Perspectives on Jewish Music: Secular and Sacred

Perspectives on Jewish Music

Perspectives on Jewish Music Secular and Sacred

Edited by Jonathan L. Friedmann

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perspectives on Jewish music : secular and sacred / edited by Jonathan L. Friedmann.— 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7391-4152-6 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-7391-4154-0 (electronic) 1. Jews—Music—History and criticism. 2. Synagogue music—History and criticism. I. Friedmann, Jonathan L., 1980– ML3776.P47 2009 780.89'924—dc22 2009020002 Printed in the United States of America

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Contents

Preface

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Introduction Jonathan L. Friedmann Chapter 1

Chapter 2

A Tale of Four Diasporas: Case Studies on the Relevance of “Diaspora” in Contemporary American Jewish Music Jeff Janeczko The Folk and Folk/Rock Movement of the Sixties and Its Influence on the Contemporary Jewish Worship Service Mark S. Goodman

Chapter 3

Humility, Prayer, and the Cantorial Ideal Jonathan L. Friedmann

Chapter 4

Gender and Liturgy in Music: Masculine and Feminine Forms of Language and Ritual in Sephardic Secular and Sacred Music Vanessa Paloma

Chapter 5

Trust the Process: My Life in Sacred Song William Sharlin as told to Jonathan L. Friedmann

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Selected Bibliography

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Index

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About the Contributors

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Preface

In the early twentieth century Abraham Z. Idelsohn embarked on an ambitious project to record the musical traditions of the diverse Jewish communities living in Palestine. In 1914 he published the first installment of his ten-volume Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies (1914–1933), focusing on the music of Yemenite Jews. Over the next twenty years, this project expanded to include musical transcriptions of Babylonian, Persian, Bukharian, Oriental Sephardic, Moroccan, German, Eastern European, and Hassidic Jewish communities living in Palestine and the diaspora. For this and other research, Idelsohn became known as the father of Jewish musicology. Since Idelsohn’s time almost everyone who has studied Jewish music has been struck by its diversity. National and regional variations, denominational and generational preferences, community and personal choice, and other factors have made isolating what is “Jewish” in Jewish music an almost impossible task. While early efforts in Jewish music research were driven in large part by the desire to uncover a common strand that links all Jewish music to an ancient source, most contemporary scholars deny the existence of such a unified musical stream, and even refrain from determining which styles of music are fundamentally Jewish in character. Instead, they argue that it is best to define Jewish music as that music which functions Jewishly: music for the synagogue, Jewish weddings, Jewish theater, and so on. The idea for this book grew out of several conversations I had with individuals engaged in different areas of Jewish music research and performance. It became clear to me through these talks that not only does Jewish music

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include a wide variety of musical genres and styles, but that this music often means different things and serves different purposes for the people who produce and/or experience it. The major concerns and movements of the Jews, both historically and in the present day, have found clear expression in music, from assimilation and the search for Jewish “authenticity,” to ethnic identification and gender equality. This book presents unique and engaging explorations of Jewish music. With only five chapters, this is a representative rather than a comprehensive volume; but its wide-ranging topics and approaches should provide an understanding of the centrality of music in Jewish secular and religious life. Areas covered include self-expression in contemporary secular Jewish music, the rise of popular music in the American synagogue, the theological and personal requirements of the cantorate, the role of women in Sephardic music and society, and the personal reflections of a leading figure in American synagogue music. It is my hope that from these studies readers will gain an appreciation of both what Jewish music is, and what it does.



Introduction Jonathan L. Friedmann

I Historian Max I. Dimont argued that the survival of the Jews throughout centuries of dispersion depended upon two central factors: internal cultural stability and the absence of Jewish governmental authority. “The wars with Rome freed the Jews from the fate awaiting them as a civilization,” wrote Dimont, “by dispersing them into the Diaspora. The Jews were exiled to freedom.”1 Living in scattered and portable communities, Jews escaped the inevitable rise and fall of the world’s great civilizations. They were sustained by a seemingly invincible sense of identity, informed by religious convictions—a sense of chosenness, love of Torah, respect for sages, and collective sacred past—as well as by the realities of diaspora life, which “freed the Jews from time, from history, and from death as a civilization.”2 In a similar vein, late Judaic scholar Simon Rawidowicz wrote that Jewish perseverance has in fact been strengthened by the looming existential fear of both cultural and physical annihilation: I am often tempted to think that this fear of cessation in Israel was fundamentally a kind of protective individual and collective emotion. Israel has indulged so much in the fear of its end, that its constant vision of the end helped it to overcome every crisis, to emerge from every threatening end as a living unit, though much wounded and reduced. In anticipating the end, it became its master. Thus no catastrophe could ever take this end-fearing people by surprise, so as to put it off its balance, still less to obliterate it—as

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if Israel’s incessant preparation for the end made this very end absolutely impossible.3

Dimont and Rawidowicz recognized the role of external and internal forces in Jewish survival. Imposed marginality and frequent persecutions served to tighten the bonds between Jews, while unique cultural traits and practices enabled Jewish communities to define themselves against the outside world. One of the many cultural features shared by the world’s diverse Jewish communities is a high regard for music. In the words of musicologist Eric Werner, “The Jews consider themselves a particularly musical people.”4 This is especially important as music helps to define both individual and collective identity, expressing emotions, values, and concerns in a language more powerful than spoken words. As ethnomusicologist Martin Stokes attests, music is a “means by which people recognize identities and places, and the boundaries which separate them.”5 Throughout the world, culturally specific music helps preserve and revitalize a people’s heritage, celebrating those features that substantially define ethnicity: customs, language, history, lineage, and beliefs.6 This crucial function of music is amplified within historically marginalized groups—such as the Jews—where music reinforces internal cohesion and creates a sonic defense against the onslaught of the majority culture. Ethnic survival requires boundaries demarcating the community and its values.7 As migration, globalization, and other forces threaten minority communities, these boundaries must be flexible enough to facilitate adaptation to a new environment, yet sturdy enough to protect cultural traits from full assimilation. The continued survival of an ethnic group requires controlled adaptability; acculturation must be directed from within the group. Passivity in the face of manifold external pressures may accelerate the erosion of ethnic markers and invite a full embrace of the dominant culture. For this reason migratory people often use music as a means of self-preservation.8 It can therefore be argued that Jewish music, beyond its immediate sacred or secular functions, can help define who one is as a Jew. Of course, it is impossible to speak of Judaism as a monolithic entity. In contemporary America, Jews divide themselves into a number of groups, including Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, and Secular Humanist, not to mention the nearly 50 percent of American Jews who are unaffiliated.9 Dramatic differences exist between and among the Jews of North America, Israel, Europe, Latin America, Asia, North Africa, and elsewhere. And Cantor William Sharlin notes several personal ways in which Jews connect to

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their Jewish heritage: “Some experience the past deeply, as far back as Sinai, if not Abraham. Some experience it as the pathos of the Diaspora struggle for survival. Others link themselves back to Hitler and Auschwitz. And we tend to overlook that for many people, the only link to the past is a grandparent.”10 In academic circles, recognition of the Jews’ historical diversity has led many to speak of “Judaisms” rather than Judaism. Building on the observation that “all who practice and affirm Judaism are Jews, [but] not all Jews affirm and practice Judaism,”11 Jacob Neusner, Jonathan Z. Smith, and others suggest that each Jewish system is in reality a cluster of characteristics that vary over time, and that Jewish self-understanding is, in the final analysis, a subjective endeavor.12 In short, it seems that the only conviction shared by all self-identifying Jews is a desire to remain as Jews. Not surprisingly, this multiplicity of Jewish self-understanding has found expression in equally varied musical styles. Scholars have, in fact, long recognized that no single melody is common to all Jewish groups.13 Like the Jewish people, Jewish music does not exist in a vacuum. Whatever musical unification may have existed in the Temple ritual prior to the diaspora has long since been erased by generation after generation of Jews living throughout the world, and adapting local sounds as their own. In the words of one scholar, “Basic to all Jewish musics is their close ties to the musical traditions of their non-Jewish neighbors.”14 This is true even for those Jewish communities that exhibit historical continuity and internal stability. In earlier decades, many believed that remnants of ancient Temple music could be found in certain Jewish enclaves. Guided by the assumption that the earliest diaspora groups have musical practices closest to the “source,” researchers tried to deduce original Jewish features from the music of Iraqi and Yemenite Jews. In addition to being old, these communities were historically isolated from their non-Jewish neighbors, and virtually unaffected by Western musical developments. Yet examination of such music has shown, among other things, the changeability of oral tradition. As music passes from one generation to the next, some pitches are improperly remembered, and melodies are “corrected” or “improved.” Furthermore, Iraqi and Yemenite Jews surely heard and were influenced by the sounds of neighboring Muslim communities, such as the chanting of the local muezzin calling Muslims to prayer, even if they had little direct contact.15 Yet such musical adaptation is not a hindrance to Jewish self-preservation. On the contrary, the Jews’ ability to select and modify regional elements for their own use is a clear indication of the durability and portability of Judaism.

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Indeed, this active process is the foundation from which all of Judaism’s folk traditions developed, and is central to the construction and vitality of Jewish identity. As Werner reminded us, all Jewish groups possess their own songs. It matters little that many folksongs are of non-Jewish origin. This, as we know, is true of all European and much of Asiatic folksong. The decisive fact is that the songs which are generally classified as typically Jewish are being sung at present by Jews exclusively. Even when borrowed, these songs are often reshaped in a really creative way and fused with original elements into an organic reality.16

II Written by scholars and practitioners active in the field, the essays collected in this book address specific issues within general categories of Jewish music research, both secular and sacred. Taken as a whole, they serve as confirmation of folklorist Ruth Rubin’s observation that Jewish music is as multifarious as the Jews themselves,17 and demonstrate the vital role music plays in Jewish life. Ethnomusicologist Jeff Janeczko examines how the concept of diaspora informs the work of four contemporary performers of secular Jewish music, each with recordings on John Zorn’s Radical Jewish Culture series (Tzadik Records). Through interviews and theoretical analysis, Janeczko reveals how these creative artists use music as a way of both defining and expressing their personal identities in postmodern times. Rabbi-Cantor Mark S. Goodman’s sociological study of liberal synagogue music in America documents the general shift from a service dominated by choral and sophististical cantorial music prior to 1960, to one that embraces the sounds of American popular music. As Goodman suggests, youth who attended Jewish day camps in large numbers were exposed to American folk music in the form of camp songs accompanied by guitar, and as they began to have families of their own and attend synagogue as adults, they looked for services that included their musical tastes—a phenomenon that has caused a definite if unintentional blurring of sacred and secular music. Cantor Jonathan L. Friedmann offers a theological argument for humility in Jewish worship. He claims that, according to traditional sources, both confident prayer and a sense of personal finitude are necessary for Jewish spirituality; and because Jewish prayer is sung and not spoken, it is imperative that the cantor, who acts as a singing intermediary between the congregation

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and God, approaches his or her task with an overwhelming sense of humility before God. Vanessa Paloma, a scholar and performer of Sephardic music, explains how public liturgical Judaism in Sephardic communities is traditionally considered the masculine realm, while women’s Judaism is more visible in homebased or private practices and includes silent repetitive ritual actions, as well as music and songs. Drawing insights and examples from her field research in Morocco, Paloma shows how women’s songs function in the private realm, as well as the subtle ways in which the female voice finds expression within Sephardic liturgy. Finally, William Sharlin, an eminent American cantor, composer, and scholar of Jewish music, presents an autobiographical account of his experience growing up in an Orthodox family in New York and pre-state Israel, his embrace of universal music and liberal Judaism, and his eventual rise to prominence as one his generation’s most well-regarded composers and teachers of Jewish music. From this very personal narrative, we gain insights into the nature of the cantorate, changes in American synagogue music over the twentieth century, and how Sharlin negotiated a balance between preservation and innovation in his life and music.

Notes 1. Max Dimont, Jews, God and History (New York: Signet, 1964), 44. 2. Dimont, Jews, God and History, 448. 3. Simon Rawidowicz, “Israel the Ever-Dying People” in Modern Jewish Thought, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer (New York: Schocken, 1977), 139. 4. Eric Werner, From Generation to Generation: Studies on Jewish Musical Tradition (New York: American Conference of Cantors, 1967), 7. 5. Martin Stokes, ed., Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place (New York: Berg, 1997), 5. 6. Conrad Philip Kottack, Cultural Anthropology, 10th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2004), 134. 7. Philip V. Bohlman, “The Land Where Two Streams Flow”: Music in the GermanJewish Community of Israel (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 110. 8. Jeff Titon, ed., Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World’s People, 2nd ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2005), 22. 9. Sylvia Barack Fishman, The Way Into the Varieties of Jewishness (Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 2007), 1.

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10. William Sharlin, “Jewish Identity,” in Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity: Continuity and Fragmentation, ed. Jonathan L. Friedmann and Brad Stetson (St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2008), 51. 11. William Scott Green, “Old Habits Die Hard,” in Blackwell Reader in Judaism, ed. Jacob Neusner and Alan Avery-Peck (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1989), 9. 12. See Jacob Neusner, “From History to Religion,” in The Craft of Religious Studies, ed. Jon R. Stone (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 98–116; and Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 1–19. 13. Eric Werner, From Generation to Generation, 119. 14. Mark Slobin, “Learning the Lessons of Studying Jewish Music,” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought 4, no. 2 (1995): 223. 15. This paragraph is adapted from my article, “The Music of the Psalms,” Bet Knesset Bamidbar Newsletter (October 2008): 4. 16. Eric Werner, quoted in Irene Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Culture (New York: Tara, 1994), 26. 17. Ruth Rubin, A Treasury of Jewish Folksong (New York: Schocken, 1964), 11.

Bibliography Bohlman, Philip V. “The Land Where Two Streams Flow”: Music in the German-Jewish Community of Israel. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989. Dimont, Max I. Jews, God and History. New York: Signet, 1964. Fishman, Sylvia Barack. The Way Into the Varieties of Jewishness. Woodstock, Vt.: Jewish Lights, 2007. Friedmann, Jonathan L. “The Music of the Psalms.” Bet Knesset Bamidbar Newsletter (October 2008): 4. Green, William Scott. “Old Habits Die Hard.” Pp. 1–18 in Blackwell Reader in Judaism, edited by Jacob Neusner and Alan Avery-Peck. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1989. Heskes, Irene. Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Culture. New York: Tara, 1994. Kottack, Conrad Philip. Cultural Anthropology, 10th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2004. Neusner, Jacob. “From History to Religion.” Pp. 98–116 in The Craft of Religious Studies, edited by Jon R. Stone. New York: Palgrave, 2000. Rawidowicz, Simon. “Israel the Ever-Dying People.” Pp. 137–42 in Modern Jewish Thought, edited by Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken, 1977. Rubin, Ruth. A Treasury of Jewish Folksong. New York: Schocken, 1964. Sharlin, William. “Jewish Identity.” P. 51 in Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity: Continuity and Fragmentation, edited by Jonathan L. Friedmann and Brad Stetson. St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2008.

