of the immigrants. However, their greatest problem is unemployment.
"Many of us simply didn't know that so many people are unemployed in
Germany," Mrs. Ladyshenskaja said. "We have highly qualified people.
Eighty percent are academics, but they have no chance of finding work in
their fields." Asked if they regret having immigrated, the community
members answer in unisom: "Nyet!" They seem content. They receive
financial assistance, apartments, a good education for their children, and
even an old-age pension. They experience no hostility, "at least not as
Jews-maybe as foreigners."

ALIVE AND WELL IN MUNICH

BY Daniel S. KATZ

In November of 1996 my husband and I took part in an experience
of a lifetime. In August he received a call from Rabbi Morton Leifman
regarding a community that was establishing the first non-orthodox
synagogue in Munich, Germany since World War 11. They were looking for
a cantor to lead services on the Shabbat when they were installing their
rabbi, and who would give a concert in the evening. For reasons clarified
later in this article, Steven was recommended for this opportunity. Needless
to say, there were a variety of logistics to be worked out, including board
approval and the changing of a Bat Mitzvah date. Fortunately for us these
were not such high hurdles, as everyone seemed to understand the
significance ofthis event. In the following pages we have included
excerpts from ourjournals ofthis experience. In Steven's writing he focuses
on the musical aspects of the trip, especially from the eyes of a Hazzan. He
paints an interesting picture of trying to communicate the intricacies of
Jewish music to a choir that was not Jewish, and perhaps had never met a
Jew. My writing is from a more personal viewpoint. I participated in the
services and concert, but 1 was not the planner of either of these events, as
Steven was, so my perspective is one step removed. Some of what I address
deals with the basic question ofJews choosing to live in Germany altogether.
How do we feel about this issue?

We knew we wanted to involve the congregation in this occasion,
especially since they were so supportive of our opportunity. Steven wrote
a bulletin article advertising that the congregation would be joining us in the
adventure. It was with this in mind that we took special care to document
our trip for a presentation after we returned. We each kept a journal, and
brought along our video and still cameras. When we returned we edited
down the video tape into 5-10 minute vignettes to illustrate our experience.
We had an evening program where we spoke, showed and explained the
video, and had appropriate refreshments of strudel and coffee. We also
played the CD made of the live concert produced by BMG records, entitled
Jewish Masterworks of the Synagogue Liturgy, A Concert in Honor of the
Re-establishment of Liberal Judaism in Germany.

What follows is some of what we shared with our congregation.
Steven's writing gives the reader additional background and information

HAZZAN ELIZABETH BERKE works for the Bureau of Jewish El

Federation of Greater Houston Hazzan Steven Berke is in his third
Brith Shalom in Bellaire, TX

about the experience. Mine is second, and communicates my personal
reaction to the current situation there. Enjoy.
Munich: a musical experience of a lifetime, by Steven C. Berke
Shortly before the past High Holiday season, 1 received a call from Rabbi
Morton Leifman. Knowing that my master's thesis focused on the
synagogue music of Southern Germany, he wanted to know if I would be
interested in being part of a historical event in Munich. The following
morning I was on the phone with Dr. Walter Homolka, the Chief Executive
of the Bertelsman Publishing Corporation in Munich. He wanted to know
if I was available to fly to Munich in a few months to conduct a Shabbat
morning service and then give a full concert that same evening. The
weekend symposium was to honor the 40th Yahrzeit of Rabbi Leo Baeck,
the inauguration of the synagogue's first senior Rabbi, Walter Jacob, and
most importantly- the re-establishment of liberal Judaism in Munich. At
both the service and the concert Iwould be accompanied by the Madrigal
ensemble (non-Jewish) from the conservatory.

I set out to create a meaningful service and concert. Dr. Homolka thought
it might be appropriate for me to compile a service that was made up of
music composed by German Jewish composers, more specifically those
from Munich. The service consisted of compositions by Lowenstamm,

Kirschner, Lewandowski, Sulzer, Naumbourg, Schalit all composers with

strong ties to Germany. I quickly forwarded the music to him. A few days
later he phoned to tell me that the music was beautiful but it sounded like
Protestant church music. I informed him that synagogue music of that
period did in fact sound like church music, in large part because Jewish
composers studied with the top church musicians and therefore, naturally,
their compositions reflected their training. He asked me to reconsider some
of my selections in favor of "more lively" music. He seemed much more
pleased when I added compositions by Janowski, Finkelstein, Secunda, and

adventure began.

Rather than attempt to capture our entire experience, I would like
to focus on a few musical observations which I hope will paint just one

Monday, November 11 th, 1996

Upon our arrival in Munich we were greeted by a taxi driver who
was told to rush us to the Hochshule Fur Music where the madrigal choir
was finishing their morning rehearsal. It was the middle of the morning for
us and neither Elizabeth nor I had slept at all on the plane. After being

introduced to the president of the school and other important figures, we
joined the choir. The powerful voices and familiar sounds of Lewandowski's
Mali Toju overwhelmed us.

It was clear that the choir knew their musical notes. It was also
obvious that neither they nor their conductor had any feel for the style of
Jewish music. I knew that I would have to help them with their Hebrew
diction, I had not anticipated the great distance that would need to be
traveled musically, aside from the natural language barrier that often
inhibited true understanding. The 30 member choir is made up of musicians
trained to produce what a composer has notated with accuracy and precision.
There was no extemporaneous talking during the rehearsal (a pleasure for
someone who loves the discipline of music), and concepts such as stretching
and moving a musical phrase to help depict the liturgical text were
completely foreign to them. There is a certain essence to Jewish music that
is instinct and part of the Jewish soul. There is a drive and an intensity
within the music that is difficult to explain. Within this energy or passion
there is a flexibility that is not found in any other music that I have come in
contact with. To further complicate my challenge, the conductorintimated
that the choir found much of the music lacking and poor imitations of music
by other great composers.

Aside from solo rehearsals that were set up, I was faced with a total
of four choir rehearsals and 25 or so compositions to prepare for a service
and concert which was being recorded live for compact disc. The real
dilemma {was> to decide how much time to spend trying to convey the
style, beauty, and value of this music. After all, these singers were not
studying to be performers, but music teachers. What would they tell their
students about Jewish music and more importantly, Jews?

Jewish music on the surface may not always appear sophisticated,
highly intellectual, or even exciting. However, when one opens his/her heart
and inner-most connections to who we are as human beings.... when one
learns of its historical/liturgical contexts, its connection to nusach and the
many layers of knowledge, then its true power and value begin to come
through. In every ritual of our tradition, beauty and meaning can be as deep
as the understanding and as broad as the knowledge of those who observe.

So, I feel that I am at once in a very unique position to alter
perceptions and at the same time experiencing a familiar feeling of pressure
for the "performance." Substance over style?

It is almost a week later and as we near Texas, I fondly remember the
wonderful transformations that we were a part of. Culturally (and
religiously. ..we may have been the first Jewish people that many choir
members had met), at first the students were reserved, very proper, and
formal by nature. Certainly a reflection of the culture in which they grew up.
Slowly through the week these barriers began to come down.

The service was attended by close to 400 Jews and non-Jews. Many
dignitaries were present, including representatives from the mayor's office
and the Catholic church, as well as scholars from all around the world.
Several congregants from the Orthodox synagogue remarked that they had
always viewed non-orthodox Judaism as "simplistic and rather silly." Now
they seemed stunned after taking part in a liberal service. The service
included a level ot formality, a siddur with a number of traditional texts, and
an impressive group of five Rabbis from around the world. The Orthodox
Judaism that they were a part of seemed to serve a function other than
spiritual, and here before them was a viable alternative that held an open
door to their deepest needs as human beings. Many such important
comments were voiced after the service.

Before discussing the concert, I would like to share perhaps the most
profound moment that occurred during our week. During a rehearsal with
the choir, two days before the service, a spontaneous act turned into the most
powerful and gut wrenching moment. Cantor Elizabeth Berke and the choir
were preparing to sing Uv 'nucho Yomar, this is the text chanted after the
Torah has been returned to the ark as we prepare to close the curtain
(parochet). I explained to the all non-Jewish choir made up of German
youths that '"we always face the Torah when it is marched around. We kiss
it as it passes by us and while the ark remains open we continue to face it.
So, 1 will ask you to sing this composition facing the Torah. Let us all turn
around." At this point the ark had not yet been installed in the concert hall
where the service was to take place, so I am not certain if they totally
understood my request. As the choir was about to sing I stopped them once
more and handed them a new sheet of music. It was the final page of the
composition they were about to sing. The only difference was that it was
written in German. I felt a communal sigh of relief as they realized that they
wouldn't have to work on pronunciation. During the service I was standing
next to the President of the World Congress for Liberal Judaism while the
Torah was returned to the ark. The choir began to sing Uv 'nucho Yomar.
I could read the Rabbi's mind as he was thinking "this is lovely." At the
expected end of the prayer, I signaled the woman who was to close the ark

to wait a moment. As the choir began to sing in German the Rabbi turned

to me and uttered "oh my God are they singing in German?" We both felt

a chill pass through us as we witnessed the non-Jewish German choir facing
our Torah and singing praises to the God of the Jews, in the building that
was the head-quarters of the Nazi party where it all began in Munich. Hitler
must have turned over in his grave.

The concert was held on the evening of the service. After one of the most
exhausting weeks of my life, I was thankful to be in good voice. The
opening piece on the concert was a piece call "Shevirath ha- kelim...a
prelude to Lewandowski's Ki K'shimcha." The composition was composed
by Herman Berlinski , a well know Jewish composer/organist, who flew in
to Munich to play this composition at the concert. The first 10- 15 minutes
are performed by a soprano, organ, and percussionist. The choir and myself
sing Lewandowski's piece. ! felt the two compositions together went very
well but the final cadence was greeted with silence. Throughout the first half
of the concert each piece ended and a new one began, no applause. I had not
expected this and could only wonder if this was minhag hamakom (a local
custom), perhaps they thought they were not to applaud liturgical music, or
was it the performance? The final composition of the first half was "Min
Hametzar" by Halevy. 1 paraphrase from the text, 'my enemies surrounded
me like bees, but Adonai pulled me through.' This text is wonderfully set
to music for choir and soloist by a composer better known for his famous
opera, La Juive. In fact, the composition has a French Grand Opera flavor
to it. Finally the audience gave in to the spirit of the evening and would not
cease their applause until 1 returned to the stage two more times. What a
fascinating first half. It felt like the end to a concert and yet there was still
another 45 minutes of music to be performed.

The second half of the concert focused more on secular and more
contemporary forms of Jewish music. It was as though the wall had been
breached. Not only was there applause following each number, at several
points it seemed that the room was coming alive with excitement as the
audience began to stomp their feet along with their applause. Cantor
Elizabeth, who had officiated with me at the morning service and sung
earlier in the concert, joined me for a couple of duets and a final encore
together. Not only did the audience enjoy Elizabeth's contribution to the
service and concert, they seemed to be most surprised and uplifted at her
presence. They had never experienced a woman in this type of role, as a
spiritual leader singing liturgical prayers.

After the concert Elizabeth and I had to remain with the choir and re-peat
several pages of music that did not come out clearly in the recording. At
around midnight the Berkes joined the choir at a local beer garden which
wasn't far form the concert hall. We laughed, hugged, exchanged addresses,
and sang very loudly. When they began to sing a beautiful German "prost"
song we ran for our camera. When they broke into Shalom Aleichem (not
from music I had given them) we searched for our Kleenex. In the end many
of them expressed how much they had learned and how much they enjoyed
the entire experience of sharing ourselves and our music. They even
admitted to loving some of the music. There was so much electricity and
goodwill in the room. Sometime after two in the morning we headed back
towards our hotel with memories for a lifetime intact.

Thoughts on our Journey in Munich, by Elizabeth S. Berke

The prospect oftraveling to Germany was exciting for me, though
mixed with other less positive feelings. When Steven got the call from
Rabbi Leifman it seemed like it was something that would not become a
reality for us, as there were so many arrangements to be made, and so many
hurdles to go over. In addition, in my ideas of travel places, I hadn't really
thought of Germany as a destination. I know my siblings had visited and
said that it was beautiful. My father, on the other hand, would not support
Germany in any way until just a few years ago when he went for a
convention in his particular field. He was hesitant to admit it, but I think he
also enjoyed himself there. Inside of me I had these different voices
discussing this question of travel to this troubled destination. But in the end,
of course, my curiosity won. To Germany we were going.

However, we were not going for any ordinary reason. This was not
a trip of fancy, it was a trip with a mission. The significance was
unfathomable to me before leaving, and in hindsight I can still say the same.
I think the ripples of our being there will last for quite some time. To state
it succinctly, the German Jewish community is going through a renaissance,
in particular the non-orthodox portion of the community. This was a Shabbat
service and concert to mark the reestablishment of non-orthodox Judaism in
Munich, and Germany as a whole. A Siddur was created for this Shabbat,
which will be the Siddur for all non-orthodox congregations in Germany,
and an "overabbiner" was installed, to serve as the rabbi of the community.
This was all occurring during a weekend-long symposium on Leo Baeck,
marking the fortieth anniversary of his death.