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Slobin, Mark. “Learning the Lessons of Studying Jewish Music.” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought 4, no. 2 (1995): 220–25. Smith, Jonathan Z. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Stokes, Martin, ed. Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. New York: Berg, 1997. Titon, Jeff, ed. Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World’s People, 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2005. Werner, Eric. From Generation to Generation: Studies on Jewish Musical Tradition. New York: American Conference of Cantors, 1967.

CHAPTER ONE



A Tale of Four Diasporas: Case Studies on the Relevance of “Diaspora” in Contemporary American Jewish Music1 Jeff Janeczko Since the early 1990s, Jonathan and Daniel Boyarin have been at the forefront of an effort to rethink many of the foundational tenets of Jewish history and culture. Their central aim has been to revaluate and reformulate the concept of diaspora as an affirmative construct for redefining Jewish culture and identity. Critical of Zionism for its predication on the “myth of autochthony,” they privilege a Jewish identity based on generation rather than land: “[We] suggest that a Jewish subject-position founded on generational connection and its attendant anamnestic responsibilities and pleasures affords the possibility of a flexible and nonhermetic critical Jewish identity.”2 The Boyarins argue that diaspora can be conceived of as (1) “a ‘normal’ situation rather than a negative symptom of disorder,” (2) “an alternative ‘ground’ [for identity] to that of the territorial state,” and (3) “as a positive resource in the necessary rethinking of models of polity in the current erosion and questioning of the modern nation-state system.”3 Most emphatically, they hold that the creation of a Jewish nation-state has been detrimental to the advancement of Jewish cultural creativity: The solution of Zionism—that is, Jewish state hegemony, except insofar as it represented an emergency and temporary rescue operation—seems to us the subversion of Jewish culture and not its culmination. . . . Capturing Judaism in a state transforms entirely the meanings of its social practices. Practices that in Diaspora have one meaning . . . have entirely different meanings under political hegemony.4

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Political considerations (mostly) aside, in this essay I look at the music of four artists from Tzadik’s Radical Jewish Culture recording series in order to consider diaspora’s potential as a creative resource. I am less concerned with how these artists do or do not challenge the notion of “Jewish state hegemony” than with how they conceive of diaspora as a creative and/or privileged space—one that, to quote Carol Zemel, allows them to “Relinquish the choice between separatism or assimilation” and “[create] a new kind of home as a negotiated, dynamic, and changing space between.”5 Though Zemel’s usage is a bit vague, it is nonetheless helpful for rethinking what diaspora means and how it might function as a cultural construct. Both the conceptual vagueness of diaspora and its historical import to Jewish culture and identity renders it applicable to virtually any study of Jewish music, including most artists in the Radical Jewish Culture series, as a study of music in diaspora. (To my knowledge there are only two artists in the series who currently live in Israel.) But doing so would do little to advance our understanding of either this music or the term itself. Ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin has been particularly critical of loose applications of the concept, citing multiple instances from music studies in which diaspora has been “valuable,” “commonplace,” “misused,” “not all that helpful,” or used to depict “an endless horizon of musical expansion.”6 To refine the concept, Slobin cites a work on the music of Chinese Americans by ethnomusicologist Su Zheng in which diaspora is conceived as a four-part model. Here, it is (1) a descriptive term that illustrates past and present social and cultural experiences; (2) an analytical category to probe the deeper meanings and implications of diaspora’s expressive and cultural forms; (3) a mode of awareness to critique and problematize the global-local dialectic; and (4) a vehicle for oppositional politics against hegemonic national narratives and cultural formations.7 By adhering to a broad yet focused model, I hope to interrogate diaspora’s creative potential and cultural significance without stripping it of its theoretical and analytical gravitas. Thus, this is less a study of Jewish music in diaspora than a study of Jewish music through/as diaspora. The artists—Jewlia Eisenberg, Ned Rothenberg, Steven Bernstein, and Marc Ribot—were selected for particular reasons, namely because they all use diaspora explicitly as a theme in their work, or as a means of explanation while discussing it. Yet each approaches the concept in a different way. Eisenberg understands “diaspora consciousness” as an ideology that informs her musical creativity. Rothenberg uses it as a post-compositional analytical tool for understanding both his identity and his music’s relation to it. Bernstein uses it as a sort of metaphor for framing his music as Jewish, while Ribot decries the thwarting of a truly diaspora-conscious Jewish culture via a

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polemical critique of the representation of Jewish identity in contemporary “downtown” and klezmer music. Taking this notion of diasporic creativity seriously, I consider how these artists have employed it, and to what extent their work “affords the possibility of a flexible and nonhermetic critical Jewish identity.”8 I will argue that while diaspora does have creative constructive power, it can also be deployed reproductively and destructively.

Radical Jewish Culture Radical Jewish Culture is a term fraught with ambiguity and controversy: “Radical” can mean simultaneously of the root and a drastic departure from the norm, and it can also signify American Jews’ historic participation in leftist politics; “Jewish” references a religion, an ethnicity, and a myriad of cultures and traditions; and “culture,” Raymond Williams argued, is one of the most complicated words in the English language. For the purposes of this essay, I set these semantic considerations aside and use Radical Jewish Culture to refer to a specific series of recordings produced and disseminated by the record label Tzadik. Tzadik is owned and operated by musician and composer John Zorn, and Radical Jewish Culture is but one of its many series.9 The variety of styles and genres represented on the Radical Jewish Culture series ranges from relatively straightforward classical and jazz music, to klezmer, folk, and world music, to avant-garde improvisational and experimental music. The series launched in 1995 with six recordings, and the label has released between six and sixteen each year since. As of November 2008, the series has more than 120 recordings. Artists on the series range from wellknown musicians from New York’s “downtown” scene, to key figures in the klezmer revival, to well-known jazz and experimental musicians/composers, to young artists working with a variety of different genres and styles. The editor of this volume is among the latter. His band, the Rabbinical School Dropouts, was my introduction to the Radical Jewish Culture series, and also the topic of my first academic paper on the subject. Tzadik describes the series as “Jewish music beyond klezmer: adventurous recordings bringing Jewish identity and culture into the twenty-first century.”10 As part of the Tzadik label, this series exists in a self-proclaimed avantgarde world where music, as John Zorn states, “is not and has never been the result of changeable fashion” and “deserves to be taken on its own terms.”11 Despite its Hebrew name, Tzadik is not a label devoted exclusively to Jewish music. The first line on the label’s website reads “Tzadik is dedicated to releasing the best in avant garde [sic] and experimental music”12 But with more than 120 recordings, the Radical Jewish Culture series is one of the largest

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of any currently on the label and, I would argue, one of the largest bodies of new Jewish music extant. The artists I discuss herein all have successful musical careers, and the work they have released on this series represents only a portion of their recorded and performed musical output.

Diaspora Consciousness: Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess I first met Jewlia Eisenberg after a Jewish arts conference in Los Angeles.13 She and Frank London participated in a discussion moderated by Josh Kun, and I had contacted her in advance to request an interview. I’ve always found Jewlia to be one of the most compelling artists on the Radical Jewish Culture series. There’s something visceral about her music, perhaps because her use of texts makes it more palpable; perhaps it’s her extensive use of the human body as a musical instrument, or the unique way she weaves together times, places, and musical styles. She describes her music as Nerdy-Sexy-CommieGirlie music, which is certainly apposite for many of the themes in the texts she sets, but it offers little in terms of musical information. The following discussion ensued when I asked Jewlia if she referred to her music by any other name or label: JE: Usually when people ask me what I’m doing, I say that Charming Hostess14 deals with the intersection of text and the sounding body, which I feel like describes everything that I’m doing. JJ: You’ve also described it as an intersection of African and Jewish diasporas, right? JE: Definitely. And that’s always going to be there too, partially because of how I grew up and partially because of my interests. JJ: That was my next question. . . . JE: It’s like, I don’t think you have to grow up in a Black and Jewish commune to be interested in Black and Jewish music. I don’t discount it, obviously. But especially as I get older and farther from it, I start to be more omnivorous somehow. I still identify really strongly with this idea of diaspora consciousness, and that being informative for my music. . . . You’ve got a kind of system of ideas that inform your music. They turn your music on, basically. You don’t really have the music without the system of ideas. So, despite the fact that the ideas are not musical, they are deeply embedded in the music somehow. JJ: So diaspora consciousness—this is the system of ideas?

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JE: Right, yeah. It’s a very rich thing. And so you get stuff like these Bosnian cats that feel like they can connect to this music, Sarajevo Blues, not because of the text, which is, you know, theirs, but because they’re refugee people and they identify with diaspora, and they identify with scattering. And they think that I understand that. JJ: And do you think that you understand that? JE: I understand certain things about diaspora. I don’t understand what it means to live under siege. JJ: Or to be displaced? JE: No, I don’t. Personally, obviously not. But I also think that there is something musical that understands that in my music. Jewlia may not. But the music may be able to somehow. JJ: But you don’t. . . . I guess in terms of the whole homeland/diaspora dichotomy that a lot of Jewish people subscribe to that. . . . JE: Well, I shouldn’t speak for other people. . . . But like everybody else, all of these [Radical Jewish Culture] people, we’re like hard core into the diaspora consciousness thing. . . . This is the joy—more than the joy, maybe the joy and sadness—but basically what it means to live a life that’s not based on land. We’re not a people based on land. Maybe not even language. But we build a system of homes. For me, it’s like a system of homes that are spaced in, based in, voices and dialect. This is one of the great keys—the opening door—of diaspora experience.15

Taking a musical journey with Jewlia Eisenberg is much like having a conversation with her: inspiring, challenging, humbling, intellectual, and a transformative experience. Her music is as complex and intriguing as the ideas and discourses she uses to frame it. At once calming and unsettling, there’s a certain unnerving power to the quasi-paradoxical way she combines different elements. Anti-war texts are set to doo-wop, blues, and various other musical accompaniments. Bold, stark, and disquieting statements emerge from beautifully evocative poetic texts. Take her albums Trilectic and Sarajevo Blues, for instance. Trilectic is a conceptual piece, a suite set in early twentieth-century Moscow that tells fragments of stories from the relationships between Walter Benjamin, Bolshevik revolutionary Asja Lacis, and Jewish mystic scholar Gershom Scholem. Drawing on texts by these authors, Eisenberg creates a world through which she imagines these lives—lives both bounded by and transcendent of time and space. Trilectic also very adeptly embodies Jewlia’s description of her music above as an intersection text and the sounding body.

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With the exception of some sporadic percussion, and electric bass and drums on one song, the work is entirely vocal—it incorporates a variety of singing styles, syllabic vocalized rhythms, rhythmic breathing, and both Western and non-Western harmonic and polyphonic techniques. The texts of the suite are sung in both English and German, while the folk material that brackets it (tracks 1, 17, 18, and 19 are traditional Jewish works) includes Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish. Her music is rooted in multiple folk, popular, and art genres (e.g., blues, doo-wop, Bosnian ganga, beat-boxing, Western chamber music, etc.), but framed within a contemporary experimental/avant-garde aesthetic. Jewlia explains the impetus behind the recording in the liner notes: I originally got into this project because I was interested in several ideas of Benjamin’s and how they relate to my music. I was intrigued by Lacis and Benjamin’s idea of “porosity”—a characteristic of urban social space where there is a blurring of the boundaries of public and private. I wondered if this porosity could be applied to the boundaries between people and texts over place and time. How does my private life interact with theirs in the public space of a song cycle? What is the new site formed? I also wanted to explore questions of authenticity in reproducible art. I draw on many different musical sources in this record—Jewish secular and liturgical music from al-Andalus to Ashkenaz, Galician codices, African-American forms like work songs and doo-wop, Bulgarian village music, Pygmy music, punk, Stravinsky, and heartbeats, hand claps, the way I breath during sex—the sounds of my body. Does this work serve a ritual function? This record is almost entirely vocal—is it an elaboration of my particular female voice within a context of multiplicity – of musical sources, of authors, of languages. Can there be authenticity within montage?16

Similar themes are found in Eisenberg’s second series release, Sarajevo Blues, which appears under the name of her ensemble Charming Hostess. Based on the book of the same name by Bosnian author Semezdin Mehmedinovic, Sarajevo Blues looks at the social, political, and cultural landscape of Sarajevo prior to and during the Serbian invasion of the 1990s—a cultural landscape that looks very much like a sort of post-national, utopian, urban diaspora. Jewlia explains in the liner notes: As described by Sem, Sarajevo sounds very cool: a pluralistic place which included not just the South Slavic ethnic and language groups, but also Sufis, Sephardic Jews and Franciscans. For many years, Sarajevo successfully rejected the limits of nationalism and militarism, and instead embraced connectedness. The strength of this culture of diversity was shown by the rise of an “urban

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ideology,” which united artists, musicians, writers and photographers in the decades before the war.17