As the time drew closer, we learned where this event would take
place, which was at a music school. This school is housed in the most

powerful of places-in one of the buildings built by the Nazis, where they had
the seat of their party. In fact, the very auditorium where we were to hold
the service and concert, where the entire symposium was occurring, was in
the room where Hitler addressed his officers. So much of Munich was
destroyed by the end of the war, and it has been painstakingly rebuilt to the
last detail. These buildings remained. There were decisions at that time
regarding what could be used for the next era in German history. It is
monumental that this building survived, and that it now served as host to this
historical event.

Now I flash forward-we've arrived. For me, it was not possible to
walk into the building without thinking "did Hitler use this very door? Did
he set foot on this marble staircase that I am now ascending?" In place of
the students, I pictured SS men bustling to and fro. In place of the various
rehearsal and class schedules, I pictured Nazi propaganda bulletins on the
walls. Later in the week, after visiting a museum, I realized that there had
been Nazi eagles mounted above the doorways. After seeing this I noted the
holes in the stones where the bolts must have held these in place. And now,
instead of that symbol there hung a prominent orange banner with the title
of the symposium for the world to see. What were the words? In
translation: "Jewish Identity in the Modem World." I am overcome as I
think about this juxtaposition-the bolt holes remain, as if the eagles were
taken out yesterday. And now this banner proclaims the resurgence of
Jewish life in this very spot.

Our week was busy with some touring and as much rehearsing as
was possible to do in such a short time. We had the mornings free, so this
was the time for some site seeing. We walked the streets of the older portion
of the city, where we stayed in a B & B. The open air market was a few
paces away, and the glockenspiel was just beyond that. By coincidence we
hit it at the correct time to see the characters dance and the jousters joust.
Of course, our video was off for the split second when one jouster knocked
down the other!

Dachau was our destination on our second day there. The city
transportation was enough to take us, as Dachau is really a suburb of
Munich. Much of the camp was torn down, but two bunkers were
reconstructed, and a large main building remained along with the crematoria,
as well as the original gate house with the gates declaring Arbeit Macht Frei-
work makes you free. The large area where the daily roll calls were taken
is left completely open, except for a memorial sculpture, the same as one at
Yad Vashem. It is a new sensation to know that you are treading on the same
earth where those who suffered stood.

We reached the museum just in time to watch the English version
of a film documenting Dachau's history as a camp and its liberation. It

contained footage we had not seen before, including a scene of a service
after liberation where a Jewish chaplain had on a kippah and tallit, and was
lifting a Torah. I cannot imagine the feeling the inmates had as they saw this
person openly declaring their Judaism and deriving joy from it. This had
been stifled in them for so long, I wonder if they were afraid about what
might occur as a result of this man's openness. This was an idea that often
crossed my mind during our trip because of the many posters that were
around Munich advertising our concert and a Jewish festival occurring at the
same time. 1 was uncomfortable seeing the poster for our concert openly
displayed with the word "Jewish" on it. I expected to see them desecrated,
but they weren't.

While we were at Dachau there were German students learning
about the camp - 1 wish I understood what I overheard, I would love to have
known how it was being presented. And I would love to have been able to
understand the comments students were making to each other as they viewed
the photographs and various objects, such as the uniforms and a table used
for whipping. I actually saw a student lean over with his armed raised, as if
he were beating someone lying on the table then and there.

As a transition from the camp to the rest of the world, we had quite
a long wait at the bus stop to take us back to the train. While there we met
some Baptists from Florida on their way back from a mission to Yugoslavia,
where they helped a congregation get on its feet. Conversing with them
brought us back to the present, and got us ready to face that afternoon's
rehearsal.

Thursday included a trip to the Jewish bookstore, a bright and airy
space, filled with books, music, cards, etc. The books ranged widely in
subject and language, but I noticed quite a few texts on teaching Yiddish,
which surprised me. When Steven was coming up with the concert, the man
who was his contact was hesitant to have him sing Yiddish on the program.
I don't really understand why, since it seems like there's an interest in
learning/reviving the language and surrounding culture (for example, Brave
Old World, a Klezmer group, was featured at the Jewish Cultural festival).
Of course, we walked away with a few purchases consisting of some music
books and a book called Sneaking Out. Jewish Voices From United
Germany, edited by Susan Stern. This was published in 1994, and is a
collection ofwritings by people who have chosen to live in Germany and be
a part of the Jewish community there. It will help us answer some of our
own questions, and questions others have had for us.

On Friday the ball started rolling and it didn't stop until we sat in
our seats on the plane on Sunday morning. We had lunch in a Jewishly
owned restaurant decorated with Shabbat candlesticks, a hanukiyah, and

pictures of old men wearing kippot. This is not what I would expect in
Germany! The cuisine was Eastern European-Borscht, Gefilte Fish, other
delicacies. Its existence caught me off guard and comforted me at the same
time. 1 also found comfort in being able to express myself in Hebrew. I felt
among friends.

The lunch was with the planners of the symposium, movers and
shakers of the congregation, and the four rabbis who were participating in
the service. Steven got to go through the new Siddur and tell them when the
choir was singing, when other things were occurring, and it felt like the
pieces started to fall into place. My arm was twisted just enough so 1 agreed
to read Torah the next day. Though this was a spur of the moment decision
on my part, it may have had the most lasting impact on some people who
attended the service that morning, as hearing a woman leyn Torah was a
new experience for many who were there (not to mention see a woman in a
role traditionally held by men).

Directly after the lunch we were given a ride to our dress rehearsal.
The driver was the president of the congregation, a women named Lauren,
originally from New York. While en route we talked about the question on
the tip of everyone's tongue - why would she as a Jew want to live in
Germany? She spoke about some very interesting things, which I was lucky
enough to get on video tape, but her last comment was really the best. She
was talking about the support they were getting from Rabbi Jacobs, whom
they were installing that Shabbat as their "oberrabbiner." His parents were
German, and he lost quite a bit of family in Germany, yet he has been
nothing but supportive of and positive about the endeavor to create this
congregation in Munich. She stated it very simply, "We don't need people
lamenting about the past...It is time to move on." With these words she
confirmed a feeling I was beginning to have myself. It is not an easy idea to
accept, but at this point in history there are Jews choosing to live there, and
create a Jewish community for themselves. This is something I am more
able to accept now.

A new question arises, however. From what is this new
community differentiating itself? The orthodox community. This segment
of the Jewish population of Munich, from what 1 understand, is quite closed.
It does not welcome newcomers. We have first hand accounts of that from
some of our own congregants, who spent three years living outside of
Munich, and were questioned regarding their identity and where they were
from whenever they came to the synagogue, or got provisions for Passover.
In this light, it is astonishing to me what this new community is doing, by
being so open and declaring its existence in such a definitive manner. It
goes against what has long been a German attitude, at least since

"emancipation" over a century ago, which was to be a Jew at home but a
German abroad. In other words, blend in and do not reveal your Judaism-
assimilate. It makes sense to me that this action has been initiated by a
community made up of mostly non-Germans who were raised in a different

I had a few interesting interactions with people who call themselves
members of the orthodox community, one from Munich and one from a town
further south in Germany. Their attendance at the service planted seeds
regarding their observance and where they have affiliated, and what it means
for following generations. This was demonstrated to me in two interactions
in particular. One-was with a woman who said she has two daughters. She
expressed her increasing distance from the orthodox way of life. This
service gave her an opportunity to reevaluate her affiliation with the
orthodox community, because she saw me and other women participating in
the service. The second was with a young man who also had never
addressed the idea of women's participation. He was quite supportive of the
idea, actually, and at the end of our conversation I came away feeling he was
a Conservative Jew in thought, at least. What really summed up the impact
I possibly had was a question a female journalist asked me. She wanted to
know if I thought that it would be good for the women and girls there to
learn how to chant from the Torah. What is there to say? For me it has
become a given, I hope the same happens for the next generation there.

While we in Houston have become accustomed to the egalitarian way of life
in the synagogue, this new community is really at a birth stage for non-
orthodox Judaism and participation of women in synagogue ritual life. This
fact had not sunk into me until it was pointed out by this woman's question.
I can only hope that the ripples of my reading Torah and singing a few things
in the service and concert will last for a long time, and will bring some
members of the community to a more participatory life in the synagogue and
in their homes.

During the service and concert it was hard to let the experience sink
in. At the end of the service the rabbi called up the children who were
present, which was a powerful moment. I am always touched at the end of
services when I see the next generation of Jews on our bima at Brith Shalom.
This was all together more powerful. Standing in front of me was the next
generation of German Jews. Then, as now, I felt torn between different
emotions. There was joy over the situation, but also trepidation. ..What does
the future hold for them? 1 hope an untroubled life.

THE REJECTION OF CHAZZANIC AND
SYNAGOGAL INFLUENCES IN THE SEARCH
FOR AN ORIGINAL STYLE OF ISRAELI SONG
COMPOSITION

by Rebecca CARMI

Composers and critics believed that early Israeli composers
should shape and define a new Israeli musical language, yet there
was much divergence of opinion as to of what that musical
language should consist. Though many rejected the musical
heritage of religious Judaism as galuti, there was a serious
examination of traditional Jewish materials.

In the search for an echt Jewish musical heritage, various
aspects of synagogue music were in turn explored and endorsed as
being original Jewish material, especially by populations from
Eastern Europe, as opposed to Central Europe. Perhaps foremost
among the musical materials examined was the Biblical trope
itself, for it seemed to be of the most ancient derivation. Research
by A. Z. ldelsohn then in vogue propounded that elements of trope
were common to many ethnic Jewish communities, and therefore
hearkened back to pre-dispersion times.
He believes to have discovered

a close relationship between the motives of the various
traditions, though some of these

communities. ..never.. .came into contact with one

another this uniformity of tradition... prompt us to

adopt the opinion that the Biblical modes treated thus far,
are of an ancient age, probably preceding the expulsion of
the Jewish people from Palestine. ..They are the remainder
of the Jewish-Palestinian folk tunes...'

ldelsohn' s work (published in 1929) met with great critical
acclaim and excitement. Here at last, from the miasma of the
Diaspora was something authentically and originally Jewish. Max
Brod, in his history of Israel's music, writes:

The rebirth of the cantillations in modem Israel music has
become a fact of major importance... In the opinion of the

HAZZAN REBECCA CARMI serves Temple Sinai of Palm Desert, California.

writer, this is a phenomenon equalling in importance the
renaissance of the Hebrew language in Israel... In both
instances a people returns to its origins, to the elemental,

concealed strata of its culture. 2

The fascinations of cantillation seem to have lasted through the
different stages of development of Israel's composers. Not only
was it used in early works such as Hinach Yafaby Boscovich, "not
that Boscovich imitates the cantillation pedantically or simply
accepts it, but his composition is drawn from the same elemental
current of the spirit.. .the same impulse. ..as in the ancient
tradition. "3 but continues to be used by composers such as
Mordecai Seter, Ben-Zion Orgad, Ami Maayani, Oedoen Partos,
Binyamin Bar- Am and Shlomo Yaffe.4 Orgad speaks of
extensively exploring trope: "In my music 1 find myself using the
Biblical tropes as part of my inner language... 1 made it a point to
learn the Lithuanian tropes and then later the Sephardic tropes and
a bit of the Yemenite, so it's part of me. "5

The spirit of ethno-musicology developed by Idelsohn led
composers to examine other traditional sources. In the spirit of
socialism, folk music was considered 'music of the people' and
therefore of a high moral quality. This gave a sanctity to folk
music of the various Jewish communities that escaped the label
'galuti', even should these melodies hail from the Diaspora.
Particularly, asserts Keren, those "who came to Israel from Eastern
Europe were thus reared in 'an environment which fostered the
expression of Jewish nationalistic leanings, and their music is
tilled with... the Jewish folk tunes of the lands of their origin. "6
Keren continues; "The musical output of the earliest composers
from Eastern Europe consisted mainly of arrangement of Eastern
European Jewish folk tunes...'" Tzvi Avni admits today,
"Definitely there is an influence of Chassidic songs and Eastern
European songs that we didn't want to recognize at the time.'" It is

,

Brod. Max. Israel's Music, "Sefer" Press Ltd.

, Tel-Aviv. 1951. pp. 16-17.

1

Brod. Max. Israel's Music. "Sefer" Press Ltd

. . Tel-Aviv. 1 95 i. p , 24.

4

Keren Zvi Contemporay Israeli Music
Press. Israel. 1980, pp 101-102.

Its sources • md stylistic development. Bar

S

Orgad. Ben-Zion. Interview. Tel-Aviv. July 7

, 1997,

f

Keren Zvi Contemporary, Israeli Music - It

s sources and stylistic de-

r Han Press. Israel. 1980. |

generally accepted that in the music of the early composers, "there
exist, side by side, the influences of modern international idiom
and deep ties with the musical past; the music of the various
Jewish communities.'"

Not so with the music that comes directly out of the synagogue,
which is perhaps the ultimate symbol of galuti Europe. Whereas
the music of the Chassidim was "exploited not in their original
spirit of religious ecstacy, but in a spirit of exuberance which
comes from returning to one's own land,"10, thus escaping its
association with religious Judaism, liturgical music was viewed
most harshly. Early critic Rabina wrote, "Religious music like ours
- is so controlled by disorganization and mix-up that some
Apostates say that the Christian chorale preserved its original
Judaism more than the Hashkivenu in our synagogue.""

The very texture of the synagogue scale was deemed anathema to
the spirit of the new society: According to Brod, "...this
'augmented second'... adds to the melody an element of weeping,
meekness and sentimentality and therefore plays an important role
in the songs of the Diaspora while the generation in Israel has
rejected it"12

But woe particularly to the Chazzan, whose improvisatory
religious singing was antithetical to the spirit of folk music, and
who fell under severe criticism. Boscovich, for example, -

sees the need of a collective sitting on its land as an

essential basis for fertile musical artistic creation the

great Jewish artists who were active in Europe had to

9 Mishori. Nathan "Yehezkel Braun ■ An Israeli Composer o

f His Generation". IMI News.

91/4-92/1. p. 12

il Keren Zvl. Contemporary Israeli Music - Its sources and stylistic

development. Bar Man Press. Israel. 1980. p. 72.

11 Rabinowitz Menashe. "Judaism In Music" from Davar. jun

e 3. 1927. Adler. Ayelel and

Hirschberg. Jehoasch. Ideology and Ideological Pressures on the

Musical Life of the Yishuv

in the Period of the Mandate - A Collection of Sources from t

he Hebrew Newspapers. The

Hebrew University. Jerusalem 1986. (Author's translation).

t Brod. Max. Israel's Music. "Sefer" Press Ltd.. Tel-Aviv. 1951. p. 24.

identify with the people with whom they lived and give up
their own heritage... art could not have transcended to a
high level and sometimes fell into superficial virtuosity.
In Judaism the cantor functions as singer, composer and
representative of the Jewish folk music. ..but many cantors
forget their original purpose and turn their tradition into
empty virtuosic ornaments and weeping sentimentality..."

A review of Bloch's Avodat Hakodesh can't resist the following:

. ..in its power and depth the new composition emphasizes
the poverty of the ornament weeping and coloraturas of
the Chazzan [it] wasn't meant for the synagogue but it is
full of Israeli religious spirit and serves as a proof of the
damage that was caused to Jewish music by giving up
musical instruments in the synagogue and by emphasizing
the solo chazzan in place of the choir. While in the church
praying is given to a narrator and the singing of the
prayers to the rich choir, we have limited the boundaries of
the choir to emphasize and extol the chazzan with The
Voice. ..14

A definite distaste for synagogue music is evident in secular
Israeli society to this day. Chaim Alexander says of his experience
playing harmonium in a Berlin synagogue that the music of Sulzer
and Lewandowski "doesn't speak to me"15. Keren asserts that
"unlike Biblical cantillation, the influence exerted after 1960 by
prayer melodies, by Jewish folk songs of the Diaspora and by
Israeli folk tunes is almost negligible." 16

Bressler. Liora. "The Medit ei

M "Rabina. Menashe "Tavim" Irom Davar. June 24. 1940. Adler. Ayelet and Hirschberg.

Jehoasch. Ideology and Ideological Pressures on the Musical Life of the Ylshuv In the Period

of the Mandate - A Collection of Sources from the Hebrew Newspapers. The Hebrew
University. Jerusalem 1986.p. 34.

lerview. Jerusalem July 3. 1992 (Author's translation)

iources and stylistic development. Bar

However not all of this glorious tradition is lost among
composers. The modes themselves in which the cantor sings have
been explored by some for their musical value without concern for
their social stigma. Tzvi Avni's settings of Song of Songs makes
use of the Dorian mode with impressionistic harmonies. His song
cycle Besides the Depths of the River explores modal
relationships using augmented seconds and thirds. An early critic
even concedes that "We realized that the improvisations of the
chazzanim that spread among the people became folk tunes.""

Composers from Europe brought more classical training than
religious background, and it is impossible to discuss musical
influences without looking at the European heritage common to
the first generation of Israeli composers. Whereas the religious
European traditions provided musical material which they
approached academically, the European trends in composition
were their natural inheritance. As Hirshberg summarizes:

In this sense there is something totally unique in the
Israeli national school. All its participants were born in
Europe, in different countries, received completely
different kinds of education and training, and most of
them found their way to Israel as a result of the sudden
catastrophic chain of events in Germany after 1933."18

Composers coming from Eastern Europe brought with them the
influences of St. Petersburg Society of Jewish nationalist
composers, who interpreted Jewish folk materials in the harmonic
idiom of the Romantic era. 19 From Central Europe came composers
who represented the modem and innovative trends of Schonberg,
Hindemith, Stravinsky, as well as more Romantic composers such
as Richard Strauss, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Britten.20 All of these

Hirshberg. Jehoash. "The Emergence of Israeli Art Music"

Hirshberg. Jehoash. "The Emergence of Israeli Art Music", p.5

various influences had to be sorted out in relation to the musical
demands of the new society, traditional religious materials, and
most of all, the new musical materials of the Middle East.

Great romance was attached to the sounds of the new
environment, and composers revelled in the exotic materials
characteristic of the Middle East. "On the one polarity . ..[was] the
demand to reject the Western European culture. ..as a first step of
crystallizing a completely new culture, that will take its inspiration
from the East - a term that was also vague in its extent and
meaning."*'

There was a-desire to take on an imaginary world, a "should
have been" and make it a reality: Had the Jews not been dispersed
among the nations, how would their true musical heritage have
developed? Composer Oded Assaf writes:

There was. ..reason for the rapprochement to the Arabic
culture: the collective memory of the Jews, wherever they
be, lies deep within the antique East. The new settlers in
Eretz-Israel were actually ridding themselves of the
residue of the diaspora and of the overload of western
influences and reverting to the authentic cultural kernel of
the Hebrew - Eretz Israeli. The pioneer on his
thoroughbred mare, a keetiya round his head, learning to
be 'a shepherd does not imitate the life-style of the local
Arabs; he simply goes back to the customs of his own

forefathers " The Arab" - wrote Ever Hadany [Hebrew

writer] - "is the root of our roots; our basic attitude to life,
our destiny".**

Composers regarded the musical strains of the Arab world in
which they found themselves as organically Middle Eastern and
therefore the inheritance of Jews. Assaf continues:

Accepted as an undeniable fact today, the presence of the
Arabic tradition in our culture was an object of desire and
profound hesitations. ..it was quite clear to the artist and
intellectuals of the time that the revival of Hebrew culture
in Eretz-Israel must necessarily be a synthesis of East and
West.23

Adler. Ayelet and Hirschberg. Jehoasch. Ideology and
the Musical Life of the Yishuv in the Period of the Mandate
ources from the Hebrew Newspapers. The Hebrew University.
Introduction p. ii.

This mining of surrounding musical genres led to incredible
creativity and inventiveness, imbued with the romance of the idea
of Return. The renowned musicologist A. Z. Idelsohn's work
endorsed this perception of Arabic culture as authentic to Jewish
culture. He "claimed that beneath the diverse covering layers a
single common root can be found; he called it the Semitic Mode".24
There were, of course, extreme manifestations of this
movement. A group evolved which called itself Canaanites. Their
desire was to eradicate all traces of cultural experience between
Ancient Canaan and Modem Israel, to actually return to pre-
history. "The most extreme group attempted to turn to the Orient
and to reject any Western influences. In 1930 ... a short-lived
journal ... advocated writing in microtones and avoiding
performances of Western music. .."25

For some the absorption of Arabic culture was natural. Tzvi
Avni explains, "I lived in Haifa opposite Arabs, and heard all their
songs from the giant gramophones that were around. I didn't have
any difficulty absorbing things."26 Interestingly enough, modem
electronic music brought many contemporary composers back to
contemplating different arrangements of microtones through
electronic manipulation, often with the intent of creating Arabic
sounding compositions.

The perfect location for the pursuit of things Arabic was found
in the Yemenite community. Here was an Arabic Jewish
community - the meeting of the East and West could occur without
political enmity or religious distance. Furthermore, the existence of
an endemic Jewish culture validated the claim that authentic
Jewish culture had Arabic roots. Idelsohn's research pointed to the
Yemenites as carriers of ancient tradition, and everyone admired
and emulated Yemenite culture.*'

Tzvi Avni reflecting on his early influences says, "the spiritual
aspect was the search for the East. My interests, like those of my
teachers, Seter, Ben Haim, . . . was in the Yemenite music, which
was thought to be the most authentic music remaining from

3 Ibid. p. 4.

:B Hirshberg. Jehoash. "The Emergence of Israeli Art Music", p. 5.

26 Avni. Tzvi. Interview, Tel-Aviv. July 7. 1992. (Author's translation).

27 Hirshberg. Jehoash Lecture delivered November 26. 1989. Hebrew Union

Ancient music. "28 The infatuation with Yemenite culture crops up
in the biography of many of Israel's major composers. "[Ben-
Haim] also sought a new musical identity by reaching out to the
Yemenite Jewish tradition"29 and Yehezkiel Braun relates, "The
Yemenite songs were sung by the Yemenite women who worked in
the farmer's yard peeling almonds, cleaning the house and doing
the laundry...] heard the singing of the Yemenite women even in
my sleep. "30

However it was not necessarily easy to gain exposure to
Yemenite culture. In the early years there was not yet a common
mastery of the Hebrew language. The Yemenites came from a
fairly primitive society and were not comfortable with Western
academics descending upon them. It is a long and difficult process
to contact an indigenous community and composers were not
trained in field work.31

The perfect cultural mediator appeared in the person of Bracha
Zephira, a young Yemenite orphan girl who grew up amongst
various ethnic communities and had a phenomenal memory for
songs. Her education equipped her with a comparably strong
Western musical education and she was able to translate Eastern
musical forms into Western idioms, thus making them accessible
to the Israeli public. She stepped into a niche ready-made by the
Yemenite craze of the times. Gila Flam's thesis on Bracha Zephira
analyzes Zephira' s position:

"But people [of culture] can only search where they can
find. And they find within available context." That is how
we can understand the relationship of the Yishuv society
to the culture of the "Orient": on the one hand the
romantic European approach to the East which they
brought from their countries of origin, and on the other

2 " Dumling. A. IMI News. 92/4. p. 12.

I Wins. Nilza Amit. The Life and Vocal Music of Yehezkiel Braun. Master Thesis,
lebrew Union College. March 14. 1991. p. 2

Sl Hirshberg. Jehoash. Lectures delivered October 29. 1989. Hebrew Union Colle

hand, the actual encounter with the Oriental Jew, and
especially the Yemenite Jew. While the Orient was
familiar to the Europeans from works of art, the actual
encounter with Oriental people was an encounter with raw
untreated material, with functional folklore, insiders'
culture, which the Western people found hard to absorb
despite their willingness to do so. For that they need an
intermediary who could transfer that material into an
established artistic form. And this is what Bracha Zephira
did.32

Bracha Zephira spread knowledge of Yemenite music both through
extensive performance in Israel and Europe and intensive
collaboration with a number of Israeli composers. Hirshberg
writes:

Through her performances in Europe and in Palestine
Bracha Zephira found herself addressing audiences mostly
of European origin . ..her performances revealed the rich
heritage of Jews of Oriental origin to the immigrants from
European communities, thus helping to fulfil the dream of
cultural merging and synthesis. .& was through public per-
formances such as by Bracha Zephira that the cultural
heritage of the Oriental Jews became known to and
respected by Jews from the West.. .she was the first.. .to
cooperate with composers of art music in a systematic
way. her meeting with Ben-Haim - as well as with other
composers. ..transferred the Oriental tradition into the
purely Western field of concert music. ..The greatest
achievement of Zephira with regard to social encounter
was her performances with the Philharmonic Orchestra.33

The piece Shir M'numeh by Max Brod is a prime example of a
European composer lifting Yemenite text and typically repetitious
and melismatic melodic invention of a very narrow range and
setting them with a full arsenal of Western compositional tools.

We have seen that the very earliest music all tends to be
pastorale in nature and full of dance rhythms, and that eventually
composers began to inquire more deeply into what the nature of
"Israeli" music should be. The sounds of the Arabic cultures all
around - the melismatic use of melody, a heterophonic approach to
harmony, whining quarter tones and the maqam - the documenting

. "The Emergence of Israeli Art Music, p. 10.

of Yemenite songs and prayers, were all part of an attempt to find

the true Eretz Yisraeli music.