From a technical and aesthetic perspective, Sarajevo Blues has much in common with Trilectic. Experimental vocal techniques and corpophony are foregrounded within the musical landscape, and a similar range of musical styles are drawn from—Bosnian ganga, doo-wop, blues, punk, and contemporary experimental music. Nonvocal instrumentation plays a role, but not a primary one. There are further parallels too. Both works are musical settings of preexisting texts—texts created under politically exigent circumstances and in urban settings. And both works use the texts as a basis for musically imagining places—albeit places that no longer exist. With this in mind it is all the more interesting that Eisenberg, a vocalist, sees the text as secondary to the music. And not only the music, but the meanings and identifications people ascribe to it. (Recall the excerpt above where she attributes Bosnian identification with Sarajevo Blues in the diaspora and scattering quality of the music rather than the Bosnian content of the text, which she describes as “theirs.”) In the song “War,” the third track on Sarajevo Blues, Eisenberg sets Mehmedinovic’s poem to a layered, polyphonic vocal arrangement. At the root of the arrangement is a beat-boxer, who vocalizes a repeating bass drum hit interspersed with intricate hi-hat ornaments. Two female vocalists sing a closely harmonized ostinato figure, “Zow z-Zow Zow,” to a 3 + 2 + 3 rhythm, and a lead vocalist sings the text in a melodic, slightly strained style. The first line, “War, and nothing’s going on” depicts war as something that merely gets in the way of daily leisurely life, and repeats several times. The protagonist goes out to “beg for cigarettes,” and complains about the cold. In the B-section that follows, the pervasive bass drumbeat gives way to the complex hi-hat pattern, the vocal texture becomes less rhythmic and more harmonic, and the text is sung in Serbian. The second verse expresses mixed feelings about the “packets of humanitarian aid” that make the protagonist “happy and sad,” and he wonders at the ingenuity of his partner who manages to find them coffee every night. Another B-section ensues, in Serbian again, this time leading to a louder, more dynamic and forceful third verse. Here the lead vocal becomes more strained and emphatic, and the lyric changes to “War, just tell me what is going on,” and two panned voices echo the lead in turn. The emotional tone here shifts from one of irritation to anger and frustration, and the tension gets reflected musically through timbral and dynamic changes. However, it is but a fleeting moment of unrest, and we are soon forced to acquiesce to anger’s futility. The music descrecendos, and the

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second line is sung softly: “Death is more common than it seems, so plain that everything about it sounds trite.” And then, three times over: “War, and nothing’s going on.” Jewlia’s music and the way in which she frames it raise several questions and issues. The two most relevant here are: Does the blurring of boundaries that separate musical styles or genres create something new? Can there be an authentic and identifiable Jewish voice in a hybrid musical context? These are questions that arise not only here, but also—both explicitly and implicitly—in all of the artists’ work I will be discussing in this essay. Eisenberg’s music is one of the easier examples to discuss, not because of the music, but (1) because she does text-based work, and (2) because she does a lot of the interpretive work herself. In the liner notes she explains both the work’s inspiration and what she hoped to achieve with it, and in our formal interview and subsequent communications she spoke explicitly about diaspora consciousness as the “system of ideas” that “turn the music on.” As theorized by James Clifford, diaspora consciousness is “constituted both negatively and positively.” In the former case, diaspora consciousness arises from “experiences of discrimination and exclusion,” while in the latter, it is “produced positively through identification with world historical cultural/political forces.”18 But for Clifford the point is not the specificity of the diaspora (e.g., Jewish diaspora, South Asian diaspora, African diaspora), but rather about diaspora status as such: “The process may not be as much about being African or Chinese, as about being American or British, or wherever one has settled, differently.” And diaspora is “also about feeling global. . . . [It] can offer a sense of attachment elsewhere, to a different temporality and vision, a discrepant modernity.”19 All of the subtleties and multiplicities of Clifford’s notion of diaspora consciousness can be seen woven together and articulated in Jewlia’s Radical Jewish Culture work (and, she would certainly argue, her other work). Diaspora consciousness is a launching pad for a global, historical consciousness that allows her to access different times and places through both “experiences of discrimination and exclusion” and “identification with world historical cultural/political forces.” Jewlia writes about, and identifies with, people who not only share aspects of her cultural and political ideology, but who have been discriminated against or attacked because of it: the pluralistic cosmopolitans of Sarajevo were attacked by Serbian nationalists in an attempted ethnic cleansing; Walter Benjamin—who committed suicide in order to escape persecution, enslavement, and death at the hands of the Nazis—would likely have lived had he not been Jewish. Jewlia admits that she does not understand everything about living in diaspora. And the

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“experiences of discrimination and exclusion” she may have had are likely significantly different that those about whom she sings. Music, then, is the vehicle that traverses that distance, that understands and/or communicates diaspora where personal experience falls short. It is an approach to diaspora that conveys Clifford’s invocation of Paul Gilroy’s “alternate public spheres,” which he describes as “forms of community consciousness and solidarity that maintain identifications outside the national time/space in order to live inside, with a difference.”20 The diaspora consciousness Jewlia deploys in her music certainly qualifies as an alternate public sphere and a form of community consciousness and solidarity. The problem is determining what this consciousness is inside and/or outside of, and from what or whom it is different. And herein lies the crucial key to diaspora’s power in this usage of it. Diaspora is means of living outside and inside of multiple spaces, both physical and metaphorical, without clinging entirely to any one. Thus, Jewlia spoke about “Jewish” as one of several possible framing devices: “If my work is framed as Jewish, it is Jewish. It’s Jewish. It’s feminist. It’s American. It’s coming out of a communal mindset. It’s all of those things. There’s multiple framing devices happening all the time. So, it’s not more Jewish than it is any of those other things.”21 The only thing it seems to be outside is a reified, fixed category. So while the albums may vary in their incorporation of putative Jewish musical content, Jewlia’s understanding of Jewish values and individually constructed Jewish identity has been integrated into the works via the ideology and discourses that inform and frame them. However, when I asked Jewlia if she had received any creative feedback from Zorn during the composition or recording processes, she related that they had different opinions with regard to each album’s song sequence: JE: With Trilectic, I wanted “Gershom is Shocked,” which comes from the intro—I wanted that to be the first song on the album. He didn’t want it. He wanted traditional Jewish music. So, the traditional Jewish songs, the suite of those are broken up. I wanted it to be the Trilectic suite, and then the traditional Jewish stuff at the end. Instead, “Mi Dimandas” is at the beginning. JJ: Yeah, yeah, which is a beautiful piece, but . . . JE: It’s perfectly nice, but to me it does not represent that album. But John likes the records to start with traditional Jewish music so people have a door into them—to be able to understand them as Jewish music. JJ: That’s so interesting. I wondered when I looked at that, because there’s also two or three songs at the end of the album that are also traditional, and just the one in the beginning.

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JE: Right. Same thing with Sarajevo Blues. He was like, “You gotta put the Jewish stuff up front.” And I was like, “‘War,’” which should be the first song on that album, “is Jewish.” For me, if you want to say that the world is a holy place, and that we work to sanctify our daily practice, then put our antiwar song number one. It’s Jewish. It’s like: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares.” I identify that as part of being Jewish. If you don’t, we disagree about that. So, this is a disagreement I have with John. JJ: But it wasn’t about the content per se, it was just that he wanted something traditional . . . JE: Yes, but it’s an important decision. For him it’s an audio decision, but for me it’s ideological. I would like to insist that these other things are also Jewish. So we’re both going for the same ends, but in a different way.22

Thus, in Eisenberg’s case, the distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish in her music is a moot point. Perhaps this is why “Jewy” is not added to Nerdy-Sexy-Commie-Girlie. For her, Jewishness and diaspora consciousness seem to go hand in hand, and she takes diaspora literally—as “a life that’s not based on land”—and deploys it in order to create a musical “system of homes” that spans the constraints of time, place, and culture. Here, diaspora is a means of transcending Jewish identity, of reaching out, across barriers, to others with whom Eisenberg shares points of identification in common political ideologies and worldviews irrespective of different cultural practices and religious convictions. The diaspora construct powers her music, which she utilizes to transcend her own experience and understand others. When I asked Jewlia if she was directing her music specifically to a Jewish audience, she responded: JE: No, but if Jews enjoy I’m happy. It was very cool in Israel, because those people are. . . . That whole idea of diaspora consciousness kind of blew their mind. They were like “We can access this too.” But that’s crazy, because they’re Israeli. But it kind of was that way. They were like “Jewish culture is cool.” They’re not that Jewish there—you know what I mean. They’re Jewish. They speak Hebrew, but whatever. Culturally, are they Jewish? This was something. “Wow! It’s cool to be Jewish.” That kind of was fuckin’ cool for me. Because I think that this is like a profound radicalizing effect for people. To have access to this idea that Judaism is this idea that you can have particular voices, and still there’s a multiplicity there. There’s a pluralism, and there’s room for that. That is an important lesson for everybody. And if that’s for something that people can see as a Jew, then that’s exciting—I did a mitzvah. JJ: And that’s your vision of what Judaism is, or should be?

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JE: Yeah, it’s somewhat of a utopian vision of Judaism, but it’s something that’s inherent in the possibility. The Talmud is a series of conversations. Our basic core texts are conversational texts. When we look at the Torah we look at it with multiple layers. We’re able to be a community of many voices. And that’s not necessarily smiled upon in every identity. But this is something I embrace in a very deep way. And I think that to be able to have multiple voices, but to also be able to be unified and also be comfortable, all of these things are important in any person’s identity, let alone a Jewish thing. For me, I can get there with Jewish music.23

Here we’ve come full circle: transcending and expanding Jewish identity is interpreted and re-anchored by Eisenberg as an important Jewish practice. The mitzvah is in the propagation of an expanded and open yet particular and distinctive Jewish identity—a paradoxical univocal collective of multivocalities—that finds realization through multiple points of attachment (system of homes). Diaspora consciousness empowers Jewlia to not only transcend her own sense of Jewish identity, but also to constantly return to it and integrate it with her experience and vision of the wider world. In the process, her music also serves as a vehicle for integrating her understanding of Jewishness and Judaism into the world.

“Let It Lose Its Jewishness”: Ned Rothenberg’s Inner Diaspora Multi-instrumentalist and composer/improviser Ned Rothenberg has known John Zorn for nearly thirty years. Or, in his words, as he spoke in a humorously feigned Brooklyn accent at the beginning of our meeting: “I knew John when he didn’t know a radical Jew from a radical whatever!”24 Ned moved to New York in 1978, around the same time that Zorn returned from his short stint at college in St. Louis. The two became friends and would practice Charlie Parker solos together and attend each other’s gigs as they struggled to carve out their respective careers. In addition to being a virtuoso on the saxophone and clarinet, Rothenberg has also devoted a great deal of time and energy over the years studying the Japanese shakuhachi.25 An admitted Bu-Ju (a Jew who subscribes to the beliefs and practices of Buddhism26), Rothenberg maintains that: My most basic belief is a kind of humanistic anti-tribalism. And I do believe very strongly that for the human race to survive in a meaningful way, we’re going to have to get past tribalism. . . . And if you look at all the ills of the

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world, basically between religion and tribalism you can pretty much slot them all right in there.27

At the same time that he abhors tribalism, he also understands that art “comes from a sense of identity” that one cannot escape: “We can’t just escape and say ‘Well, I want to be an angel. I don’t want to have any ethnic, or religious, or social kind of identity.’”28 It was his humanistic, anti-tribalist beliefs that made him “uncomfortable” with recording for the Radical Jewish Culture series for many years after Zorn’s initial request. Although, as he revealed when I asked him how he shifted from that position, he never really set out to record a Jewish record at all: I wrote everything, and I didn’t know that it would come out on Tzadik. It was totally like . . . Well, I can make a few suppositions. In the meantime my daughter was Bat Mitzvahed, my in-laws became Orthodox, and I—let’s just say I went to Israel. After my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah I took her there. I had some gigs there. I went with my parents. So, I ruminated on my Jewish connections a lot more than I had in the previous years. I’ve always been someone who, if there’s any concept to my music it comes after. The music comes naturally and then I figure out. . . . I try to get some distance on it and look at it. I knew I wanted to do a record with this trio that I’d worked with for a long time— Samir Chatterjee and Jerome Harris—and Erik and Mark who I’d worked with on the Powerlines project and who I’d known for years. And of course, the fact that they’re improvising string players, and they’ve both—especially Mark— had a lot of experience playing klezmer and other kinds of Jewish stuff. And they’d both worked with Zorn in the Masada String Trio. I think for them to bring a certain sound to the music was kind of obvious that that might happen. But I wasn’t really thinking about it beforehand. And then as I wrote the stuff, one of the pieces when it was just in the computer, I called it W-H-O-D-AY-I-C-K-A-H? Because it was basically my joke of “Is this Jewish?” You know, Judaica with a different spelling. And then, so I wrote the music. And we did the recording. I sent it to a few people. I sent it to John, and I said, “I think this is my Jewish record.” That’s the way I work. I knew I wasn’t going to wake up one day and say “Oh, I want to transcribe a bunch of klezmer melodies and . . .” I don’t work that way. There’s some other guys who I’m sure you’re familiar with. . . . They make appropriation into a kind of study. That’s just not the way I work. I listen and absorb as much music as I can, and then I just sit down and wait for the muse. So, I’m always going from what the sound is. After I sent John the record, he called me up and said, “Man, this is beautiful, and maybe it is your Jewish record. But if it is your Jewish record then you’ve got to tell me about it.” And

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so then I wrote the [liner] notes. And the notes are, I think admittedly, an attempt to figure out the connection. But they are, also admittedly, an afterthe-fact kind of analysis of my own music. And, although I have to say, there’s been a lot of reaction to the record. I’ve gotten a lot of emails and things, and a lot of people seem to think it sounds much more Jewish than I think it sounds. Something sounding Jewish. What does that mean beyond some kind of key center?29

Inner Diaspora is a virtuosic tour de force of both compositional and improvisational skill. Most of the compositions are in odd and/or shifting meters, and the interplay between the different ensemble members during the improvisational sections is both subtle and articulate. With few exceptions, patterns played by bassist Jerome Harris and tabla player Samir Chatterjee form each piece’s foundation. Harris tends to play ostinato figures, often syncopated, and Chatterjee plays steady albeit varying and ornamented rhythms. The winds and strings play over the top of this foundation, frequently synchronized in unison or harmony, or alternating with variations of the melody. Structurally, most of the pieces strike a balance between through-composition and improvisation. And while improvisation is integral to the realization of each piece, it is generally more carefully integrated into the form than either standard jazz form or collective/free improvisation. From a stylistic perspective the music most closely resembles modern classical chamber music, although the inclusion of tabla and plucked bass (and occasional acoustic guitar) gives the album a touch of a “world music” sound. Ned describes the album as “world music fusion,” while acknowledging that that term “has gotten so bastardized by so much shallow crap that’s been put out in that name that you can’t use it anymore.”30 While Rothenberg’s album echoes some similar questions to those of Jewlia Eisenberg’s works, it more forcefully intersects with what I think is one of the most important questions regarding the study of contemporary secular Jewish music: How does one make a Jewish record? Since Rothenberg admits that he “doesn’t work that way,” and that the work’s Jewishness was something that arose unexpectedly during the compositional process and postrecording analysis and writing of the liner notes, the question needs to be rethought: rather than asking how someone makes Jewish music, we need to ask how music informs one’s understanding of Jewishness. In reformulating the question, I am following music scholar Simon Frith, who argues “not that a social group has beliefs which it then articulates in its music, but that music, an aesthetic practice, articulates in itself an understanding of both group relations and individuality, on the basis of which ethical codes and