It cannot be proven that an Israeli style does exist. It can
be shown however, that there was an attempt to create an
original unique style which had distinct musical and non-
musical characteristics and was greatly influenced by the
ideas of its time. This musical style, which has been
referred to as the "Mediterranean Style", began to develop
in the second half of the 1930' s, flourished in the 40' s and
subsided in the latter part of the 50's. 34

Composers explored the different palettes of local musical color
to strive for a fusion of their learned Western tools with their
"true" Eastern heritage. A kind of "socialism" of music became
popular, known as the Mediterranean Style, which held that the
composer must abandon personal expression for the more
imminent needs of national expression.

A. U. Boscovich was the champion of this new direction of
thinking about Israeli music, and he wrote a great deal of prose in
addition to his compositional output. He developed his ideas as an
outgrowth of Hegel's theories of thesis-antithesis-synthesis and is
in a sense continuing the trajectory of 19th Century European
thought on historical evolution. 35

Boscovich says that the purpose of art is to shape a form
whose content is strongly related to the where and the
when of its creator. He sees the creator as a social factor
whose organically tied to the period and the society in
which he lives. This tie is bi-directional: the piece is
fertilized by the "spiritual approach" of the collective in
which the composer lives and also portrays the spiritual
directions of the society and the period. Boscovich
emphasizes that the artistic creation is intended for the
immediate surroundings of the creator... "...but if the great
artistic work starts its action in its immediate environment
- then it can cross boundaries and assume an universal
character. A piece that gets its thematic content from the
immediate environment of the creator, would befit the
environment of a different environment. The artistic reply
or response to a political or social problem which is
expressed in the piece can be proper answer to the same
problem even when it appears in a different

34 Bressler. Lima. '■The Mediterranean Style in Israel Music",. "Abstract" p. i

55 Hirshherg. Jehoash. Lecture delivered November 19. 1989. Hebrew Union

society."[Orlogin 9, p. 281]"
Boscovich does not want to imitate existing genres and techniques,
but to filter them through the individual consciousness of the
composer living in the here-and-now.

Having touched upon the theory behind the Mediterranean
Style, it remains to examine the actual compositional techniques to
which the theory gave birth. Oded Assaf supplies a succinct
description:

. ..the winding melody moving in small circles true to the
oriental spirit and not in the wide sweeping movements
typical of the West; flexible rhythms; changing meters;
the use of ancient modes ■ some deriving from the Jewish
traditions and some clearly hinting at the maqam of the
Arabic tradition, moving away from the known western
harmony as well as the inclination to heterophony and
static pedal points.'"

Liora Bressler elaborates on these points:

Literary themes...centered around Israeli subjects such as
landscape and tilling the soil. ..Even Biblical themes were
chosen because of their relevance to contemporary times,
e.g., wars of liberation, love of country and the vision of
the ingathering of the exiles....

Melody played a primary role.. .the melodic lines consisted
mainly of diatonic seconds combined with perfect
intervals (especially the fourth and fifth) and were built on
modal systems. They had limited diapason and fell into
symmetrical periods...

Rhythm. The binary meters were dominant. Triple meters
were rare...another group of meters was asymmetric and
changing, which were somewhat influenced by Arab
rhythms.

Harmony. The harmony was based on modes, especially
Dorian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Ionian. The first, fourth
and fifth degrees of the scale, and to some extent the
seventh, were central pitches. The harmony consisted of
perfect intervals, often moving in parallel motion and
major seconds. Chords were rare and generally appeared
with parallel motion recalling the archaic sound of the

Bressler. Liora. "The Medit eraiean Style i
1983. p 8.

Assaf Oded. "Towards the East". IMI News. 90/2. p. 4.

organum. The harmonic dominant-tonic tension tended to
be abandoned. 38

Shir luiGamal, or "Song of the Camel", was considered a
watershed in the development of Mediterranean music. This song
was celebrated, extolled and analyzed in countless scholarly works
and mentioned in many of the interviews conducted this summer,
"undoubtedly the first to effect a breakthrough,"... "new
Orientalism", .." the rolling flowing tune of the song perfectly
represents the proud, measured stride of the camel... faithfully
reflected in the melody: slow, dignified, assured, yet containing a
hint of a dance step. ..It is a song of rare beauty." The piece Shir h-
agamal was considered a breakthrough in the development of the
Mediterranean song. According to Boscovich:

This tune (regardless of whether it originates with the folk
tunes of the Middle Eastern Jews or whether it is an
original invention) symbolizes the release of the Jewish
melos from the galuti European tradition. The rhythm is
local, coming out of the feeling of the walk of the camel
(emphasize feeling) The melodic dimension of the main
phrase is that of Gamal G 'mail, like the refrain in a rondo.
While the phrase Ma tovuohalecha is sort of a couplet or
episode. While subjectively combining formally but
justified and typical of the above mentioned Hebrew
pastoral: Its range is limited and its monochromatic
movements as an expression of the static landscape; its
tonal and melodic organization is modal and tetrachordal -
the expression of Hebrew Eastern traditional music. This
tune is "primitive", if we'd like it to the European
Kunstlied; but as a folk song which is typical to the
atmosphere it is not "primitive" at all. The song is
religious secular Hebrew; it displays realistic orientation
in the "given where". 39

Verdina Shlonsky's song cycle T'munot was likewise
considered wonderfully innovative. The opening song, Layla
Bichn'aan separates the right hand from the left in an attempt to
suggest separate instruments - a high flute sound in the right hand
and ostinato bass drum in the left- rather than harmonic support.
It employs a deliberate use of modes as an archaism, implying
something ancient and unreal. It uses lowered 7ths and cadences

Bressler. Liora. "The Mediterranean Styk in Israel Music. Masters Thesis. Tel I

without a leading tone. Its orientalistic coloratura and repetitious,
ostinato vocal line of limited range and repeated text further
creates an exotic atmosphere. According to Hirshberg, this early
piece established a pattern that remained in all local music.40

Marc Lavri's oratorio Song of Songs is a prime example of the
new romantic, secular approach to Biblical materials. In Sh'chora
Ani, we find highly melismatic writing for the voice, reminiscent of
Yemenite melodic invention yet still employing very Romantic
harmonies. The song Im Shachar by A. Bamea is a prime example
of the use of asymmetric and changing meters, as the piece moves
from 10/8 to 9/8 to 13/8.

To move on from the technical aspects of Mediterranean Style,
the following is a quote from Brod in which he waxes lyrical about
the qualities of the music produced by composers in the Med-
iterranean Style:

What have the works written in this, style in common?
Their music is southern, infused with the bright light of
the Mediterranean air, lucid, striving for clarity; their
rhythm is the harsh irregular beat, the obstinate repetition,
but also the manifold, ceaseless variation which enchants
by its apparent freedom from rule and
impulsiveness. ..Climate and landscape, shepherd's song,
oboe and clarinet, play their part. Accompaniment by
tympani or tambourine, real, only hinted at, or imaginary,
add to some of these songs. ..a strangely monotonous, even
hypnotic character; but whoever immerses himself in this
apparent monotony is enabled to hear delicate and subtle
nuances which have been denied to European ears. . ..The
delicate sharpening of the tone intervals, appearing at first
as accidental impurities.. .all of this makes for the special
attraction of this music, oddly nervous, never falling into
the "bourgeois" or Philistine. . ..Sometimes this quality is
only a light mist, a delicate colouring.. .41

This gives us a feel of the excitement with which this musical style
met..

Today there is some scholarly debate about whether the
Mediterranean Style actually succeeded in becoming a "school".
According to Jehoash Hirshberg' s latest perspective, "There was
no school here at all; all the composers were individualists, all of
them came quite well trained, and they opposed each other and
contradicted each on almost everything, and they completely

40 Hirshberg. Jehoash. Lectin I li\ ieil .. ptember. 17 1989. Hebrew Union

:."Sefef Press Ltd.. Tel-Ai

rejected the concept of a school."42

Though there is scholarly debate as to whether a Mediterranean

School actually existed, there is no doubt but that it had

tremendous influence! Tzvi Avni, a working composer, speaks of

this influence:

I think that the so-called Mediterranean trends that were
crystallized in the 40's and 50's, by the generation that had
immigrated from Europe, were quite naturally absorbed by
us, the younger generation who grew up here and were
their students. To us this was something like the natural
language of a young person, a young musician, who grows
up in a country and he comes to something which exists
already. ...this was the Zionistic music which we absorbed
because we lived in an era which was Zionist in its very
essence. I think we still live in such an era. We are still in
the phase of nationalistic romanticism and 1 think it is
apparent in many works by our composers, even now.43

Whether or not composers want to identify with the
Mediterranean Style as a school, there is no question that the
compositional tools developed and the musical materials retained
have had a long and lasting influence on what characterized Israeli
music. One can only admire the creativity and romanticism of
these early works! In the words of composer Yinam Leef:

. ..the ideas behind the so-called Mediterranean School,
although somewhat naive from today's perspective, seem
quite admirable. What a task it must have been to adapt
to a style in its very formation, and at what price? In their
bold choice of the 'local' over the 'universal', the
forefathers of the Israeli music have given the following
generations a point of departure, and a possible sense of
identity.44

In the early years, Israelii composers tried to move away from
the sounds that were remininscent of recent, unhappy history.
They rejected the music of the synagogue and turned to new
sounds from Europe as well as sounds endemic to the Middle East.
It was an age of great excitement and tremendous experimentation.

I! Hirshberg. Jehoash. Interview conducted at the Hebrew University on July I.

"On Traditions and Contradictions". IMI News. 90/2 pp. 5-6.

Schools formed and dissipated until eventually, individual
composers found their own voices in the new culture- as
individuals.

WE HUNG UP OUR HARPS: RABBINIC
RESTRICTIONS ON JEWISH MUSIC

By PROF. Joshua R. Jacobson

This article, based on a lecture delivered at Cong. Shaarei Tefillah, Newton,
Massachusetts on Shabbat Shirah, 1997, is dedicated to the memory of Prof.
Marvin Fox y'yt,

- hxrn rrvtfrrnx 7k~)vr *:ni htfn-Ttf* rx

Some 3,300 years ago, after escaping through the miraculously parted waters
of the Sea of Reeds, Moshe led the Israelites in the singing of a great hymn of
thanksgiving to God.

There is no question that rrrw here means "song." This was not a recitation of
poetry. This was music — accompanied by musical instruments.

fit? ^nri-nx prj.N mnx nfcun cnn hpni
:D>nnai earn rr-inx bvin-'ij jxxrn

Miriam played the drum, the timbrel, and all the women followed her with

timbrels and dances. Joyous music making. ..with instruments.. .men and

women.. . singing., .dancing.. playing.

Ah, but that was 3.300 years ago. Would the Rabbis have allowed such a

celebration?

What did Rav mean when he said, some 1700 years ago:

The ear which listens to song should ipyn xnnr xynwi xniN

JOSHUA R. JACOBSON serves as Professor of Music and StotsKy Professor of Jewish
Studies at Northwestern University. He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Jewish Music at
Hebrew College's Jewish Music Institute. He is the founder and director ofthe Zamir Chorale
of Boston.

It is prohibited to play musical »]1J3 bn~\ ~PW ,L 733 ]lib K^tt? TIU

instruments, or to sing any kind of a

song or to make any sound
resembling singing. 2

tp bw bnp *yOTn bit -

And what was Skito thinking when he said, some 1 700 years ago:

[Listening to] a woman's voice is m-|y TIVK2 bid

sexual enticement.3

Music in Ancient I

ireat great great c'BJ 'Fro in 1 ? ib~nj3»:

iech, had a son whose

_.j|; he was the ancestor of '^ "'??' c ?' " 1? "**3 =?

all who play the harp and flute.' ba'TiX r~v ~brr,

:njpni bnx :zr ^x rrji mn

■jJV TP!» QB1

:32U": ii33 can-ba ':x rrr, xin

i Yaakov is trying to escape trom his
and tries to make his son-in-law feel g

2 Maimonrdes: The Laws of Fasting 5:14

3 Talmud Bavli Berachot 24:a

4 Gen. 4.19 -22

Why did you run off secretly and
deceive me' Why didn't you tell me,
so I could send you away with joy and
singing to the music of drums and
harps?5

™ atari] n^nxarar;!?,':

noai Tinners mh'?ox'! ,( 7 "arrx 1 ?"!

Three thousand year:
establishing that city
wonderful parade fe;

players.

ago, when King Dav
as the political and s

by the fabulous Levite family singer

appoint their brothers as singers to
sing joyful songs, accompanied by
musical Instruments: lyres, harps and

cymbals.6

So all Israel brought up the ark of the
covenant of the LORD with shouts,
with the sounding of rams' horns and
trumpets, and of cymbals, and the
playing of lyres and harps.'

b'l^n '-iB 1 ? '-'i- -ajar

cn-iTO- brrnxT.x TMrr?

crn'psm rri-.aai cba: Tanbaa

■'rath "jipa-D'rrr? o'jrpe?;?

'rrnna |i"x-r,x "crVrn ^jjrjir-bai

ninssnai -isio "r^ai rtffnra

-i-aai n^aaa D'spon a'rfrspai

mystical trance in which he would
After being annointed by Samuel, E

As you approach the town, you will
meet a procession of prophets coming
down from the high place

ing words:

EPrftijn nsaa xian p -inj

c'ntrta 'as: dst-istx

■van d» ^xaa 'th

and they will be prophesying with -fiJDT b^V}', >B ]r" bz: Dries'? - !

lyres, drums, flutes and harps being

played before them."' CKarsn "H"

When the prophet Elisha was hired as a consultant by King Yehoshafat. he told
the king:

"Now bring me a musician." jjjg ^- in p -j^

And when the musician begn to play, ^jjjjj |jj 3 rrni

the hand of the LORD was on [Elisha].' '„ T ^ , nfn

Music was also used as therapy to heal the tormented spirit.

Whenever the spirit from God came 1 7){«r'7X 'D'H^-Rl - ! rvrP,2 -Til

David would take his harp and play yya mji -,i33rrPiN TPi Pp"Ti

with his hand. "* : l ' " * v "

Then relief would come to Saul; he >fy 2*10) ^HNlfo nTTl

would feel better, and the evil spirit

would leave him." : ™~~ TH ''byn "15"

Music was an integral and impressive part of the cult in the Jerusalem
Sanctuary, the vipnn rra. The Mishnah (codified sometime around the year 200

,pu *mn prima px . . . .vipni
. . . .pttt? 'wn prima rx

at least two trumpets . JITTSWI "DS7n rnmg ]*N

and nine lyres, . . J1TTO3 nysma (fnTTIQ T*X)

There were at least twelve Levites a -fr i m -Q*mn JTims fX

standing on the platform (to sing)..."

. . .rann ^y onaiy

of the

Men of piety and good deeds 0n":37 O'lpin HI "IPya 'ffJXl Q-Von

used to dance before them with

lighted torches in their hands, .p'Taff TIN 7W mpuxa

and sing songs and praises. mraOTIl JTITW Hal irr:S7 D"iaiXl

And the Levites played harps, niTSTSrm 0'n?Sn31 3*73331 nrnna Q'lTll

lyres, cymbals and trumpets and

countless other musical 1D0O N73 T» '7331

instruments.12

In ancient Israel, as in the neighboring countries, military victories were
celebrated with parades, led by professional and amateur bands of women
musicians, singing, dancing and playing the timbrel.

We read in rj'n m*W how the victory over the Egyptian any was celebrated by
the Israelite women:

Then Miriam the prophetess, jinx niriX "X'ZJn 0*7? hp_ni

Aaron's sister, took a drum in her

hand, and all the women followed """HX D'OSn'^D ,]XSD] rTT? ^Firmx

her, with hand-drums and

dancing.13

e out to celebrate the victory

i Arachin 2:3-6

ah Sukkah. Chapter 5:4

the women came out from all the COS" "SXSni

towns of Israel to meet King Saul ' " "

with singing and dancing, with "'THai** ~*S77 7X"*?" '"3 73a

joyful songs and with hand-drums --»»- -»«h» -»->•«-,

and three-stnnged lyres.14 IVS'-' ~™¥ ' x 3F~

:D , o?P2i nnatra D'ana

And the Psalmist gives a poetic description of one of these parades:

In front are the singers, after them Qijj] ~PX D'lB in~p

the instrumentalists; with them are

the maidens playing hand-drums." JSIBSlD ~1G73 "]"r!2

In order to arrange a proper funeral, the ancient Israelite was expected to hire a

band of professional women singing dirges:

Consider now! Call for the walling nrKi2"i1 niMipa 1 ? 1X~.pi 1:313""

^tarn in 1 ?* niaanrrttc

entury Egypt, noted that it is a husband's

ibliged mw ~m

ere eu ° 9y rtmnpa 2"n

a'rpi ison ni> r\wy7\

.nnnrr 73 yns

' e at 17 inns' X7 7Kic? , aw 'is itdki

J iunpm r7'7n '3B?n

17 Maimonides Mishneh Torah N

Apparently in fourteenth-century Spain there were still professional women who
sang dirges. An ordinance from Seville reads, "If a (Christian] knight or burgher
dies. .. Moorish and Jewish women should not be hired for lamentations."! 8

So when did the restrictions on music begin?

A Nation in Mourning

After the destruction of the Sanctuary, the Israelites were in no mood to rejoice

with happy songs. In. the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah describes the

devastating scene:

The judges are ni
gates. The young
heard singing. 19

□rinjn D'-ito inw nyiyn mpr

i, exiled from Jerusalem, imprisoned in taa, were asked to
entertain their captors with sacred music from the Bet HaMikdash. now lying in
ruins. They wrote of this experience:

For there our captors, i
demanded gleeful song, "Sing us
some of your songs from Zion."
But how could we sing the Lord's song
on foreign soil?20

irs-nx iron
rirnrua ir'?n rnim o-rnr'y

TW"-aT 1T3.W UftXff Off '3

]V'i twj i: 1 ? WV nnntp ir?"?lm
iD2 nn-rx ^y 'n -pp-nx vtrj yx

What a contrast from the celebrations described in Psalm 126. perhaps marking

the end of the first exile:

A song of pilgrimage. ni?Vnn TB

:Q-q'?n3 vn its nr^-nx 'n aiwa

men our no..ms ana - : -, ^ m ^ lr3 p 1TO j^- T X

full of joyous song!21

The Mishnah records that shortly before the destruction of the Sanctuary by the
Romans, the people of Jerusalem were in no mood to have banquets with
music.

When the Sanhedrin ceased to rvrnao n^uriTO

function, song ceased to be heard in

the places of feasting.22 mxriwnri rran Twrt 703

'ell-to-do. Maybe life on foreign soil wasn't so bad after all,
celebrate. They wanted to participate in the rich activities of the
e desire for wine, women and song, formalizing a long-standing,

This statement by Rav in the third century seems to imply that a threat of
punishment was required in order to keep people away from the banquet halls
of Babylon and their associated musical rr

d song should -.py^ x -, af xynen x: im 31 inx

Writing hundreds of years later. Maimonides still stressed the historical re

for Jews' refraining from music making.

(The rabbis at the time of the

prohibited playing musical
instruments, singing songs and
making any sound resembling sonq. It
is forbidden to have any pleasure -
therein, and it is forbidden to listen to
them because of the destruction [of

the

emple]

T37 ""733 ]M7 SOW 1-ITJ pi

' ?ip 'vara ?2i "tnr "*n "?ai

im mnen tion
p-iinn nan }yntf7 -noxi

The Maharal of Prague, wnting in the sixteenth century, acknowledged that
music is a natural activity for humankind-making music is a reflection of a
normal life. But as long as we are in exile then our lives are not normal. Singing
takes our minds off our troubles and allows us to forget our problems. But the
Jew should never forget that he is in exile, that he is in mourning for the
destroyed Sanctuary. Therefore the Jew should not indulge in the pleasures of
music.25

Orgiastic Music

But mourning for the unpnn n'3 was not the only reason for the Jew to refrain
from music. There was another reason. Music, associated with the pagan orgies
or secular banquets of the surrounding culture, was seen as an activity which
would distract the Jew from the expected norms of ethical behaviour, noin. Jews
were expected to answer to a higher authority. Many rabbis cited the words of
the ancient Hebrew prophet Hoshea:

23TB Sola 48 :a
2t Maimonides: 1
SKahn 1:62

D'ny? T5 _i ?x I "'NIC iccrrix

Among the "other people," music was associated with seductive songstresses
and excessive imbibing. Sex, drugs and rock n' roll apparently had its
counterpart in the ancient world.

Addressing his fellow

Whoever drinks to the accompaniment
of the four musical instruments brings
five punishments to the world; as the
prophet Isaiah said: "Woe unto them
that nse up early in the morning, that
they may follow strong drink, that stay
up late into the night, till wine Inflame
them! And the harp, and the lute, the
timbrel and the pipe, and wine, are in
their feasts: but they regard not the
work of the Lord." (Isaiah 5: 1 1-1 2]27

third century Palestine, Rabbi Yohanan said:

"iht wn nyxiKa nnwn bi

lsii' "pa? ipaq ' y g*3W3 'in

DF 1 ?"^ V' T?» 'inxn

orrnwa pi rim *\n Vaii iiib rr)m

itra: k'7 nyr ?ys nki

:iKi x 1 ? pr iwy.ni

The Dangers of Acculturation
Yet other authonties objected to music
songs, abandoning the ancient Israelite
was a manifestation of assimilation. E

for other reasons. Singing non-Jewish
music in favor of new gentile melodies,
imuel Archevoltt, a sixteenth-century

alian Rabbi, condemned the practice of cantors who v
> the melodies of popular secular tunes.

i singing holy prayers

What can we say? How can we justify
the actions of a few hauanim of our
day, who chant the holy prayers to the

pins: rcai ira in linn
inn 'irn nsp 7y

ZTalmud Bavli Sotah 48:a

tunes of popular secular songs? nwnpn mTDnn a'jJME?

While reading sacred texts they are vmpm TOTI , inni

thinking of obscenities and lewd

iyrics.28 mny titi ~d to: nny-n tid*

Yet, Archevolti's contemporary. Rabbi Israel Najara ol Tsefat. encouraged Jews
to sing Hebrew texts to gentile melodies. His anthology of piyyutim. Shirey
Yisrael (published in 1587) is a collection of sacred songs to be sung to the
tunes of popular Arabic and Turkish songs. One of the songs from this collection
is the popular shabbat zemer, Yah Ribon 'A/am. Najara acknowledged that
people liked singing the popular songs of the surrounding culture. He thought
that by creating poems with sacred words that resembled the lyrics of the
secular songs, he could encourage non-religious Jews to enjoy singing songs
in praise of God, while using tunes they knew and enjoyed.
Liturgical Music

All authorities seem to have agreed that music was not forbidden in the
synagogue liturgy. Yet there were some restrictions. The use of musica
nstruments was forbidden. And, according to some authorities, cantors had to
be careful not to sing in an ostentatious manner. Writing in the 16th century,
Rabbi Joseph Caro warned,
It is not good . for a Shaliah Tsibbur in^arQ "|'~1K73U7 Y"tt7

, . hrSh .fp , iLZ y, ^ ,ly, ° ...a-urifcpTwrona

To answer that objection, Rabbi Leone of Modena, Italy wrote h 1622:

28 Rabbi Samuel b. Elhanan Archivolti (15151611, Padua) Amgot t
quoted in Adler RISM, p. 101.
I Shulchan Aruch 53:11

If assistants who have been graced
by the Lord with sweet voices stand
beside him and improvise an
accompaniment . as is the common
practice among the Ashkenazim, and
if it happens that they harmonize well
with him, should this be considered a
sin?

Are these individuals on whom the
Lord has bestowed the ability to
master the technique of music to be
condemned if they use it for His
glory?

If so, then cantors might as well be
told to hee-haw like donkeys and
refrain from singing sweetly. .

No intelligent person, no scholar
ever thought of forbidding the use of
the greatest possible beauty of voice
in praising the Lord, blessed be He,
nor the use of musical art which
awakens the soul to His glory. .
We have proved that Rashi, Tosafot.
Maimonides and all the great
authorities forbade music only in
connection with feasting and regal
luxury, while they permitted it in all

fwn 7v mxai
. . -inra inraio nip rryjrn

D'V'on i7xx nay ax

... any 7ip n a::n 7wx

D'T:3wxn mrrtp fa am 7a nn:a

my nor

17 oiyi lorrirw mjn

'xon? on? 3K?rr Dxn

ri7X7 -n ijiro tzwz iox p oxi

rmoa nnann ny-r

•n m 1337 o'xai

?wrw3J3 cxon vn-

tax "m7w 7y id ax 7ir;: ,nT7n

a"nnna cnyi: rrrw

a7ip lo-yr x?i

aan ix nyi-p dip nyi "7y rpy x?i

lion' ti7 raff7n -nox7

7PDXW a'yi inrrr 7ipa

maa7 nws:n mmynn nxrn nnarm

D'anm msoim v w7E7 7-y7 urnin nn

xniDi xnnr nox x? a?iy '"?ni 731

D-aVna ix ra to i:ynrn X7x

"727 - inx JQ1X 73a 73N

Music in the Workplace

There were a few other cases where the Rabbis relaxed the prohibition and

allowed music.

What if music were being created not merely for sensual indulgence, but for

some more parctical reason? In the Talmud Bavli we find the following

song of the "gai

itted but the
" is forbidden."

Xjin 27 1QX

n "Tin xinr

Why were sailors and farmers allowed to sing? And who were the "garda'ey"
and what was the problem with their singing?
Rashi explains:31

nv .72m mrao 'acin - '"tin xinr
.on3K7na onrt X7x irx«?

rw-nn© nyu72 para© - "77271

nrrniri? a-iiwn nx p3? x'7n irw

an-7y 2iyi Twn 7ip'7 robin©

pinW7 X7X irK - 'X77I7

The song of the ploughmen
used to calm the oxen that
pulling the plough.