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social ideologies are understood.” Frith’s argument rests on his contention that “identity is mobile, a process not a thing, a becoming not a being” and “that our experience of music—of music making and music listening—is best understood as an experience of this self-in-process.”31 Rethinking the question in this way echoes a comment one attendee at a recent conference made regarding certain nonprofit organizations’ motives in the promotion of new Jewish culture: As presenters and administrators pondered how a new artist grant program could be most effectively used as an outreach tool, an artist in the audience spoke up: “For you to have any goal in mind . . . I think it’s a tremendous mistake. . . . What you really want is for your Jewish artist to discover their Jewish soul.”32 An analysis of Rothenberg’s interview statements and liner notes reveals just such a process. It also shows how central the notion of diaspora is to that process. In the first paragraph of the liner notes to Inner Diaspora, Rothenberg discusses how secular and Orthodox Jews approach existential problems differently: To be a secular Jew in today’s society brings constant challenge. Adults know that life is about questions, not answers. We live with contradiction and try to find strength in the emotional and intellectual muscles we develop as we struggle with it. The suffering and inequity we see around us cannot be rationalized and dismissed; it must be confronted daily, to the degree that we are strong enough to deal with it. To define one’s Jewishness is itself fraught with ambiguity. The orthodox child has an easy answer—we are God’s chosen, we follow His word as He wrote it in His Torah and as interpreted by our leaders who He gives the power to lead us. This ethnocentric and homocentric worldview is not helpful to the person who sees the larger world and has absorbed the modern reality that man is not the center of the universe. The concept of a God who is some kind of grand public accountant, having as his main concern the adherence of a small group of humans to an arcane set of laws, gives little aid to a person looking out beyond the borders of his or her tiny community.33

And while he rejects the “easy” path Orthodoxy offers, and accepts the ambiguous nature of Jewishness, he locates his penchant for learning and studying different musics in his Jewish identity and experience: One clear characteristic of Judaism both as a religion and a tradition is the value given to study. Jews study anything and everything, absorbing their current culture like a sponge. For an American musician like myself growing up in the ’60–’70s this meant developing a deep interest in African-American music

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and I investigated its vastness with minute attention. Now today, as the world steadily shrinks and information comes closer, many artistic forms become part of a growing world culture. More study and investigation follow and again I have to sit back and find myself. So, just as millions of individual Jews scattered into the world in the original Diaspora, this modern secular Jewish artist/ musician (and many, many like me) scatters internally by virtue of his many interests and the ambiguity of his Jewish home base.34

While close to slipping into the type of discourse that posits Jews as essentially cutting-edge, multicultural omnivores, Rothenberg is careful to place his perspective in a broader modern context, while maintaining a sense of Jewish specificity: Of course I don’t mean to pretend that this expansion from a single cultural tradition into the wider modern worldview only happens with Jews. I just think it can be particularly intense, with a kind of multiplication of the historical Diaspora with a personal one. I am thinking of the compulsion to travel and document, the seeking out of other traditions’ approaches to the human condition.35

Thus, it is at the juncture of the individual and the social, of the historical and the contemporary, and of the feeling of Jewish identity and the striving for a post-tribal egalitarian world that Rothenberg locates the creative source for this music. But he only comes to this realization after the fact: Truthfully, I began this project merely with the idea of augmenting my trio Sync with two wonderful string players. However, as I was composing and recording the music I began to feel more and more strongly that there was something Jewish about it—not only the presence of some klezmeresque scales and melodies in a few of the pieces. I also felt that the music was funneled through my personal Inner Diaspora (let’s call it ID!). For example, “Minutia,” the least Jewish sounding of all the pieces, seemed to reflect on the dynamic interrelationship of fine detail to overall form I feel from both Judaism and Buddhism. I began to think this ID also contributes to my need in all my work to constantly change the roles instruments play in the music—lead vs. accompaniment, harmonic vs. rhythmic.36

It is worth pausing to analyze what’s happened here. First, Jewishness and/or Jewish identity is posited as a binary—secular versus Orthodox. The secular piece is praised for being the more difficult and worldly path. Then, Jewish identity and tradition are asserted as the source of the need to voraciously study non-Jewish musics and cultures. Finally, he conjectures that

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the synthesis posited from all of this intercultural learning and practice is related not just to this recording of Jewish music, but to all of his music. And the epiphany is realized via “the least Jewish sounding of all the pieces.” (“Minutia” features the shakuhachi as a lead instrument, and stands out stylistically from the rest of the album.) The piece that most reflects his “inner diaspora”—the internal “scattering” resulting from the “conundrum of [secular] Jewish identity”—sounds the least Jewish.37 That the music’s Jewishness can be discovered in this manner has to do with the unique power of both diaspora and music. As this analysis reveals, diaspora has functioned here as both a concrete concept (the historical diaspora) and as a metaphor (the inner diaspora) to describe Rothenberg’s internal scattering and confusion over a “Jewish home base.” At the same time, his understanding of Jewish music is both concrete and ambiguous. “Klezmeresque” scales and styles of playing function as indices of Jewishness, while the formal structural relations (in “Minutia” at least) represent certain conceptual aspects of Judaism and Buddhism iconically. This is all, of course, very personal and subjective. Recall that Zorn, in spite of thinking the work was beautiful (and certainly recognizing the klezmer elements), still required Rothenberg to explain why it was Jewish music. After expending all of this effort to explain the work’s Jewishness, Rothenberg ends the liner note essay with an admission: I am most happy with the results because I feel the elements fuse to the point where all the musicians’ voices come through equally and questions of cultural identity are secondary to the immediate sonic experience. Observant Jews constantly state that only through studying and following the Torah will Jews continue to exist. Secular Jews in the darkest hours admit to feeling that it is only anti-Semitism that unites Jews as a people. I realize that if Jews were to disappear because of the emergence of a broader human culture, which advances past ethnic and religious divides, well, I would be just fine with that. I have my doubts, but if the world ever gets there, and if this music is still played, let it lose its Jewishness. However, I think it could only have been composed by a particular twentieth/twenty-first century secular Jew working out his own ID.38

What is clear from this exposition is that musical composition/performance/ analysis and identity construction are—at least in this case—entangled processes that exist in dialectic tension with one another. He concedes that art comes from a sense of identity, and his postcompositional analysis of his own music leads him to a further understanding of that identity. And, at the same time, the fragility of his identity is not only acknowledged, but embraced.

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For in Rothenberg’s post-tribal egalitarian world, Jewish music and Jewish identity would not even exist. What this case suggests is that the power of diaspora as a creative resource can not only “afford the possibility of a flexible and nonhermetic critical Jewish identity,”39 but it might also afford the possibility of eradicating Jewish identity altogether.

An Imagined Diaspora: Steven Bernstein’s “Gulf Coast Epiphany” Nowhere in the Radical Jewish Culture series is the diaspora theme more prevalent than in Steven Bernstein’s work: his Diaspora series includes Diaspora Soul, Diaspora Blues, Diaspora Hollywood, and Diaspora Suite.40 Each of the Diaspora albums explores the fusion of a variety of traditional Jewish musical works with a jazz-related style of contemporary American music. He approaches Jewish music as he would any other music, and his work on the Radical Jewish Culture series reflects his personal philosophy that “every musician’s job is to create the music in their own image.”41 On “Chusen Kalah Mazel Tov” from Diaspora Soul, Bernstein sets a traditional Ashkenazi wedding melody to a soul/rhythm and blues format. In a typical klezmer setting, this melody is played quickly and in strict rhythm. But in Bernstein’s hands it is almost painfully slow. A steady and predictable drumbeat and bass line form the accompaniment’s foundation, while three tenor saxophones answer his phrases with short, harmonized melodic figures. A steady organ part mediates the ground between lead and accompaniment roles. For the most part, the tune receives a standard jazz treatment. The band plays the melody twice, then launches into a series of solo improvisations based on the same chord progressions, and then recapitulates at the end. All traces of klezmer style are absent here as well. There are no krechts or standard cadences in Bernstein’s arrangements, which would undoubtedly disrupt the stylistic continuity he achieves by strictly adhering to soul and rhythm and blues. Though it was not Bernstein’s first idea for a Jewish record, Diaspora Soul was the first one he ever recorded. He explains the album’s inspiration, his “Gulf Coast epiphany,” in its liner notes: I had been doing a lot of reading and listening for the past few months to the music of New Orleans, and had been developing a theory about the evolution of New Orleans marching band music not into what we call jazz, but into rhythm and blues. Not just the rhythms, but the phrasing and air flow of the R&B players are a continuation of the marching style, and the sidemen on the

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classic New Orleans R&B recordings were the second generation of the marching musician clans. This led me to thinking not just about a New Orleans sound, but rather the Gulf Coast sound, encompassing Texas and Cuba—and the last part of the Gulf Coast was Miami. And who retired to Miami? The most popular Cuban export of the ’50s was the cha-cha. In New Orleans there is a rhythm called the half a cha. And who loves a cha-cha more than the Jews? And the final piece of the grail—the hora bass pattern—one, two-and, andfour-and, is the first half of clave, the heart of Afro-Cuban music.42

Bernstein’s approach to making albums for the Radical Jewish Culture series illustrates two of several distinct approaches I have identified in my analysis of the entire series. The first is that he draws almost entirely on traditional Jewish music (the exception being Diaspora Suite), and the second is that he appropriates and adheres to the conventions of particular musical genres. (Another common approach is to use multiple genres in various modes of hybridity.) For source material he uses primarily cantorial melodies, but also folk and religious holiday songs. But rather than attempt a fusion of two different musics, Bernstein simply adapts the preexisting tune/melody into another musical style, blues on Diaspora Blues, soul/rhythm and blues on Diaspora Soul, and West Coast jazz on Diaspora Hollywood. Perceiving this approach, one music critic stated of Diaspora Blues: “Rather than traveling entirely to it, as a musicology project, he made Jewish music come to him.”43 Bernstein describes this process as making the music in his natural rhythm: [T]he reality is that that’s one of the reasons I’ve never played klezmer music, because it’s just not my natural rhythm of doing things. So I had to find a way to take this music and make it my own. Because I’m not naturally that attracted to the rhythm of klezmer music. Because it doesn’t really relate to my personal rhythm of music.44

That he could make this music in his own image was a realization he had while playing in a wedding band: It wasn’t a Jewish wedding band. It was just a wedding band. And if it was for Jewish people you would do the hora set. You always do a half an hour or fifteen-minute hora. And I hadn’t played . . . this is actually kind of a cute story. I hadn’t played with this band for a while. And this was a long time ago, so I was like “Let me go through those songs to the hora to make sure I remember them all.” Because the trumpet plays the lead on it. So, at the time I had been doing a lot of listening to New Orleans music, and a lot of reading about New Orleans music. I had bought all these books on the history of the brass bands, and gotten all these great kinds of field recordings of New Orleans

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music. And I played “Chusen Kalah Mazel Tov,” which is [plays the melody quickly on the trumpet]. So I’m just kind of backstage, and I’ve been playing all this New Orleans music, uh let me put down the phone one second [plays melody New Orleans style; picks up phone]. So, I kind of realized “Chusen Kalah Mazel Tov” is kind of like all this New Orleans music, like “St. James Infirmary.” It’s the same song, in a different rhythm! [slow and emphatically] . . . And then I realized, all the cantorial music, all the really traditional prayer music doesn’t necessarily have rhythm because we don’t really use drums in temple. And I suddenly realized, boom, I can do this. I know what to do now. Take this music and put it in my rhythm.45

But despite the diaspora theme of his recordings, Bernstein does not write about the term explicitly until Diaspora Hollywood (2004), his third recording for the series. Here again, however, the concept is vague and the album’s inspiration is revealed as an epiphany: Recently I was reading about the first wave of Hollywood composers and orchestrators, many of them immigrant Jews from New York City and some who had come straight from Europe: Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, David Raskin. It made me think about the concept of diaspora—people leaving Eastern Europe and coming to Hollywood and the space between these two worlds. I had also been listening to a lot of ’50s LA arrangers and their use of counterlines, melodic drumming and soft palettes. Reading a book about the history of West Coast jazz, I read that Shelly Manne and Shorty Rogers (ne. Milton Rajonsky) first met as teenagers playing in the borscht belt. I found the link I didn’t know I was looking for.46

This lack of diaspora discourse was also present during our interview. When I asked Steven if he had originally conceived of it as a diaspora-themed series, he responded nonchalantly: No, no. I never conceived of it as a series. Even after the 3rd record it wasn’t a Diaspora series. It was just kind of like, “Well, here’s the next record.” It only became a series because with the 3rd record, it was like, “Oh, it’s a series.” And then people said, “Is that it? Is it a series of 3?” And I said, “I don’t know. I didn’t even know it was a series of one.” I’m just a musician who makes music. You know what I’m saying? So that’s for other people to decide.47

That diaspora is absent in Bernstein’s discourse does not necessarily suggest that it might not be operating on some level (shall we say, diaspora pre- or sub-consciousness?). His quasi-imaginary “Gulf Coast sound” seems to emerge from a kind of diaspora—an interstitial place of many local and

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dislocated cultures and musics coexisting and materializing a distinct sound. With Diaspora Hollywood, the diaspora is the space between two putative homes: Eastern Europe/New York and Hollywood, California. But calling it “diaspora consciousness” and putting it in the same camp as Eisenberg and Rothenberg would be contrived. For Bernstein, diaspora seems not so much a “system of homes” or an ideology as much as it is a precondition for unlikely serendipitous relationships and connections. And these connections—real or imagined—are the creative resource that both inspires and legitimates Bernstein’s making of Jewish music in his own image. However, my interpretation of Bernstein’s music and discourse might be a bit conservative. Jewish studies scholar Jeffrey Melnick reads Diaspora Soul as a conscious subversion of a dominant narrative of Black-Jewish relations. This narrative holds that the common histories of oppression, exile, and slavery have created a cultural affinity between African and Jewish Americans, and is commonly invoked to defend Jews performing African American music.48 But while I do find Melnick’s argument both compelling and valuable, I also think it is worth questioning. To illustrate, I turn to my discussion with Bernstein about how the first album came about: So, Zorn says to me, “Hey man I got this series.” And I said, “Thanks,” you know, “I don’t really want to make a Jewish record.” Because I’m just a musician. I’m not a Jewish musician. I’m just a trumpet player who plays music. Why do I want to represent myself like that? And then I was thinking about it. And I had this band that I was trying to record, and was like “Oh, wow man. Maybe I’ll take that band and . . .” And I called John Zorn and said, “We could do a record of Israeli fight songs, Israeli army songs.” We had pretty aggressive guys in the band. And Zorn says, “I don’t like that idea.” So I come up with another idea. I call John up, “I got this idea.” “Na, na. I don’t want to put out a record like that. That’s not what I want to do.” And I thought, “Well that’s a drag. Okay.” And maybe I’d run into someone else a little while later on the road. And we’re talking about things and I come up with an idea. And I’d call up John and get, “No, no, no. I don’t like that idea.” So finally I was like, “Screw it, man. He asks me to make a record but he doesn’t like any of the ideas I come up with.” So I just kind of put it on the back burner and forgot about it until that moment when I played that song [“Chusen Kalah Mazel Tov”]. And I called up John, and I go, “John, listen to this idea man” [referring to the Gulf Coast epiphany]. And he goes, “Yeah, make that record. The check’s in the mail.”49

The point I want to make with this excerpt is not that Melnick’s reading is incorrect. Indeed, there is no mention of any kind of Black-Jewish sympathy

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in Bernstein’s notes. But neither did this idea come up at any point during our interview, and we specifically discussed those particular liner notes. Thus, when after quoting the first few lines of the Diaspora Soul notes, Melnick asserts that “it is clear that Bernstein has been setting us up all along, playing on our expectation that Black-Jewish sympathy is a given, natural, and essential fact of American musical life,”50 we must question on what grounds he does so. I do not believe that Bernstein subscribes to the historical narrative Melnick is criticizing, but nor do I believe it is his conscious intention to subvert it – even if his musical and discursive practice might do so. When Bernstein initially set out to make a Jewish record, the first place he turned was the Israeli military. And what could be more antidiasporist than the Israeli military? If diaspora consciousness does not apply, but the work is capable of countering dominant historical and cultural narrative, then perhaps Zheng’s “mode of awareness” model is most appropriate here. So while I think diaspora is useful here as an analytical tool, I can’t help but feel as though I’m on the precipice of using it carelessly to depict “an endless horizon of musical expansion.”51

Yo! I Killed Your God: Marc Ribot on Representing Jewish Identity Guitarist/composer Marc Ribot has had a long and distinguished career in popular, avant-garde, and punk music. His credits include performing with Elvis Costello, the Lounge Lizards, Alan Toussaint, and Tom Waits (to name only a few); performing on film scores, most recently the critically acclaimed films Everything Is Illuminated and The Departed; composing original film scores; and performing a guitar and orchestra concerto composed specifically for him.52 Ribot was also an important part of the Radical New Jewish Music festivals of the early 1990s: he performed in the original festival at the Munich Art Projekt in 1992, for which he collaborated with John Zorn on the program notes, and also participated in subsequent festivals and performances. In spite of his long-standing relationship with Zorn and his close involvement in the genesis of the Radical Jewish Culture scene,53 his involvement with the Radical Jewish Culture series has been somewhat ephemeral: he has but one album under his name, and has performed on only a few others. If we think of “radical” as meaning revolutionary, a departure from tradition, or unapologetically in-your-face, then Ribot’s 1999 album Yo! I Killed Your God exemplifies the term. Its fourteen tracks include remakes of songs

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by Jimi Hendrix, Romberg and Hammerstein, Felipe Valdés, Chester Burnett (a.k.a. Howlin’ Wolf), and Donald Ayler, as well as a host of original compositions. Some include vocals; others are instrumental. The album is a compilation of live recordings, most of the performances from the legendary CBGB between 1992 and 1994, and while it invokes a number of different musical genres (e.g., blues, rock, techno, West African kora, funk, Latin), an overall punk sensibility of loudness, looseness, and unpolished frenzy pervades much of the recording. The song “Yo! I Killed Your God” is second on the album, following a forty-six-second spoken-word, skronk-accompanied rendition of Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces.” It opens with two simple, repeating chord progressions played first by electric guitar, then accompanied by another electric guitar, bass, and drums. After twenty-five seconds, the guitar drops out, and Ribot sings the vocal over a solo bass line, while the guitar and drums add accents and ambient sounds: “Yo! I killed your God/ And I don’t feel much remorse/I don’t have to go back 2,000 years/To find an innocent victim to cry about/Yo! I killed your God/It’s the one thing I’m never supposed to say/I guess neither one of us has much faith/In your good intentions anyway.” An instrumental interlude ensues, consisting of powerful beats played in unison by the guitars, bass, and drums, and a brief reprisal of one of the opening motifs. Ribot returns with the second verse: “Yo! I killed your God/If you say after a couple of drinks/Why do you always leave it to your retarded brothers in the KKK/To say the dirty words I know you’re thinking?” Another instrumental interlude and brief guitar solo occur, and then the third verse: “Yo! I killed your God/That’s what this machine gun’s for/Throw away your images, throw away your books/Keep away from me with your metaphors.” These last two lines repeat over and over and bring the song to a climactic end. When I contacted Marc through the management company listed on his web site (www.marcribot.com), I received a response that respectfully expressed his lack of interest in being interviewed.54 He did, however, agree to provide me with some unpublished documents he had written. I believe that an analysis of these documents, coupled with the aforementioned recording, reveal a sort of “diaspora consciousness,” though Ribot never uses the term. It is a diaspora consciousness less politically oriented than Eisenberg’s and less personal than Rothenberg’s, but one that is very intentionally attempting to counter a dominant cultural narrative. In these documents Ribot lays out a critique of the contemporary klezmer and Radical Jewish Culture scenes, one that—while it never mentions them specifically—closely parallels certain strands of the Boyarins’ argument and reads the bulk of “new” or “radical” Jewish music as anything but.55 In an

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essay titled “The Representation of Jewish Identity in Downtown Music,” Ribot holds that the majority of music being created under the banner of “new” or “radical” in a contemporary secular Jewish cultural context reflects a sort of secular theology. Following Jacob Neusner’s notion of a “Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption,” he states: “I believe there’s a theology inherent in the secular beliefs of these musicians, that it bears a strong resemblance to [the] ‘civil religion of American Jewry’ described by Neusner, and that it is evident in their performance choices at the ‘Radical New Jewish Music’ festivals.”56 As described by Neusner, the Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption is an ideology that guides the political actions and beliefs of contemporary American Jews in public life. “In this Judaism, Jews focus their imaginative energies upon the Holocaust and their eschatological fantasies on the ‘beginning of our redemption’ in the State of Israel.”57 And according to Ribot’s analysis of the early 1990s Radical New Jewish Music festivals: By observing what music the musicians used as signifiers of Jewishness, I found a pattern of often unconscious assumptions about what could be admitted into a canon of “authentically Jewish” music. Unsurprisingly, these deep assumptions conformed to the teleological framework described by Neusner, limiting “authentic” expression to the pre-war, the holocaust related, or the Israeli.58

For Ribot this presents a problem. By restricting “authentic” Jewish cultural expression to three strata of Jewish history, these musicians (and audiences) negate the creativity and cultural significance of the myriad Jewish cultures that existed, or continue to exist, outside that framework. It is a sentiment shared by Steven Bernstein, who made a similar statement about the prominence of klezmer music in contemporary Jewish culture: [Y]ou can say klezmer, but then you’re talking about Jewish music from roughly a fifteen-year period in the early twentieth century. That’s the weird thing with the whole klezmer thing. People are ignoring hundreds of years of Jewish music, and focusing on forty years. You hear that? And so what I’m saying is “What else? That’s it. That’s all we got? We got forty years and the rest is nothing?”59

It is Neusner’s “civil religion” that Ribot posits as the condition for the impossibility of accepting non-pre-war, -holocaust, or -Israeli centered musics as authentic forms of Jewish cultural expression. As he explains: In this framework, the existence of a group of contemporary Jews who choose to remain in the US, refuse (by continuing to create) to behave as if they are

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in Limbo [sic], insist on growing rather than fading away, and insist on creating rather than feeding off the past—all this is an impossibility, a blasphemy. It shouldn’t exist. It is history moving backwards. . . . And so, though as contemporary Downtown Jews we walk, breathe and write music in the virtual and historic center of the largest, oldest, uninterrupted urban Jewish culture in existence, our creations are visible and audible as everything but the continuation of that culture’s history, pushed instead to the margins of our own mythology. And the music we normally play, while categorized by every other conceivable parameter—geography, gender, style, race, class, politics—cannot be “read” as Jewish.60

Here we see not only the specific powers of diaspora with which the Boyarins are so concerned, but also powers of historical and cultural narrative that a positive conception of diaspora must—at least in the Jewish case—fight against. Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel, as solutions to “the Jewish problem” and one of the greatest tragedies in human history, have become so dominant in the Jewish cultural imagination that it has become nearly impossible to recognize contemporary forms of Jewish cultural expression not somehow rooted in this narrative as authentically Jewish. Ribot’s refusal to engage with that narrative—and, by consequence, engage with one specific diasporic Jewish culture—is an attempt to rescue the magnanimous diversity of Jewish cultural creativity past and present from the reified Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption that he sees reflected in so much contemporary Jewish music. It is a refusal to, in his words, “act Jewish” or to “draw a line between [my] experience and [my] identity.”61

Discussion Articulations of diaspora as a creative resource can be found not only in these artists’ work, but throughout the Radical Jewish Culture series. It informs Roberto Juan Rodriguez, whose fusion of Cuban and klezmer musical elements create a virtual diaspora—one he describes as a world that could have happened fifty or sixty years ago with a meeting of different diasporas in Cuba, but instead happened in present-day New York City.62 Yet, ironically, Rodriguez (who is not Jewish and never thought to make a Jewish record until Zorn asked him to) describes his work on the Radical Jewish Culture series as “a musical aliyah,” an act that decidedly ends one’s diasporic existence.63 Diaspora functions in multiple ways for Basya Schechter: her Queen’s Dominion is an imagination of what the Persian Jewish diaspora might have sounded like, while Exile (a Jewish Alternative Movement records release)

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is a series of songs she wrote to understand the “oppressive freedom” she felt when she exiled herself from the Orthodox community of Borough Park, Brooklyn.64 Wolf Krakowski performs Yiddish musical works from one Jewish diaspora (Eastern Europe) while fully incorporating his experience of another diaspora (North America). It is also a central theme in Ted Reichman’s programmatic tribute to photographer André Kertész, Émigré. Paradoxically, the concept is absent in John Zorn’s Jewish music. Paradoxical because he has elsewhere described his music more generally as “rootless” (in that it draws influence from anywhere), and because he first starting contemplating his Jewishness while feeling alienated and unaccepted away from home in Japan. If there were one place one would expect Zorn to invoke or portray some sort of diaspora construct, wouldn’t it be in his Jewish music? Yet he uses “Jewish scales” for the basis of composition, names his Jewish projects after an icon of Israeli nationalism (Masada), and gives all of his Jewish songs Hebrew titles. Conversely, it is in Zorn’s nonJewish music that the notion of rootlessness functions most forcefully: as a creative resource; as a means of using multiple different musical genres and traditions; and as an ideology of accepting music on its own terms. Thus, the possibility of reading Zorn’s non-Masada work as reflecting, expressing, or shaping the contemporary American Jewish experience becomes seemingly occluded by the distinction he makes between Jewish and non-Jewish music. The very line between experience and identity that Eisenberg and Ribot refuse to draw has been drawn, at least on some level by Zorn, Bernstein, and Rothenberg—all of whom distinguish between Jewish and non-Jewish music in their own work. (However fuzzy and/or shifting that line may be, it nonetheless exists.) This supports Ribot’s claim that the Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption is indeed an ideology capable of penetrating even the most avant-garde of new Jewish cultural expression. And yet, I would also argue that Zorn and Rothenberg, like Bernstein, make Jewish music in their own image. That they depend to some extent on established Jewish signifiers or accepted forms of Jewish music may preclude reading their work as totally new, or as a subversion of dominant historical and cultural narratives. It does not, however, preclude reading them as kinds of mimeses—creative imitations that somehow alter or further explain those narratives in their reproduction of them.

Conclusion In an important recent study, Caryn Aviv and David Shneer65 show not only that Israel is no longer considered the center of contemporary Jewish culture

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and identity, but also that the notion of “the Jewish people” is outmoded and “no longer a useful concept for describing Jewish life.”66 As evidence, they offer testimony that the majority of American Jews trace their “roots” to New York City, many of whom make yearly pilgrimages there, and feel completely “at home” in the places they have settled. What I have tried to show with this article is that diaspora is a fertile if slippery creative “ground” upon which roots and identities—and their musical articulations—can be constructed and defined. Like Aviv and Shneer, I have tried to show that the Israel or exile dichotomy should be jettisoned in favor of a diaspora construct like that offered by Zheng, Clifford, and the Boyarins. In fact, I would argue that it is most useful when conceived as such. Bearing in mind what Aviv and Shneer say about American Jews’ relation to New York, the “system of homes” of which Jewlia Eisenberg speaks might best describe the state of contemporary secular, perhaps even some strains of religious, Jewish culture. From this perspective, modern Jewish identities are not rootless, but rather (at least potentially) multiply rooted. But while diaspora may no longer be considered a less authentic form of Jewish life than living in Israel, if we accept Ribot’s reading it is also far from being the “privileged” mode of existence—Jewish or otherwise. What these case studies suggest then, is that diaspora consciousness can be a way out: of the Theology of Holocaust and Redemption; of the divisive rhetoric that equates criticism or skepticism of Israel with Jewish self-hatred and antiSemitism; of the incessant and pervasive demand that a Jewish melody has to have an augmented second in it; maybe even of Jewish identity period. Thus, I would argue that the “power of diaspora” can be conceived of in minimally three, potentially/likely interrelated ways: constructive, reproductive, and destructive. As such, diaspora as a creative resource would seem to have the potential to: (1) refigure Jewish culture, history, and identity; (2) maintain a positive Jewish identity without accepting hegemonic historical and cultural narratives; (3) create cultural dissonance by unsettling or deconstructing those narratives; (4) reproduce those narratives; and (5) enrich those narratives by creatively re-imagining them. I would further argue that when combined with music—an art in which meanings and representations are rarely absolute or obvious—diaspora’s power to actualize all of the above increases exponentially. Aviv and Shneer assert that because most Jews no longer consider Israel the center of Jewish culture and identity that the Jewish diaspora has come to an end. However, if we think of diaspora less as a descriptive term or a hegemonic cultural narrative, and more as a creative resource, an analytical category, a mode of cultural awareness, and a vehicle for oppositional poli-

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tics, it may be that we are not witnessing the “end” of the Jewish diaspora, but rather a new and uncertain beginning.