But the song of the garda'ey.
(presumably "weavers") is purely
for their own pleasure and

(it has nothing to
i their work).

According to another interpretation" the garda'ey were tanners, considered to
be vile and vulgar men33 whose songs were coarse and full of curses. The

implication of this interpretation is there is no objection to singing per se; music
doesn't need to have a justification. The only objection is to songs whose lyrics

So we might say that there are two basic attitudes: One that music is
corrupting force in the life of a Jew, and that it should be shunned. Excepttons to
this principle can be made only where it can be proven that music has a noble
or practical purpose (such as music in praise of God or to facilitate one's work).
The second attitude is that music is basically OK, it is good for the soul, and
need be avoided only in those cases where it is connected with something evil
(such as the banquets of the pagans or the vulgar lyrics of weavers' songs).
Wedding Music

Music for the wedding feast was another occasion for which nearly all
authorities agreed that an exemption from the prohibition should be made. After
all, the ban on music was merely a rabbinic law, whereas the commandment to
gladden the hearts of the bride and groom was from the Torah itself.

The 1

3 of

> would dance at weddings, juggling

They say that R. Yeudah bar ll'ai used
to take a myrtle-wood baton and
dance before the bride, sinqinq:
'Beautiful bnde and graceful.' -

:xy7-x "13 rrnrr ti 7y r?y nnx

.n^n '337 ip-wi oin *?v 13 ?bu n*7W

.rnTOm nx: n73 nmxi

.nVrtx -pin - pnr an -a Vxww m

.ip-im rrarqx n? a-pin xnx 21

il Tosafists clarified that there are no restrictions on singing a

Singing which is associated with a
mitsvah is penitted: for example the
rejoicing with bride and groom at the

'157 mxa '"VU TB

31TB Ketuvot 17a

pmyw nsin nyan pia
: if?3i inn nnw?

The same principle appears in the writings of the sixteenth-century Polish rabbi
Moshe Isserles.

But everything is permitted for the sake
of a Divine commandment, such as
[rejoicing] in the home of a bride and
groom.36

.msn Tils'? pi

,n7Di ]nn n-22 nia

: nif Van

And in the fourteenth century, Rabbi Jacob Moellin. the Maharil, ruled that one
must not celebrate a wedding without a band.

Once there was a king who decreed
that [in his realm] the playing of
musical instruments was forbidden.
[Now it happened that a couple was
about to be married and inquired if it
would be proper to hold a wedding
without musical instruments.]

The Maharil ruled that the bride and
qroom must be taken to another city
so that the wedding could be held with
musical instruments?'

7winn in nnx ays
■hp '"733 mr xVw

mnx Ty 1 ? n"73i inn -p^in 1 ? mxi
n:innn dip nwy 1 ?

."HP ^33 llf? H3

Despite what was clearly a popular practice with nearly universal rabbinic
support, some authorities forbade the playing of musical instruments, even at
weddings. Rabbi Meir Auerbach instituted a ban that was endorsed by the

STosafot to Gitin 7a

3S Shulchan Amch Orah Hayim 560:3

2? Mishnah Serurah (Ba'er Hetev) Shulhan Aruch Orah Hayim 338:2

Ashkenazi rabbis of nineteenth-century Jerusalem, forbidding instrumental

music at all weddings which took place in Jerusalem.

The Voice of a Woman

Yet another restriction was that involving the singing of women. For centuries,
women were forbidden to sing aloud in both synagogue and church.
The voice of a woman was considered lustful, sexually enticing.
Our Rabbis taught: 1331 un

Rahav inspired lust by her name: >r7JirT nm i afn

Yael by her voice: n ^p 2 ty,

Avigail by her memory; JTJrran "rrSK

rwvma TiNC-m b^a

R. Joseph said:

When men sing and women join in •

is HKe a tire raging ir

IDT 31 -IflK

xrrans - 'w: -:yi na? nnr
jvnyp tod - H34 'lyi -wj nnr

act a man from praying the Shema? According to the Talmud
s naked leg, and her exposed hair, and .

forbidden woman (or, according to
other translators, [Listening to] a
woman's voice is sexual enticement).

miy rra/>u hip bxmw -iqk

38TBMegta 15a
39TB Sola 48a

i R. Samuel's ruling imply that ar
time, or merely that it is forbidden

inherently arousing at
He one is praying? It

In another well-known talmudic passage, Rabbi Yehudah refuses to send
regards to his colleague's wife, fearing that his intentions might be
misinterpreted. Yehudah quotes as his source the dictum by Rabbi Samuel.

[Rabbi Nahman said to Rabbi
Yehudah;]Will you send a greeting tc

[my wife] Yaltha?

'btr-- XETtf

prohibited,

, in his Code c

talmudic

d by Rabbi Sar

ca Vip. In Maimonides' formulation the expression is miyn Sip yraao.
s understands the word nny to be a noun. An rrny sa woman whor

whether singing or speaking, is

y not marry. To hear

as it may be alluring and tempt a mar
mixed dancing). One may imply from

i Improper relationship
that there isno

susceptible to a forbidden

Men are forbidden to make gestures

i7x mpinn ~a~ nsnyrr

.rrnyn "7V Tiffn xin 'in

fi-ip 1 ? mo -noxi

H1131 VT3

jrto signal with the eyes to a woman m-iyn ]ti nnX7 Vm nm7 IX

pkt 7j?n7 in nay pinw? ix

r should he smell her perfume nor ,,1^ Q , m2 ^^ ,^, gw

mire her beauty.

-nox rra^a can 1 ? ix
m-iyn 7ip ytnw 1 ? irsxi

upon her hair.40 .TIOX myw mxi 1 ? IX

In some of the later halachic works the expression rrnjrn top mart has been
reinterpreted. In the Shulhan Aruch. Rabbi Joseph Caro uses the term
7WK -ini top and Rabbi Moshe Isserles uses imj as an adjective modifying the
word bv- nny 'rip is now to be translated not as "the voice of a forbidden
woman" but as 'an enticing voice." Here is the passage from the Shulhan
Aruch. First Rabbi Caro:

While one is reciting the Shema, one riWX TIM 71p ny'DWD "irtT'7 8T

should be careful to avoid listening to

the voice of a woman singing. ytiV riX"Hp> ny5?2

And now the words of Rabbi Isserles:

But once he's accustomed to a voice, it jpy 13 - x 13 'mrr 7ip 73X

is no longer considered stimulating."

Of course, these prohibitions couldn't prevent women from singing. A vast
literature of folksong has come down to us: the creations of many generations of
women singing lullabies to their children and love songs to themselves.

4)Maimonides:Laws of Prohibited Relations 21:2

4 Shuknan Aruch: Laws of the Recitation of the Shema 75:3

Since women could not sing in the presence ol men. they were of course
prohibited from serving as sheliah tsibbur r a liturgical service. Yet there are

hints that at various times in our history women have put together their own,

In the Rhineland, in the town of Worms, a group of women had their own
synagogue, adjoining that of the men. The tombstone of a woman who died in
the thirteenth century, reads as folows:

This headstone commemorates the eminent and excellent lady Uranya
bat harav Avraham who was the master of the the synagogue singers.
She also officiated ana sang nymns with sweet melodies before the
female worshtppers. In devout service may her memory be preserved.42
Tame That Tune

Throughout the ages, authonttes in various lands have realized the importance
of musical censorship. In the fourth century before the common era, Plato wrote
of the necessity to regulate which music would be heard in the ideal republic.
And in more recent times, Tipper Gore has lobbied for the introduction of
warning labels on the covers of all recorded products.

The rabbinic authorities were equally impressed with the power of music. They
recognized its ability to arouse the passions, whether manifest as love for God
or lust for women. They recognized the necessity for music h prayer, in
celebrations and even in the workplace. They recognized that a people uses
song as a vehicle for ethnic self-identification. They ensured that a Jew would
be defined not only by what he ate and read, but also by what he sang and what
he heard.

in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia:

Some rabbis even envisioned a musi which would have its plac
utpoia of the messianic era. We will close with the final s<
delivered some four hundred years ago by Rabbi

And then [in the perfect time to come], we, irj>7N Tt QTZH WttN TXT

In the name of the Lord our God. will sing

C7ui -or nrm tu totj
a new song, complete and perfect,

which will resonate to the vibrations of the n:r7yn np'oinn "mynn .mix 7~\i?'y

music ot the heavenly spheres,

and the angels will joyfully sing .QTI7K "33 73 1VT in* pai

antiphonally and h harmony.

tit 7x nr topi

until the whole universe will be completely p^ n7iyn 72 N7nrT "7y

filled with light, joy. happiness and

.ip-i Tmr\ nnniz/i mix

honor.43

Cohen, Boaz. "The Responsum of Maimontdes
Music Journal, 2:2 (May-June, 1935). Repnn
Tradition In Judaism. NY: Ktav. 1969.

Koskoff. Ellen. "The Sound of a Woman's Voice: Gender and Music in a New
York Hassidic Community." In Ellen Koskoff. ed. Women and Music in Cross-
Cultural Perspective. Westport. CT: Greenwood Press. 1987.

Myers, Carol. "The Drum-Dance-Song Ensemble: Women's Performance in
Biblical Israel." In Kimberly Marshall, ed. Rediscovering the Muses: Women's
Musical Traditions. Boston: Northeastern University Press. 1993.

Taitz. Emily. 'Kol Ishah-The Voice of Woman: Where Was It Heard in Medieval
Europe?" Conservative Judaism 38 (1986). 46-61.

ERIC WERNER, THE JEW

By Fhujp E. Miller

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

New York

On August 1, 1988 Eric Werner was laid to rest; it would have
been his eighty-seventh birthday. As we approach the tenth anniversary of
his death, I thought to commit to paper some of the anecdotes, incidents and
events which Dr. Werner shared with me over the years, incidents which
highlight not Eric Werner the musicologist who was known to many as the
successor to Abraham Z. ldelsohn as professor of Jewish music at Hebrew
Union College in Cincinnati and later among the founders of the College-
Institute's School of Sacred music, the author of the seminal The Sacred
Bridge and a ground breaking biography of Felix Mendelssohn, but rather,
on Eric Werner the Jew.

Erich Raphael Werner was born in Vienna on July, 1901 to a
perfectly middle-class Jewish family. (He dropped the final "h" in his first
name when he emigrated from Germany and thereafter always insisted his
name be pronounced with a hard "k". Furthermore, he refused to
countenance the pronunciation of his father name by English speakers as
"Vemer." Indeed, he would round his lips in an exaggerated manner and say,
"Wuh. Wuh. Wuh. My name is WER-ner.) His father Julius was a teacher
of classics, and Dr. Werner told me that his own love of the Greek tragedies
and of Horace went back to the many enjoyable hours he and his father spent
reading texts together. The family originated in Prague and moved to the
Austro-Hungarian capital during the mid-nineteenth century. One of Dr.
Werner's earliest memories was being scolded by the Galician Jewish
woman who served as his nursemaid. Speaking in a broken mixture of
Yiddish and German she would upbraid his misbehaving by reminding him
that what he was doing was not worthy of an "ainikel" of the "Noydeh
Behiydeh." Unfortunately I never had the presence of mind to ask him how
he was precisely descended from the "Noda Bi-Yehudah," Rabbi Ezekiel
Landau (1713- 1793), one of the outstanding luminaries of eighteenth
century Ashkenazic Jewry.

While Dr. Werner was very proud of this bit of rabbinic ancestry,

DR. PHILIP E. MILLER is director of the Klau Library, Hebrew Union College ■ Ji
Institute of Religion, at the New York Campus. He has served for many years oi

Executive Board of the American Society for Jewish Music.

he was even more proud of his father's and uncle's political activity. For had
membership cards been issued in the early days of the Zionist Movement,
Julius Werner and his brother, Dr. Sigmund Werner, would surely have had
single digits on theirs. Dr. Sigmund Werner was especially close to Theodor
Herzl, being his personal physician who closed Herzl's eyes on his death
bed. Sigmund Werner also served as an editor of Die Welt, the Zionist
newspaper founded by Herzl. One of Eric Werner's proudest possessions
were his uncle's journals, which are now housed at the Leo Baeck Institute
in New York City. Forgetting the chronology for a moment, I once asked Dr.
Werner if he had ever met Herzl. He laughed, scrunching up his eyes as he
customarily did when he was highly amused, and reminded me that he was
only a toddler when Herzl died. Yet he knew that Herzl had been a frequent
visitor at his parents' house, that he had given him a silver rattle as a baby
gift when he was born. He had also been dandled on Herzl's knee, although
he himself had no active memory of such.

Dr. Werner did not attend any Hebrew school or "talmud torah" as
we Americans know them. Rather, he was instructed by private tutors, which
was customary at that time for his social class. His principal tutor was
Michael Berkowitz (1865-1935), who eked out his living as a teacher and
journalist, and is best remembered today as the first editor of Herzl's
writings in Hebrew translation.

Eric Werner was the only person, let alone Jew, I have known to
bear an authentic dueling scar. When 1 saw it, it was a mere pink
discoloration at his hairline, yet in its day it was recognized as a legitimate
"trophy." In his first year at the University of Vienna Dr. Werner had heard
an upperclassman, a Ukrainian of minor Galician nobility, make an anti-
Semitic remark. Unable to allow the insult to pass, Dr. Werner confronted
him and demanded an apology. When the Ukrainian, who did not know
Werner from a hole in the ground, refused to apologize, Werner demanded
satisfaction. As he told me of this incident, Dr. Werner could hardly restrain
his laughter. He admitted he had been such a hothead in his youth. (As if he
had not been as an adult!) The Ukrainian tried to dissuade him from
pursuing the duel, but as the challenged, the Ukrainian got to choose the
weapon. Because it could do the least damage, he chose foils. Dr. Werner
admitted to me that he was never a good fencer, but his ardor did not permit
fear to stand in the way. Immediately after saluting, the Ukrainian lunged
and nicked young Eric on the forehead, drawing blood. It would have been

so the Ukrainian had the bad luck to take a mis-step backwards which
caused him to fall and drop his weapon. Werner stepped forward and
accepted the Ukrainian's resignation and apology, an apology which

included an anti-Semitic comment ["1 apologize for saying 'Jew-pig,' my
dear Jew-pig!']. The onlookers roared with laughter, and Werner, the victor,
had to endure it. He could hardly challenge the fellow to yet another duel -
It would have been poor form. I asked Dr. Werner if he knew what ever
became of the Ukrainian. He did - the fellow had "died nobly" [Werner's
own words] in 1920 in a cavalry charge fighting for Ukrainian
independence.

Dr. Werner chose to pursue graduate study in Berlin. Many already
know of his studies there with Ferruccio Busoni and of his writing his
doctoral dissertation in Latin at the University of Strasbourg (because it was
no longer possible to do so in German and his knowledge of French was
insufficient to the task). But few know of his curious friendship with the son
of a Berlin banker. When Dr. Werner came to Berlin he brought letters of
introduction to his father's and uncle's friend. It had been his family's wish
that he become involved in Zionist politics as well as his musical studies.
But Werner really had no patience for the endless debates and discussions
of the Meinikestrasse-Kreise, the cliques of Zionists who gathered at the
Palaestina-Amt ["Palestine Office"] on Meineke Street, and did his best to
stay away. At that same time he met the son of a German banker. His man,
who was a few years older, was on the outs with his father, a totally
assimilated and secularized German Jew, because the son was an ardent
Zionist. How the banker's son wanted to break into the
Meinikestrasse=Kreise, and how Eric Werner wanted to break out! It was

under such circumstances that Eric Werner and Gershom Scholem began a
stormy "friendship" which lasted more than fifty years.

I once asked Eric Werner how, given his family's connections, he
did not end up in Palestine. (This was years before Philip Bohlman wrote his
masterful study on the World Centre for Jewish Music.) Werner answered

story, 1 pressed him for details. In the 1934, just after the rise of Hitler, Eric
Werner made a visit to Palestine, intending to remain there. He had the
misfortune of visiting the new colony of Nahariyya as the Arabs were
mounting an attack. Never to shrink from a fight, Werner followed the
settlers to the "slick," the cache of hidden weapons, where he took up a
Tommy gun. True to form, the Arabs allowed the British to surround the
Jews while they slipped away. Werner was arrested by the British with the
Tommy gun smoking in his hands. His tourist visa was revoked, and he was
deported back to Germany. Having thus been declared "persona non grata,"
he was blacklisted from entering Palestine again. Dr. Werner was eternally
grateful to Dr. Julian Morgenstem (1881- 1976), president of Hebrew Union
College, for having saved his life with the extraordinary visa that permitted
him to come to the United States with eleven other scholars, and his eulogy

for Dr. Morgenstern which he gave at the chapel of the Jewish Institute of
Religion on West 68th Street was one of the most eloquent and heart-felt 1
have ever heard.

Werner was reluctant to speak of his experiences during the Nazi
era. On two occasions I had to ask him specific questions to elicit specific
answers. The first: I told him I had heard a story that he had stared down an
SS man who had a gun trained at his head. Was this apocryphal or true? I
shall never forget how his face took on a look of profound sadness. It had
happened before November of 1938 (Kristallnacht), but he did not specify
when. A detachment of uniformed men came into the Jewish Theological
Seminary in Breslau on a day when for some reason only two men, Werner
and another, were present. The two were herded into the chapel, which the
Nazis had already desecrated, the ark being opened and the Torah scrolls
scattered about, unrolled, on the floor. Werner and the other man were order
to unbutton their trousers and to urinate on the scrolls. The other man,
perhaps through fear, lost control and urinated. The Nazis laughed and
released him. Dr. Werner then took a deep breath and told me that the man,
ashamed of his action, then went to the roof of the Seminary building and
leapt to his death. During this ordeal Werner stood there, his hands by his
side. The officer commanding the Nazis repeated the order to Werner, who
steadfastly refuse to comply. The officer then took out his revolver and
pointed it at Werner's head. Werner's eyes unflinchingly met the officers.
After a minute or so of staring each other down, the officer put his weapon
up and ordered his troop into formation and marched out of the building. He
ended his narrative: "Please do not ask me the name of my unfortunate
colleague who took his own life. I would not tell you, for I would never
dishonor the poor man's memory."

The second: Was it true that he was prepared to travel to Germany
after the War in order to execute the man who had murdered his father? Yes,
it was true. Dr. Werner had learned how his father had refused to kneel when
the group of Jews he was with was ordered to do so before their execution.
Dr. Julius Werner faced his murderer, a man he knew from Breslau, standing
ramrod erect. "So let us begin with you." were the words uttered by the
leader of the execution squad. Somehow Eric Werner had learned not only
the identity of the murderer, but his address in post-War Germany, and he
was prepared to travel there in order to take revenge. But Dr. Werner's wife
Elizabeth, fearful for her husband, asked Rabbi Leo Baeck to talk sense to
him, which he did. Werner confessed to me that although he had honored his
promise to Rabbi Baeck that he would not return to Germany, he regretted
that his father's murderer did ultimately die peacefully.

In an engaging vignette entitled "Recollections of Eric Werner,"

which appeared in the publication IMI News (95/3-4, pg. 8), Uri Toeplitz
writes of their time together in Venice in 1983, and how encyclopedic
Werner's knowledge was of Venetian Jewish history, "...when he conducted
us through the Ghetto. On the way he also found the opportunity to enlarge
our knowledge of seafood and how seafood should be cooked." I suspect that
I also received the same lecture in the culinary arts that Maestro Toeplitz
mentions in passing. Before proceeding further, I hasten to add that I
consulted two observant Jews who knew Eric Werner to ask if they thought
it would be untoward to reveal the following story. They laughed when I told
them, adding that not to do so would deny Werner's disciples, real and those
who came too late to have known him, the opportunity of seeing an unusual
and unexpected aspect of his nature.

"Philip," he asked me as we were having a cup of coffee together
one morning, "How do you cook crabs?" I told him that I do not eat crabs,
but that I had heard that one must cook them by plunging them while they
are still alive into boiling water. "Correct and wrong!" he exclaimed. Taking
a paper napkin, he drew a circle and added what looked to be claws. "See
here" he said, marking an "X" on one side of the "crab" slightly under a
claw. "I have researched this thoroughly. Here, at this spot, there is a nerve
bundle. I take a thin and sharply-pointed knife and insert it here and twist,
thereby severing the nerve bundle. In this manner I can cook the crabs alive
and yet they will feel no pain. Tsa'ar ba'ale havvim ["kindness to living
creatures"] is an important principle in Judaism." I then congratulated him
on devising a method to shekht crabs! Drawing himself to his full sitting
height, he looked at me sternly and said, "I hope you are not mocking me,
Philip."

Perhaps the most telling incident of Eric Werner's Jewishness I
observed in the fifteen years I knew him occurred in the early 1980s. We
were at Swensen's, a restaurant that was across the street from Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York City. In the middle
of eating a cup of coffee and apropos of nothing, he suddenly asked me if
I had ever play that game in which one imagines if one could choose living
at another time and in another place. Not waiting for a reply he immediately
went on to say that he used to fantasize about being a mandarin living during
such and such a period during such and such a dynasty in Imperial China.
Putting down his spoon he look directly at me and said, "But no longer. I
would choose to be born at the same time and place. Although I have had the
misfortune of seeing my generation and its culture destroyed by barbarians,
I have also had the privilege of having seen Israel reborn." And with his
voice growing ever strident and his words emphasized by his fist pounding
on the table, he slowly rose to his feet and declared, "But more than that,

mine is first generation in one hundred generations that can say with joy that
Jerusalem is OUR capital!"

I shall always remember him standing there in Swensen's,
pounding his fist on the table, and all the other people in the restaurant,
open-mouthed and stating in rapt attention. Dr. Werner then looked around,
and with no sign of embarrassment or discomfort sat down and resumed
drinking his cup of coffee as if nothing had happened.

HAZZAN SAMUEL ROSENBAUM
A PERSONAL REFLECTION

By HAZZAN GREGORY YAROSLOW

My Dear Colleagues and Friends:

It is a very great honor and privilege to have been asked to speak this
morning, yet it is the one task I have dreaded for quite some time, one
which I wish-from the deepest precincts of my heart and soul did not
have to be. While each of us here today has our own individual and
special memories of Sam, I beleive I am in a unique position. As
many of you know, I grew up in Rochester, NY, at Temple Beth El,
and have always - for my entire life - been Sam's student. That is
why I was selected for this heartrending assignment and why I have
been asked to speak, albeit with great fear and trepidation. Some of
this reflection I wrote to Sam's beloved Ina and their devoted children
- Michael, Judy (who is here with us today) and David - at the time
of Sam's funeral, and to the Temple Beth El family as they
memorialized Sam a couple of weeks ago, so I apologize to you, Judy,
and to the others who may have already heard or read some of my
remarks.

I was absolutely devastated when I heard the awful news of Sam's
untimely death. Because Sam meant so much to me, I felt I had lost
my anchor. He was my teacher, my mentor, my counselor, my friend.
He was always there when I needed him, when my family needed
him, when our Assembly needed him - and we all still do. I try to
find a modicum of solace and comfort in knowing that I am a
beneficiary of the examples he set and of his good counsel.

I realize I have been truly blessed by having been one who went from
being a somewhat timid Hebrew School and then Bar Mitzvah
student, through Sam's "Junior Cantors Club" and his Megillah and
Torah reading groups, including reading Torah on Yom Kippur
afternoon for an "intimate" group of 3600 people, to "Junior

GREGORY YAROSLOW is the Hazzan of Congregation Emanu El, San Bemadino,CA. He
grew up in Rochester, NY at Temple Beth El under the loving tutelage of Hazzan Samuel
Rosenbaum, z"1.

Congregation" leader and teacher - using the melodies and nusach
Sam lovingly wrote out for us, to Bar/Bat Mitzvah tutor at the very
young age of 14'/2, and much, much more throughout high school and
college, giving me Jewish music to sing - my first taste of hazzanut -
and, finally, the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary
of America.

My earliest memories of Sam begin at the age of 3, in the original site
of Temple Beth El, seated beside my father, alav hashalom, where he
would find a very small talit to fit me and point to the words in the
siddur as Sam chanted them. I would listen to Sam and be
completely enchanted throughout the entire service. I remember
waking up one Shabbat morning a few years later to find my parents
watching television (which was very unusual) only to discover the
horrifying scene of my shul engulfed in flames, with Sam helping the
firemen rescue the Sifrey Torah.

Memories of my Bar Mitzvah include the first and only time I came
to a lesson very unprepared. Sam asked for our phone number so he
could speak with my father, z'l. I told him my father wasn't home,
that he was at his office. Sam demanded that number and I told him
my father did not like being disturbed on Sundays. Well, that tactic
didn't work and Sam became even more agitated. I gave him the
number, he called and my father answered. I knew 1 was in trouble,
both with Sam and my father! Needless to say, I was always
prepared after that. Final rehearsals always were held at 10:00 on
Friday morning. Parents had to miss work and students got the day
off from school, which made the impending ceremony seem even
more special. Sam told us not to follow him too closely during the
hakafot so that we wouldn't step on the hem of his robe. Of course,
1 did not follow that instruction well. Even though I am not sure
what made it so, my Bar Mitzvah was a very important, formative
time for me, due in no small part to Sam's tremendous influence.

Sam's influence was extremely strong, leaving many indelible
memories. 1 recall doing various tasks for him between students (for
which I was paid the grand sum of $1 .00 per hour). Once he had me

paste labels correcting an error in the printed scores of a newly
commissioned composition. 1 vividly remember Sam ordering me to
wash my hands before placing the labels over a paragraph in the
scores. He also insisted they be placed perfectly. This is but one
example of the strength of the influence he (and my father) had in
trying to teach me that "if something is worth doing, it is worth doing
right". 1 still find it difficult to escape that perfectionism.