Notes 1. This article is adapted from my Ph.D. dissertation, currently in progress in the Department of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. I would like to thank Kevin Miller, Laith Ulaby, Ann Lucas, Chris Aplin, and Ben Harbert for critical feedback that helped me shape this article into its current form. 2. Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin, “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity,” Critical Inquiry 19, no. 4 (1993): 701. 3. Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin, Powers of Diaspora: Two Essays on the Relevance of Jewish Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002): 5–10, emphasis original. 4. Boyarin and Boyarin, “Diaspora,” 712–13. 5. Carol Zemel, “Diasporic Values in Contemporary Art: Kitaj, Katchor, Frenkel,” in The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times, ed. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jonathan Karp (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 191. 6. Mark Slobin, “The Destiny of ‘Diaspora’ in Ethnomusicology,” in The Cultural Study of Music, ed. Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert, and Richard Middleton (New York: Routledge, 2003): 285–90. The work Slobin cites is: Su Zheng, Claiming Diaspora: Music, Transnationalism and Cultural Politics in Asian/Chinese America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 7. Slobin, “Destiny of Diaspora,” 291. 8. Boyarin and Boyarin, “Diaspora,” 701. 9. Other series include the Composer Series, Archival Series, Birthday Celebration, Key Series, Film Music, Oracles (women composers), New Japan, and Lunatic Fringe. See www.tzadik.com for more information. 10. www.tzadik.com 11. John Zorn, “A Guide to the New Generation of Avant Garde” (Tzadik promotional pamphlet, 1999). 12. www.tzadik.com. 13. Acting Jewish: Film, TV, Comedy, Music. A conference held at the University of California, Los Angeles, 22 April 2007. The conference was sponsored and organized by Nextbook, a Jewish nonprofit organization. 14. Charming Hostess is the name of Jewlia’s primary musical group/project, which I discuss below. 15. Jewlia Eisenberg, interview by author, Westwood, Calif., 22 April 2007. 16. Jewlia Eisenberg, liner notes to Trilectic, Tzadik 7155 (2001), compact disc. 17. Jewlia Eisenberg, liner notes to Sarajevo Blues, Tzadik 7197 (2004), compact disc. 18. James Clifford, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology 9:3 (1994): 311–12. 19. Clifford, “Diasporas,” 312.

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20. Clifford, “Diasporas,” 308. 21. Jewlia Eisenberg, interview by author, Westwood, Calif., 22 April 2007. 22. Eisenberg, interview. 23. Eisenberg, interview. 24. Ned Rothenberg, interview by author, Brooklyn, New York, 14 March 2007. 25. For more on Rothenberg’s experience as a shakuhachi player/student, see Ned Rothenberg, “The Challenge of World Music for the Creative Musician,” in Arcana II, ed. John Zorn (New York: Hips Road, 2007), 224–41. Rothenberg has asserted, both here and to me personally, that he is not an ethnomusicologist. However, his analysis in this essay of his experiences with Japanese music and how they have affected his relationship to his “own” music deftly articulate Mantle Hood’s concept of bi-musicality. 26. While Rothenberg uses “Bu-Ju,” a more common rendering is JUBU. For more on JUBUs and the similarities between Buddhism and Judaism, see Roger Kamenetz, The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994); and Harold Heifetz, Zen and Hasidism: The Similarities between the Two Disciplines (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978). 27. Ned Rothenberg, interview by author, Brooklyn, New York, 14 March 2007. 28. Rothenberg, interview. 29. Rothenberg, interview. 30. Rothenberg, interview. 31. Simon Frith, “Music and Identity,” in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (London: Sage, 1996), 109–11, emphases original. 32. The New Jewish Engagement: A Conference on Young Adults, Culture, and Jewish Identity, 18 September 2006. The conference was sponsored and organized by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture (now the Foundation for Jewish Culture) and the UJA-Federation, both Jewish nonprofit organizations based in New York. Field recording by the author. 33. Ned Rothenberg, liner notes to Inner Diaspora, Tzadik 8114 (2007), compact disc. 34. Ned Rothenberg, liner notes to Inner Diaspora. 35. Ned Rothenberg, liner notes to Inner Diaspora. 36. Ned Rothenberg, liner notes to Inner Diaspora. 37. Ned Rothenberg, liner notes to Inner Diaspora. 38. Ned Rothenberg, liner notes to Inner Diaspora. 39. Boyarin and Boyarin, “Diaspora,” 701. 40. This last work, which consists entirely of Bernstein’s original compositions, was released in January 2008, after my fieldwork and research period had concluded, and is therefore not discussed here. 41. Steven Bernstein, telephone interview by author, 22 January 2007. 42. Steven Bernstein, liner notes to Diaspora Soul, Tzadik 7137 (1999), compact disc.

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43. Ben Ratliff, “Critic’s Choice: New CD’s,” New York Times, 15 November 2004. 44. Steven Bernstein, telephone interview by author, 22 January 2007. 45. Steven Bernstein, telephone interview. 46. Steven Bernstein, liner notes to Diaspora Hollywood, Tzadik 7191 (2004), compact disc. 47. Steven Bernstein, telephone interview by author. 48. See Jeffrey Melnick, A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999) for an extensive historical analysis of this narrative. For a polemical diatribe against John Zorn that invokes this narrative, see Adam Shatz, “Music: Crossing Music’s Borders in Search of Identity; Downtown, a Reach for Ethnicity,” New York Times, 3 October 1999. 49. Steven Bernstein, telephone interview by author, 22 January 2007. 50. Jeffrey Melnick, “Soul,” Shofar 24, no. 4 (2006): 14–15. 51. Slobin, “Destiny of Diaspora,” 290. 52. Marc Ribot, “Biography,” www.marcribot.com/bio.html (1 June 2008). 53. Tamar Barzel has written about Radical Jewish Culture as a “phenomenon,” “idea,” and a “scene.” See Tamar Barzel, “If Not Klezmer, Then What? Jewish Music and Modalities on New York City’s Downtown Music Scene,” Michigan Quarterly Review 42, no. 1 (2003): 79–94; and “Radical Jewish Culture: Composer/Improvisers on New York City’s 1990s Downtown Scene” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 2004). 54. I had initially not planned on contacting Ribot. I had decided to focus my research on artists who had more recently recorded for the series, mainly because many of the early Radical Jewish Culture artists were featured heavily in Tamar Barzel’s 2004 dissertation. However, several of my consultants felt he would be very valuable to my research and suggested that I speak with him. 55. Though Marc Ribot provided me with three separate documents, I quote only one here. This is because this is the most developed of the three essays, and because each one deals with similar themes and issues. 56. Marc Ribot, “The Representation of Jewish Identity in Downtown Music” (Unpublished paper, 2002). 57. Jacob Neusner, The Enchantments of Judaism: Rites of Transformation from Birth through Death (New York: Basic, 1987): 202. 58. Ribot, “Representation.” 59. Steven Bernstein, telephone interview by author, 22 January 2007. Bernstein’s statement that klezmer music comes from a fifteen-year period in the early twentieth century reflects the fact that the majority of source material for contemporary klezmer bands comes from recordings made in America between 1917 and 1932. See Mark Slobin, Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 30. However, the genesis of the music is generally traced to the Hasidic communities of late eighteenth-century Central and Eastern Europe. See Hankus Netsky, “American Klezmer: A Brief History,” in American

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Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots, ed. Mark Slobin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 13–14. 60. Ribot, “Representation.” 61. Ribot, “Representation.” 62. Field notes from Bagels and Bongos, Highline Ballroom, New York, New York, 21 October 2007. This performance from the Oy!hoo Festival included De Leon, Septeto Rodriguez, and Irving Fields. 63. Roberto Rodriguez, telephone interview by author, 3 November 2007. Aliyah is the Hebrew term (literally meaning “to ascend”) used to describe the process of immigrating to Israel. 64. Basya Schechter, interview by the author, New York, New York, 19 September 2006. 65. Caryn Aviv and David Shneer, New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora (New York: New York University Press, 2005). 66. Aviv and Shneer, New Jews, 175.

Bibliography Aviv, Caryn, and David Shneer. New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora. New York: New York University Press, 2005. Barzel, Tamar. “If Not Klezmer, Then What? Jewish Music and Modalities on New York City’s Downtown Music Scene.” Michigan Quarterly Review 42, no. 1 (2003): 79–94. Bernstein, Steven. Liner notes to Diaspora Soul. Tzadik 7137. Compact Disc. 1999. ———. Liner notes to Diaspora Hollywood. Tzadik 7191. Compact Disc. 2004. ———. Telephone interview by author. Digital audio recording. West New York, N.J. 22 January 2007. Biale, David. Cultures of the Jews: A New History. New York: Schocken, 2002. Biale, David, Michael Galchinsky, and Susannah Heschel, eds. Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Boyarin, Daniel, and Jonathan Boyarin. “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity.” Critical Inquiry 19, no. 4 (1993): 693–725. ———. Powers of Diaspora: Two Essays on the Relevance of Jewish Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. Clifford, James. “Diasporas.” Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 3 (1994): 302–38. Damon, Maria. “Jazz-Jews, Jive, and Gender: The Ethnic Politics of Jazz Argot.” Pp. 150–74 in Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies, edited by Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Eisenberg, Jewlia. Liner notes to Trilectic. Tzadik 7155. Compact Disc. 2001. ———. Liner notes to Sarajevo Blues. Tzadik 7197. Compact Disc. 2004. ———. Interview by author. Digital audio recording. Westwood, California. 22 April 2007.

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Frith, Simon. “Music and Identity.” Pp. 108–27 in Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 1996. Heifetz, Harold, ed. Zen and Hasidism: The Similarities between the Two Spiritual Disciplines. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978. Heuermann, Claudia. A Bookshelf on Top of the Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn. Tzadik. Digital Video Disc. 2004. Janeczko, Jeff. “Esoteric-Space Klezmer: Radical Jewish Culture and the Performance of Identity.” MA paper, University of California, Los Angeles. 2004. Kamenetz, Rodger. The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994. Krausz, Michael. “On Being Jewish.” Pp. 264–78 in Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Kun, Josh. “Bagels and Bongos and Yiddishe Mambos, or The Other History of Jews in America.” Shofar 23, no. 4 (2005): 50–68. Lang, Berel. “The Phenomenal-noumenal Jew.” Pp. 279–90 in Jewish Identity, edited by David Theo Goldberg and Michael Krausz. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Melnick, Jeffrey. “Soul.” Shofar 24, no. 4 (2006): 13–21. Neusner, Jacob. The Enchantments of Judaism: Rites of Transformation from Birth through Death. New York: Basic, 1987. Ratliff, Ben. “Critic’s Choice: New CD’s.” New York Times. 15 November 2004. Ribot, Marc. “The Representation of Jewish Identity in Downtown Music.” Unpublished paper. 2002. ———. “Biography.” www.marcribot.com/bio.html (1 June 2008). Rodriguez, Roberto. Telephone interview by author. Digital audio recording. New York, New York. 3 November 2007. Rothenberg, Ned. Liner notes to Inner Diaspora. Tzadik 8114. Compact disc. 2007. ———. Interview by author. Digital audio recording. Brooklyn, New York. 14 March 2007. ———. “The Challenge of World Music for the Creative Musician.” 224–41 in Arcana II: Musicians on Music, edited by John Zorn. New York: Hips Road, 2007. Schechter, Basya. Interview by author. Mini-cassette recording. New York, New York. 19 September 2006. Silberstein, Laurence J. “Others Within and Others Without: Rethinking Jewish Identity and Culture.” Pp. 1–34 in The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Identity and Culture, edited by Laurence Jay Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn. New York: New York University Press, 1994. Slezkine, Yuri. The Jewish Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Slobin, Mark. “The Destiny of ‘Diaspora’ in Ethnomusicology.” 284–96 in The Cultural Study of Music, edited by Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert, and Richard Middleton. New York: Routledge, 2003.

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Wettstein, Howard, ed. Exiles and Diasporas: Varieties of Jewish Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Zemel, Carol. “Diasporic Values in Contemporary Art: Kitaj, Katchor, Frenkel.” Pp. 176–91 in The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times, edited by Barbara KirshenblattGimblett and Jonathan Karp. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Zheng, Su. Claiming Diaspora: Music, Transnationalism and Cultural Politics in Asian/ Chinese America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Zorn, John. “A Guide to the New Generation of Avant Garde.” Tzadik promotional pamphlet. 1999.

CHAPTER TWO



The Folk and Folk/Rock Movement of the Sixties and Its Influence on the Contemporary Jewish Worship Service Mark S. Goodman There can be no doubt that popular trends in music have had a profound effect on American culture. Beginning with the onset of jazz at the turn of the twentieth century and reaching its full potential with Elvis, the Beatles, and the British invasion of the 1960s, the influence of music on American society is well documented. And because religion is so much a part of American life, it is not surprising that musical trends within religious worship services have mirrored changes in secular society. This is certainly true within Jewish circles. Synagogue music that had been limited to sophisticated choral music and the high art of the cantor prior to 1960 began a slow and steady change that reflected American secular music. Jewish youth, who attended Jewish day camps in large numbers, were exposed to this new music in the form of camp songs accompanied by guitar. As these young men and women began to have families of their own and attend synagogues as adults, they longed to hear the music of their youth, and they looked for services that included their musical tastes. By and large, they searched for music in which the message was more important than the melody, and the melody was simple and singable. As a result, beginning in Reform Judaism and spreading into the Conservative movement, these adult congregants, looking to reclaim the spirit of their youth and to worship with their music, influenced musical choices in the contemporary American synagogue.

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The Three Major Jewish Movements It is important to have a basic grasp of the Jewish movements in order to understand how and why Jewish worship music underwent this major change in the latter part of the twentieth century. Beginning in the late nineteenth century in Germany, Reform Judaism emerged as a response to the longing of European Jews to enjoy the same rights of citizenship as their Christian German neighbors. The reformers’ goal was to show that Judaism and Christianity were essentially the same, and that Jews should thus be entitled to the same rights as Christians. The reformers took the position that Judaism, at its core, taught universalistic ethical monotheism, the belief in one God who rules all peoples and who requires all peoples to adhere to ethical and moral principles such as love, respect, compassion, fairness, and so on. Because the biblical prophets touted these ethical and moral considerations as central to God’s wishes, the reformers looked to the prophetic books of the Bible to prove their case. In so doing, they emphasized the shared core beliefs of Judaism and Christianity. The major controversy in the reformers’ emphasis on universalistic ethical monotheism was that it necessitated the jettisoning of Halakha, Jewish law, which had been essential to Judaism throughout the ages and which served to differentiate Judaism from Christianity. This is particularly important to this study as Jewish law forbade the repairing of an instrument during the Sabbath, major Festivals, and the High Holy Days. Because of this ruling, no musical instruments were to be played during Jewish worship, lest they break and need repair. Furthermore, because musical instruments were central to worship in the Jerusalem Temple, Jewish custom (minhag) prohibited the playing of instruments on the Sabbath and other holy days as a sign of mourning for the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. However, because the Reform movement did not see itself as bound by Halakha, it permitted instruments to be played on sacred days, thus paving the way for the creation of important musical compositions with instrumental accompaniment. The Conservative and Neo-Orthodox movements in America emerged as a response to the liberalism of the Reform platform. Both Conservative and Orthodox Jews were unwilling to let go of Jewish Law in order to embrace a new, reformed Judaism. Orthodox Judaism still follows closely the centuries-old traditions of Judaism and is thus not significant to this study. The Conservative movement, however, in its attempt to “conserve” Halakha and other traditions of Judaism while at the same time allowing for continued efforts to modernize, has recently permitted some musical change within services and will, therefore, be included in this study.

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American Jewish Worship Music Prior to 1960 The history of American Jewish worship music prior to 1960 is really a history of the changing role of the hazzan (cantor) as leader of the service. The European model of the cantor as a virtuoso interpreter and performance artist was all but abandoned by the American Reform movement. With the cantor serving in a lesser role, the rabbi was elevated to the position of primary service leader, assuming “a more active role in the religious services as a minister-preacher.”1 Similarly, after undergoing a short-lived but very significant period within the Conservative movement called “The Golden Age of Hazzanut”—lasting roughly between the end of WWI (1918) and the beginning of WWII (1939)—the high art of the cantor began to give way to a model that included more choral and congregational participation. Ethnomusicologist Irene Heskes described the state of European synagogue music prior to the genesis of the German Reform movement: [For] well over two hundred years, the phenomenon in Eastern Europe of itinerant cantors traveling a circuit of pulpits had gained wide popularity and significance. With their often acclaimed liturgical performances, they brought to city, town (shtetl), and village communities a combination of spiritual inspiration and aesthetic diversion. Rabbis assailed those touring hazzanim as mere minstrels and entertainers, and viewed their often flamboyant styles as excessive and unsuitable for serious devotions.2

The German reformers sought to change this model. As previously noted, the early reformers portrayed Reform Judaism as essentially similar to Christianity. This agenda led, quite naturally, to a deliberate overhaul of Jewish ritual, which included the elimination of liturgical texts considered repetitious, superstitious, ethnocentric, or anti-Christian. In this new environment, the hazzan’s role was minimized and in some cases abandoned. Most centrally, nusach hatefillah, the traditional vocal movements within the Hebrew modes that cantors had historically employed to interpret the liturgy, gave way to more Western-inspired choral and later congregational singing. In the nineteenth century, a wave of German Jews immigrated to the United States, bringing with them many of the reforms that had been instituted in Germany. So, not surprisingly, in its American expression the liturgical music of Reform Judaism began to take on a distinctly non-Jewish sound. By the 1870s, many American synagogues had hired professional choirs, and installed organs. Increasingly, the musical repertory consisted of four-part choral works in the style of Protestant hymns, and utilizing English or German translations of Hebrew prayers. The music was often

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performed by non-Jewish professional musicians, led by a choir director and organist. This “Gentile” trend in Jewish music was, to a certain degree, reversed in 1924, when composer Abraham Wolf Binder and others began work on the third edition of the Union Hymnal, which sought to restore a Jewish sound to the Reform liturgy.3 Binder combined the nusach (traditional chant) still heard in the traditional synagogues with more contemporary musical elements, creating a choral repertoire that reflected the essence of American Judaism—itself a modern manifestation of an ancient faith. From 1930 until the 1960s, Reform liturgical music centered on the compositions of noted Jewish composers Max Helfman, Hugo Chaim Adler, Isadore Freed, Heinrich Schalit, and Lazar Weiner, men who created synagogue music with both high artistic value and an awareness of Jewish musical tradition. These composers wrote sophisticated music grounded in nusach, while still featuring the choir as an integral part of the Reform service. Compared to the Reform Movement, the Conservative Movement was much slower to adopt musical change in the early part of the twentieth century. For one thing, because Halakha prohibited the use of musical instruments on Shabbat, the Festivals, and the High Holy Days, sophisticated musical compositions of the early and mid-twentieth century were rendered unusable during worship services. Moreover, during the 1920s and 1930s, the high art of the cantor flourished within Conservative circles. Called “The Golden Age of Hazzanut,” this period saw the rise to prominence of history’s greatest cantors. Indeed, while Reform Jews moved toward choral and some congregational music, accompanied by organ, Conservative Jews flocked to the synagogues to hear traditional nusach sung a cappella with a vocal dexterity and flexibility heretofore unmatched. Marsha Bryan Edelman notes, What did emerge from the popularity of this golden age of hazzanut was a transplantation into American synagogues of a continued reverence for traditional synagogue nusach. Reform synagogues in Europe, and now in America, had displaced the time-honored synagogue chants. Traditional synagogues maintained their link to the past and to the continuity of ritual music by retaining nusach as an important component of American synagogue life.4

Among these great singers were Gershon Sirota, Josef Schmidt, and Yossele Rosenblatt (each called “The Jewish Caruso” at various times), Mordechai Hershmann, Zavel Kwartin, and others. Rosenblatt, in particular, is considered by many to be the greatest cantor of all time. He was offered the role of Eleazar in the Metropolitan Opera production of Halevy’s La Juive, as

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well as the voice singing Kol Nidre in Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, but turned down both for religious reasons. In all, these hazzanim were known for having tremendous voices and a virtuosic technique that mesmerized congregations and stirred the soul. What distinguished the Golden Age most was an emphasis on vocal flexibility and the hazzan’s ability to create melody as a means of textual interpretation. In the words of Heskes: One salient quality that had infused the “Golden Age” cantorial performers was that of melody illuminating words, indeed transcending them as prayer made transparent through music. In those performances, there was a vocal stamina and control, flexibility of intonation, and concentration upon textual content. It was the cantor’s responsibility to interpret and inspire piety, and the cantorial art was a means to those ends.5

This interpretive aspect of hazzanic melody cannot be overstated, especially as this study will demonstrate a clear reversal of this dynamic after 1960, when the American synagogue encountered a folk movement that emphasized the text/lyrics rather than the melody. Sadly, the Golden Age of Hazzanut ended with the onset of WWII. The Nazis had captured and executed many of the great cantors who were unable to leave Europe before the start of the war. Additionally, many cantors who had come to sing in the United States returned to their homelands when war broke out, and most were captured by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. In Eastern Europe, the last great cantorial generation included Gershon Sirota (1874–1943), who perished with his family in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Passover holiday.6 This is not to say, however, that following WWII there were no longer any star cantors in America, or that the desire for hazzanut had disappeared completely. Moshe and David Koussevitsky, for instance, were both first-class cantors who “brought to America the sounds of eastern European Jewry just when that cultural epoch was ending.”7 Along with them, Adolph Katchko, Moyshe Oysher, Moshe Ganchoff, and others kept hazzanut alive and strong. The 1950s also saw the preeminence of cantor/opera stars Jan Peerce and Richard Tucker. But the art of the cantor would never again reach the heights it had attained during the brief Golden Age of Hazzanut. So, why did Conservative Jews embrace these cantors and their art in a way that Reform Jews did not? The Reform Jews immigrated to America en masse from 1840 to 1860, bringing with them the worship changes that had originated in the German Reform. For the most part, they were cultured,

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educated, and wealthy Jews, and they longed for services that followed standards of Western decorum, and a Judaism with universalist appeal. In contrast, the influx of Jews from Eastern Europe between 1880 and 1920, which accounted for the majority of the Conservative movement, came from small villages, and were, for the most part, uneducated, uncultured, and very poor. They had heard stories of an America in which the streets were “paved with gold,” but when they arrived they found a land that discriminated against minorities and offered them a life nothing like what they had imagined. Their hopes turned very quickly into homesickness and the longing for anything that reminded them of their European pasts. To that end, the Yiddish theater, with its portrayals of life in the Eastern European countryside, became immensely popular, and the cantor, with his plaintive wail, evoked youthful memories. There was a distinct yearning to replicate the traditional life of their Old World origins, real or imagined. As a result, Jews would organize shuls (synagogues) named for their old shtetls (towns), and would “willingly set aside the time to listen to long, elaborate cantorial renditions, savoring the pouring forth of familiar liturgical motifs.”8

The Secular Folk and Folk/Rock Movements Beginning in the mid-1950s with the emergence of rock and roll, and continuing until the mid-1960s with the arrival of the Beatles, American secular music underwent a profound change that would eventually impact the music of the synagogue service. Elvis burst onto the scene in 1954, and by 1956 was an international sensation. Combining elements from many genres of music including pop, country, gospel, and R&B (rhythm and blues), Elvis helped to transform American music and popular culture. Around the same time, American folk music emerged as a popular genre, rivaling the success of rock ’n’ roll music. The Kingston Trio was especially important in this American folk revival, and continued to thrive as an acoustic group during the 1960s, despite the increasing dominance of rock ’n’ roll. Folk music, which had been an important genre of American music since its founding, became primarily a vehicle of protest in mid-twentieth-century America, which is not surprising given the fact that folk music played a similar role during the Great Depression, when the stock market crashed and displaced workers found themselves scrambling for jobs. In the 1960s Americans were again struggling. This time, their struggle was not for better wages, but for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam War. Folksingers gathered in coffee shops and at hootenannies in San Francisco and New York, reviving the legacies of Woody Guthrie and others, and sing-

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ing about the concerns of the day. With this, American folk had established itself as a style of music in which the lyrics were more important than the melody, and the melody was often reduced to a simple, singable line with repeating choruses. This is precisely the formula that had propelled the Kingston Trio to enormous success. Many groups followed in the style of the Kingston Trio. Among the most popular were Peter, Paul, and Mary, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. Dylan’s success, in particular, rested on his ability to take old and “outdated” musical material, and make it relevant and meaningful for a new generation. In his book, A Generation in Motion, David Pichaske describes this process: They [learned] how to take an old song, change a few words, and turn—for example—a fairly stiff, white, European hymn “I Will Overcome” into a relatively loose, black, American hymn, which could with minimal alteration be turned into a powerful civil rights protest song. They [learned] how to take an old tune, change a few notes here and there, make it go up where it used to go down, add a chord that wasn’t there before (as Woody Guthrie once advised the young Bob Dylan), and come up with a song of their own.9

Importantly, as we shall see later, this resetting of older material into a contemporary and relevant musical form had a profound effect on American synagogue songs, as Jews, drawn to popular musical trends in secular music, began to take older music and set it to guitar. By the early 1960s, the folk movement had begun to splinter into two groups: one which would remain true to its roots and another which would be influenced by the booming rock ’n’ roll movement. Most sources date the beginning of the folk-rock genre to Dylan’s Newport Folk Festival performance in 1963.10 Some of the important early folk-rock groups were the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and The Lovin’ Spoonful. Dick Weissman, a member of the folk trio The Journeyman, explained the difference between folk and folk-rock music: “by virtue of plugging in their guitars and adding bass and drums, a pop-folk band could become a folkrock band.” But this was not merely a stylistic change, as Weissman notes: “Folk-rock became intertwined with an ideological component. If the early folksingers had been connected to radical political ideas and then to the civil rights movement, the folk-rock artists were loosely intertwined with the socalled New Left movement.”11 Eventually, interest in folk music diminished, and the movement had lasting appeal only for so-called “purists,” who were not interested in the sensation the Beatles and other rock groups were causing in the music world. Folk-rock, on the other hand, survived and evolved during the sixties,

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seventies, and eighties, led by bands and solo performers such as Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac, Fairport Convention, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and James Taylor. Liberal Jewish worship music would come to mirror these secular musical innovations and trends, both in regards to the importance of lyrics over melody and the reworking of older, inaccessible material into a simpler, more relevant form. In some ways, this seemed a perfect fit. After all, Reform Judaism has a long history of social justice, which reached a high point during the civil rights movement, when busloads of Jews marched with Martin Luther King and others in affirmation of the equality of all people.12 Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the 1960s, many American youth became involved in a massive social movement that, in its most general sense, rebelled against authority and tradition. “The sixties will be remembered as the Age of Great Rejection,” writes Pichaske. “Racism, militarism, Big Brotherism, censorship, commercialism, sexism, organization, inhibition, liberalism, conservatism, Mr. Chipsism, poverty, pollution, bureaucracy, reason, progress, deliberation, efficiency, domestic tranquility [were all rejected].” To Pichaske, this “angry no” represented “a great opening of the mind and spirit, a rejection of stultifying conventions and a demand for meaningful choices . . . the angry no grew directly out of a fervent affirmation of American ideals.”13 Members of the counterculture movement believed America had fallen short of its fundamental principles: freedom, justice, and equality. The primary social catalysts were the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. These two events crystallized the discontent of a younger generation with the political and social principles of their parents and produced a sort of social reformation in the United States. But this discontent with and rebellion against authority and tradition was not confined to American politics. Many of the young people who protested against the Vietnam War and against segregation were members of churches and synagogues, and their distaste for “the establishment” inevitably spilled over into their religious pursuits. This had profound musical consequences, as Nick Strimple described in the context of Catholic worship: “During the last third of the twentieth century, the American church suffered an identity crisis. All kinds of people, mostly young, confronted it in previously unheard of ways: they were bored, disillusioned, and demanded immediate gratification; they wanted the church to make them feel happy and comfortable in their secular pursuits.”14 Disputes over clerical vestments and the nature of communion, for instance, stemmed from a general distrust of established authority, and many focused their antielitism on the traditional church music of J. S. Bach and Gregorian chant.