I will never forget him keeping 80 or 90 B'nai Mitzvah students in
line, long before such actions could become cause for concern, with
a flick off the end of his chalk which hit the offender at the very back
of the room squarely between the eyes ! The nameplate on his desk
that read "Simon Legree" and the rampant rumors of the torture
techniques he was reputed to have used: something about being
hung up in the boiler room by ice hooks in one' s ears, or of having
one's right earlobe stretched longer than the left if one were to make
too many mistakes, spoke volumes to impressionable, if naive,
students. Each succeeding "generation" of students would dutifully
pass on these and other bits of home-grown midrash. The experience
of working with Sam as a master teacher taught me much about
working with students, valuable lessons upon which I still heavily
rely. To this very day, a bullwhip hangs in menacing silence in my
office, and my students now pass on its story.

My mother tells the story of my father and her sitting at a Temple
dinner with Sam. He told her he was pleased at having the option to
threaten recalcitrant students with being sent to me for tutoring if
they didn't "shape up". My mother started to laugh and Sam asked
her why. She told him I would threaten them with being sent to him,
and he laughed.

I followed the path Sam consciously or unconsciously laid out for me.
I knew by the age of 17 I wanted to be a cantor, because Sam made
the words of our t'filotcome alive for me with music, poetry and
magic. It was through his mastery of the hazzanic arts and his
influence that I am the cantor I am today. Throughout my entire
career, I have turned to Sam for advice and help.

Sam guided me through the admissions process at JTS making sure
I was accepted, angrily calling New York when I told him how they
had treated me at my interview. Whenever conflicts arose between
the students and the administration, each and every time I challenged
the Seminary's administration to improve the Cantors Institute
program, Sam went to bat with me and for me, I always knew we
had Sam's support which, of course, came with the full weight of the
Assembly. I suppose it was a two way street - we had Sam and he
had an insider.

It wasn't until I graduated from JTS and became a member of the
Cantors Assembly that I even began to feel comfortable with calling
him "Sam" - a reticence grounded in early memories and images of
his imposing stature.

On a very personal, family level: my sister wrote to Sam's family
relating her remembrances of the influence he had on all of us. She
wrote that the shine on Sam's shoes lead our father to stop every
morning after breakfast and stoop to polish the tops of his shoes with
his napkin.

Also, in 1972 we asked Sam to officiate at my grandfather's funeral
because the "new" rabbi didn't know him and he didn't know the
rabbi. While I do not remember what he said, it brought us great
comfort at that most difficult time. When the time came for the
unveiling, Sam taught me how to officiate, giving me the t'filot and
teaching me the proper nusach. 1 was just beginning my studies at
the Seminary, I didn't know what to do and really wasn't sure I was
ready. Sam insisted I go through with it and gave me not only the
knowledge, but the courage to do so. It wasn't easy, but I felt his
presence standing behind me, holding me up, and somehow I made
it through.

Then, in 1995 when it became necessary for us to request comfort-
care-only for our beloved father, we again turned to Sam. My sister
writes of Sam hurrying to Mother's house in typical Rochester winter
weather. Like a member of the family, just as we thought of him, to
the back door, not the front. She tells of remembering so clearly the

man before whom we had trembled as Bar and Bat Mitzvah students,
who, not wishing to walk on the carpet in his boots, yet who had
come to give us comfort, and the strength and guidance to do what
had to be done, sitting in our living room in his stocking feet.

I will never forget the moving tribute he paid my father, the zechut
and kavod he accorded one so dear. I told Sam I had to sing at the
funeral, even though I wasn't sure I could. I also told him I had to do
so before anyone spoke, especially him. He made it possible and,
again, I felt his gentle yet powerful support. My family and I are ever
grateful to Sam for including my father, whom many of you
remember, in the Yizkor at our Convention that year by asking Ivan
Perlman to read part of Sam's eloquent eulogy. As far as we can
remember, that was the first time anyone who was neither a hazzan
nor a member of the Assembly was included in the Hesped.

When I heard the terrible news of Sam's death, I also knew I had to
help officiate at a funeral later that afternoon. I chose a setting of the
first Psalm from the Hazzan' s Manual which Sam edited, the same
setting I sang at my. father's funeral, upon which Sam voiced his
approval. Again, I felt like I was not going to be able to do what I
knew I had to do and, later, leading the minyan, using a book which
he also had a hand in editing, memories of Sam flooded my
consciousness. Somehow, I got through the day. I still feel it was
Sam supporting me yet again.

I cannot help but be overwhelmed with Sam's presence. He wrote the
text of the Commission which hangs on my office wall, and signed
it. He was on the editorial committee of almost every prayer book we
use in my synagogue. His words of tribute at our conventions always
evoked strong emotional responses, especially from my father. I
remember the many beautiful letters of acknowledgement he wrote to
those who made significant contributions to my father's memorial
fund in the Assembly, letters flowing with his unique and elegant
style.

In recent years he had many complimentary things to say about my
singing at the annual concerts of our Western Region, which brought
great naches and joy to my parents and even a bit of personal
satisfaction. Sam was never effusive with his praise, but I always
knew and remain extremely grateful for what he meant.

There are two things I will miss most: first, my own private annual
meeting with Sam, something which was almost a personal
pilgrimage. As I drove across the country visiting family, friends and
colleagues, Sam always made time available to meet with me,
enabling us to discuss a wide variety of issues: my feelings about
and problems with my job, the cantorate, the Cantors Assembly, even
the world in general. He would listen and then respond, and I would
relish being, at least for the moment, the sole beneficiary of his
extraordinary insight, and even gems from his music library. It was
for me an experience very much like what it must have been for
Moshe Rabeynu (I'havdil) as he stood upon HarSinai. Second, no
matter what occurred during the year - school, job, Assembly
business, whatever - 1 knew 1 could pick up the telephone and Sam
always would be there not only to calm me down, but to solve the
problem quickly and brilliantly.

Sam always was here for us: for his congregation and the city he
called home for so many years, for congregants and students, for my
family and myself, for the Cantors Assembly and all of us, his
colleagues. Therefore, it is good and right and proper that we are
here for him, for his family and for ourselves. Throughout his
professional life, maybe because of or maybe in spite of his many
talents and abilities, perhaps what we can best remember Sam for, is
that he gave his all for each and every one of us. And maybe, the
best memorial we can give Sam is for each of us, in our own way, to
continue his work and strive to achieve the goals which Sam
articulated so eloquently in all that he said and did.

Years ago Sam wrote of "the tear stained Machzor", the tears of our
pious ancestors mingling with our own on the page open to Kol
Nidre. I stand here now, our tears inextricably joined, this terrible,

terrible loss almost too much to bear. I take solace in knowing Sam
would want us to continue to build upon the foundations he laid
down for us, and in my conviction that he will continue to look out
for us.

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to share this reflection
with you and for your patience in listening. As we continue the
process of taking leave of our beloved Ne'im Z'mirot Yisrael, our
beloved Sam, I can only pray: "Adonai oz I'amo yiten, Adonai
y'varech et-amo vashalom. " - May The Eternal grant us, all, the
strength we need, and may we, each and all, be blessed with healing
and with wholeness - with shalom, with peace.

Amen.

NOTE to Editor:

The above is the full text of what I wanted to say at the Chicago
Convention. My actual remarks were limited due to time constraints.

GY

MUSIC REVIEW

Kol Nidrei ■ Synagogue Music For The Beginning To Intermediate

REVIEWED by Cantor Stephen Freedman

At the outset, I must admit that I am not a pianist, so it was with more than
a little trepidation that I agreed to review this collection of piano pieces.
Recognizing my limitations, I enlisted the assistance of arespected pianist,
pedagogue and arranger from my community to help me evaluate this
publication.

The most serious flaw of this publication can be found on its front cover.
Describing this collection as geared toward "beginning to intermediate"
pianists is simply not accurate. Even to the untrained eye, it is obvious that
the arrangements are more suited to intermediate and advanced pianists.

With that clarification, an intelligent analysis can now proceed. According
to my collaborator, there are several strengths to this collection, among
them: a good editorial approach to the arrangements (fingerings, phrasings,
etc.); a wide variety of styles and periods represented; and valuable
information about the composers and the music.

However, these strengths are more than counterbalanced by some glaring
weaknesses, among them: a poor proofreading job by the editor (missing
accidentals, the same note in both hands, etc.); some rather difficult
rhythms for even intermediate players, for example: triplets and syncopa-

My own reactions are somewhat less technical and more subjective in
nature. I simply did not enjoy the sound of many of the arrangements. 1
found the choice of some pieces rather unfamiliar to the average Jewish
i (though perhaps the level of familiarity might be greater in
s Canada than in the United States.) And I felt that pieces which are
marily sung free-style just did not work in a strict-meter pianistic

STEPHEN FREEDMAN is the Hazzan of Congregation Beth Israel, Worcester. MA. His
work "D'rasha B'shira, a Sermon in Song," was published by the Cantors Assembly in 1995

Iwaspuzzled by some of Taub's arranging as well. For instance, what
purpose is served by changing Lewandowski's original rhythm at the end
of "Ma Tovu?" And what is the reason for changing the harmonic
structure of some of the better-known compositions'! Perhaps my ap-
proach is old-fashioned, hut I always felt that the purpose of a simplified
arranpcment of a more difficult piece was to convey as accurate as
possible a rendition, within the parameters of a less demanding setting.

Having said that, there was one piece, "El Nora Alih. " which stood out
in my mind. Though rather formidable for an intermediate player, it is a
beautiful adaptation and an esthetically pleasing arrangement.

One final note: it appears that this publication is also being targeted for the
Israeli market; all of the texts appear in Hebrew in addition to English. It
may be just as well; according to my expert, this book simply won't sell
in America. Sadly, I must agee.

BOOK REVIEW

ISRAEL ADLER The Study of Jewish Music, A biblio-
graphical Guide.

By Jeffrey NUSSBAUM

Yuval Monograph Series X, The Magnes Press, The Hebrew Univer-
sity, Jerusalem. Published 1995. ISSN 0334-3758.92 pages.

Israel Adler, the distinguished Jewish music scholar and Director of the
Jewish Music Research Centre at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has
written a valuable book and it is the most recent reference publication of
its type. This bibliographical guide is the tenth publication in the Yuval
Monograph Series and in spite of its size, it presents a general overview,
including the most recent literature written on Jewish music topics. There
are other Jewish music reference publications that dwarfthis book such as
Alfred Sendrey's Bibliography of Jewish Music (1 95 1) which contains
over 10.000 items and is 404 pages; Irene Heskes' more recent Resource
Book of Jewish Music ( 1985) which is also more extensive and is over 300
pages; or Adler's own multi-volume publications devoted to Jewish music
in Repertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) (1975 and
1989). By Israel Adler's own account in the preface, this book has more
modest goals and is not intended to supplant those large projects. That
book remains to be written but in the meantime, this one does provide
important information on Jewish music and many of the main and most up-
to-date sources of writings in the field.

The book is divided into six main sections: Introduction, Bibliographies;
Periodicals, Serials, and General Works, Ancient Israel to 70 C.E.; The
Talmudic and Subsequent Periods up to the Completion of the Masorah
(1st- 10th centuries C.E.); Later Developments to Modern Times; and the
extensive List of Publications. The Introduction gives a concise summary
of the field and each historical period is presented with an overview,
detailed sketch of the main focus and pitfalls of the particular area with
helpful suggestions concerning future research, and an outline of the main

JEFFREY NUSSBAUM is the President and founder of the Historic Brass Society. He is
deeply interested in early Jewish Music, and has become a frequent contributor to the Journal
of Synagogue Music.

writings on each topic. These brief but succinct historical essays give, even
for the uninitiated enthusiast, a clear picture of the main areas of study in
the Jewish music field. It is a testament to Adler's broad command of the
field that he is able to clearly present the main highlights of so many diverse
areas of study including the Biblical period, Talmudic period, Biblical
cantillation and liturgical repertoire, folk music, the Sephardic and Orien-
tal traditions, Ashkenazic repertoire and contemporary Jewish music. That
all of this is done in ninety-two pages is quite an accomplishment.

One could, of course, wish for a more detailed work. A more complete
listing of articles would have been nice and a discography of recordings
and videos would also have been useful. However, one could also eat a
donut and wish it were a heavenly raspberry souffle. It is what it is and
makes no pretense at being otherwise. In the meantime, this update of
research is extremely helpful to all interested in Jewish music. We look
forward to future updates of this kind and one would hope that the Jewish
Music Research Centre will make use of the new electronic possibilities
that the internet and world wide web would offer. Through electronic
publications, future bibliographic guides such as this could literally be
updated daily and with such a format, musicians a half-century from now
might not be waiting for the next complete reference work on Jewish music
as we are now still waiting for a contemporary version of the Sendry
Bibliography. The community could only benefit from such a prospect.

MUSIC SECTION

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