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Traditional choirs were largely abandoned in favor of more “relevant” guitardriven music, and the Latin liturgy was likewise replaced by English text. As one critic explained, “In the twinkling of an eye, Catholicism’s unparalleled sacred music, the brilliant jewel wrought by centuries of development, was muffled: then silenced.”15 American Judaism, too, and especially the Reform movement because of its liberal leanings, was affected profoundly by this wave of antiestablishment sentiment. The original reformers of Judaism in the late nineteenth century had rebelled against the traditional authority of the time by replacing the cantor with a choir and Hebrew with German, and by adopting many of the customs of their Protestant neighbors. Similarly, many young Reform Jews in the 1960s and 1970s began a rebellion that reflected their own time, insisting that the music played during services be conducive to congregational sing-alongs and that the liturgy was sung mostly in English—a language they could understand. Furthermore, the sound of the cantor, which the Reform movement had already minimized before the turn of the century, was essentially a sound specific to Eastern Europe. When young, modern Reform Jews heard these modal tonalities, they did not feel nostalgia for a land left long ago as did earlier Conservative Jews. Rather, they heard sounds that had no meaning or relevance for them. The major Jewish musical mode employed by the great hazzanim, called Ahavah Rabbah (rendered by two tetrachords, E-F-G#-A : B-C-D-E, similar to the Arabic Hijaz mode and the Phyrigian church mode) had a distinctly Oriental and exotic sound. In addition, these hazzanim often used another mode, the Ukranian Dorian (rendered by G-ABb-C#-D-E-F-G) to embellish long passages. These two modes produced a distinctly Eastern European sound that did not speak to the American youth of the 1960s and beyond, who were accustomed to songs written in Western major and minor keys. For them, modal patterns had become foreign and inauthentic. Young Reform Jews were likewise unimpressed by the grand choral arrangements of the great composers. These compositions were too formal and too stiff to appeal to a youth movement obsessed with change, accessibility, and experimentation. What they craved was simple music that could be easily understood and sung—music that mirrored the American folk music they heard on the radio.

The Jewish Camp Movement The turn of the century witnessed a large immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe to America. These families settled primarily in the large urban areas of

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the East Coast. Most families came through Ellis Island in New York City in order to enter the United States. It was natural, then, that the largest American Jewish community was centered in New York. Because the mass movement of families from American cities to the suburbs would not begin until the 1950s, and because the immigrant Jewish families tended to stay close to one another, forming enclaves within major cities, many Jewish children, especially during the first two decades of the century, had little exposure to the rest of the country. At the same time, these children, born in the United States to parents of primarily Eastern European heritage, would comprise the first significant population of American Jews who spoke English as a first language. There was thus clearly a need for an enterprise that would help integrate these generally sheltered young men and women into an American way of life. The first Jewish camps were established to address this desire for Americanization. The Jewish camp movement began in 1893 with the establishment of the Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society, located in New York City. The movement spread amid the larger organized camping movement in America, and by the mid-1920s, there were hundreds of camps that opened in the mountains and near lakes, providing fresh air and exercise to inner-city Jewish children.16 Importantly, group singing seems to have been a part of the camp experience right from the start. According to Historian Judah M. Cohen: By the 1920s and 1930s, as summer camping became a more uniform practice, the sing-along began to take a role as a more or less standard part of the camp experience, involving distinct titles (such as the term “sing-along” itself), setaside times, and designated leaders. . . . by the middle of the century, group singing had become a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon within the summer camp setting, Jewish and otherwise.17

The next phase in the evolution of the Jewish summer camp was a conscious move toward providing a more Jewish cultural and educational experience. Gradually, Jewish summer camps began to include programming that incorporated aspects of Jewish culture and education that had not previously been a part of camp programming. It is clear that, as the decades passed and Jewish families became more Americanized, the children began to lose touch with their Judaism, and embraced an almost purely secular way of life. Certainly, this reflected a trend that had begun earlier in the century, when new immigrants had to break Jewish law in order to succeed in America. Many factories and shipyards, for instance, required their employees to work on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, when no work is to be done according to Jew-

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ish law. These immigrants had to decide between violating religious beliefs or going hungry. It became apparent that the American way of life was in many ways incompatible with the traditional Jewish lifestyle. Between the 1930s and 1950s, Jewish summer camps changed their emphasis from acculturation and Americanization to offering Jewish cultural and educational experiences. Rather than emphasizing integration into the American mainstream, great importance was given to fostering a more culturally Jewish camp setting. Among the first to offer this experience were the Cejwin Camps in Port Jervis, New York, which were founded by the Central Jewish Institute, an independent Jewish community center on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and Camp Boiberik, a Yiddish camp near Rhinebeck, New York. There were also camps with Zionist, Hebrew, and socialist identities, all of which, while differing ideologically, offered identifiably Jewish experiences. A further change occurred between the 1940s and 1960s, when Jewish summer camps began to distinguish themselves from one another by denomination. Before 1940, about two-thirds of all new Jewish camps were either philanthropic or community based, and generally catered to teenagers. From 1940 to 1960, however, that number dropped to less than a quarter. Their mission changed as well, moving from Jewish cultural and educational programming to Jewish leadership building. In addition, there was a new emphasis on religious experience, so that teenagers were now learning how to fit religious observance into a camp setting. This period witnessed, for example, the establishment of Camp Ramah, the camping arm of Conservative Judaism, and other denominational camps that extended programs to increasingly younger children. So, not only were the campers singing “campfire” songs, the camp experience itself became more overtly spiritual. Shabbat services became religious “sing-alongs” accompanied by guitar, and communal singing cultivated within campers a palpable sense of spiritual community. According to one former camper, “the [camp] liturgical experience was, of course very, very different for most of us . . . we’d sure never seen [our synagogue musical leaders] doing anything else that was fun; and [we] never [saw them] having a relationship with us.”18 This style of service, which had become a central feature of the camp experience, eventually began to enter Reform synagogue services. Over time, the Reform movement, according to ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin, “replaced the highly dramatic orchestration of the organ-choir-reader-cantor complex and adopted informal, congregationally active modes of worship, emphasizing simple songs of American and Israeli youth.”19 As more and

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more young Jews became accustomed to a participatory camp model, there was a push to use this style of worship in place of the formal, Protestant-like services that had for years been the standard of American Reform Judaism. Soon, the National Federation of Temple Youth campers were singing new Jewish worship music created by contemporary composers and songwriters like Jeff Klepper and Debbie Friedman, much of which combined English and Hebrew lyrics, and was written in the familiar and accessible folk idiom. And many young people, upon returning to their home congregations after attending summer camp, longed to sing the music they loved. Some cantors welcomed this enthusiasm, incorporating popular camp tunes, along with their guitar accompaniment, into religious services. Cantors encouraged worshipers to sing along, and even stomp their feet to the beat—a trend that gained momentum throughout the 1970s, and which continues to this day.20

Modern Jewish Worship Music Modern Jewish liturgical music reflects many of the changes in American secular music that began with the folk and folk/rock movement of the 1960s. The grand choral compositions of earlier days, though still performed, are considered classics of Jewish music and are generally reserved for religious holidays and concerts. The art of the cantor, though still practiced in some circles, has generally become diluted and remains only a shadow of its former presence. Most modern composers and songwriters have abandoned modal tonality and have instead embraced Western major/minor scales in an effort to appeal to congregants who have grown up listening to rock ‘n’ roll, Broadway show tunes, and other popular music. As a result of the influence of the secular folk and folk/rock movement of the 1960s, Jewish liturgical music began a slow, progressive move toward a more simplistic musical style, learned in the Jewish summer camps. Additionally, the general attitude of rebellion against tradition and authority that was a hallmark of the 1960s social movements helped fuel this change in music preference within religious services. The result of these two trends was a dynamic shift in the musical preference of younger American Jews from hazzanut in the Conservative movement and the grand choral tradition of the Reform movement to simpler, folk melodies that invited congregational participation. While older generations enjoyed the awe-inspiring choral music of the Jewish composers and the vocal flexibility of the great hazzanim, younger generations wanted to be involved in the worship experience as participants rather than as spectators. As a result, young Jews transformed the way Jews

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had traditionally worshiped, moving firmly away from a “listening” model to a participatory style that required easy, catchy, and repetitious melodies. If the past is able to predict the future, then one might reasonably forecast future changes in synagogue worship music based on developing trends within the popular music of the present day. Thus, it is the forward-looking cantor or synagogue music director who will analyze such trends and make changes that anticipate a congregation’s ever-changing desires.

Notes 1. Irene Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Culture (New York: Tara, 1994), 60. 2. Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music, 60. 3. Mark Kligman, “Reestablishing a ‘Jewish Spirit’ in American Synagogue Music: The Music of A. W. Binder,” in The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times, ed. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jonathan Karp (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2007), 280. 4. Marsha Bryan Edelman, Discovering Jewish Music (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), 130. 5. Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music, 66. 6. Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music, 64–65. 7. Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music, 64. 8. Heskes, Passport to Jewish Music, 63. 9. David Pichaske, A Generation in Motion: Popular Music and Culture in the Sixties (New York: Schirmer, 1979), 57. 10. Dick Weissman, Which Side Are You On? An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America (New York: Continuum, 2005), 157. 11. Weissman, Which Side Are You On?, 161. 12. Allison Bergman Vann, “Being American and Jewish: A Sermon in Honor of President’s Day,” www.beth-elsa.org/abv022004.htm (23 August 2007). 13. Pichaske, A Generation in Motion, 51. 14. Nick Strimple, “Pop Music in Worship: Some Observations from a Christian Perspective,” CCAR Journal (Winter 2002): 39. 15. Mary Oberle Hubley, “Post-conciliar Hymnody,” www.canticanova.com/ articles/hymns/art251.htm (17 August 2007). 16. Jeri Zeder, “Jewish Camping in America from the 19th Century to the Present,” www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Jewish_World_Today/ EducationTO/JewishCamp.htm (23 August 2007). 17. Judah M. Cohen, “Singing Out for Judaism,” in A Place of Their Own: The Rise of Reform Jewish Camping, ed. Michael M. Lorge and Gary P. Zola (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006), 177–78. 18. Cohen, “Singing Out for Judaism,” 183.

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19. Mark Slobin, Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 196. 20. Heather Robinson, “The New Cantor,” Reform Judaism (Winter 2003): 44.

Bibliography Adler, Samuel. “A Composer’s View of Temple Music.” Central Conference of American Rabbis Journal (Winter 2002): 19–24. ———. “Sacred Music in a Secular Age.” Pp. 289–99 in Sacred Song and Social Change: Liturgical Music in Jewish and Christian Experience, edited by Lawrence A. Hoffman and Janet R. Walton. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Edelman, Marsha Bryan. Discovering Jewish Music. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. Epstein, Jonathan S. Adolescents and Their Music: If It’s Too Loud, You’re Too Old. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994. Friedlander, Paul. Rock and Roll: A Social History. Cambridge, Mass.: Westview, 2006. Gilbert, Sylvia. From the Bible to Broadway: A Short History of Jewish Music. Nashville: James C. Winston, 1995. Heskes, Irene. Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Culture. New York: Tara, 1994. Hubley, Mary Oberle. “Post-conciliar Hymnody,” www.canticanova.com/articles/ hymns/art251.htm (17 August 2007). Idelsohn, Abraham Z. Jewish Music: Its Historical Development. New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Joseph, Mark. Faith, God and Rock and Roll: How People of Faith Are Transforming American Popular Music. London: Sanctuary, 2003. Kligman, Mark. “Reestablishing a ‘Jewish Spirit’ in American Synagogue Music: The Music of A. W. Binder.” Pp. 270–87 in The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times, edited by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jonathan Karp. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2007. Levine, Joseph. Synagogue Song in America. Crown Point, Ind.: White Cliffs Media, 1989. Pichaske, David. A Generation in Motion: Popular Music and Culture in the Sixties. New York: Schirmer, 1979. Robinson, Heather. “The New Cantor.” Reform Judaism (Winter 2003): 23–28, 44, 73–75. Rosen, David M. Protest Songs in America. Los Angeles: Aware, 1972. Slobin, Mark. Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Strimple, Nick. “Pop Music in Worship: Some Observations from a Christian Perspective.” Central Conference of American Rabbis Journal (Winter 2002): 25–41.

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Summit, Jeffrey A. The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Vann, Allison Bergman. “Being American and Jewish: A Sermon in Honor of President’s Day,” www.beth-elsa.org/abv022004.htm (23 August 2007). Weissman, Dick. Which Side Are You On? An Inside History of the Folk Music Revival in America. New York: Continuum, 2005. Zeder, Jeri. “Jewish Camping in America from the 19th Century to the Present,” www .myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Jewish_World_Today/EducationTO/ JewishCamp.htm (23 August 2007).

CHAPTER THREE



Humility, Prayer, and the Cantorial Ideal Jonathan L. Friedmann

Humility, it has been said, is the trait on which all virtues and duties depend.1 The humble individual is one who views him or herself “as a dependent and corrupt but capable and dignified rational agent.”2 This balanced selfawareness results, ultimately, in a measured view of one’s own significance, and an apperception of personal finitude. By acknowledging a force beyond one’s limited purview—whether religious, philosophical, or scientific—one may cultivate a “grounded” and humble evaluation of oneself—what Saint Augustine saw as the foundation of ethical life.3 In the context of Jewish prayer, the importance of humility is expressed in the Talmudic injunction, “Know before whom you stand,”4 and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s formulation, “Be humble before the words.”5 Human life is at once futile and spiritually sublime; our distinction from the animal world deems us worthy to “stand before God,” but we must do so in fear and awe. Embracing this paradox of human existence, Judaism affirms that it is one’s inadequacy, rather than one’s prowess, that justifies prayer; and the sages even declared, “The greater man’s stature in the world, the greater the extent to which he must humble himself before his Creator.”6 Professor Walter Orenstein explained further this position: “Every human being feels lowly when he stands before the Lord in prayer. We are alike in this regard. We pray not because of what we are but because of what we are not. Thus it is not the sophistication of the prayer that is important but rather the sincerity of the one who offers it.”7

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Human smallness before God limits our perception of the divine reality, and the language of prayer, however grandiose, cannot possibly capture fully the infiniteness of the divine. Still, human understanding is dependent upon language, and the language of prayer is a primary means of cultivating an awareness of God. For the person of faith, worship is central to the totality of life; it is an ontological necessity rather than a psychological need. As Heschel put it, “He who has never prayed is not fully human.”8 In light of this, it is surprising that the inadequacy of divine praise is addressed explicitly in Kaddish, a prayer intended to sanctify God’s name. Kaddish is among the central prayers of Jewish liturgy and its primary liturgical formula in praise of God; yet it contains the profound and seemingly antiliturgical declaration: “Blessed is [God] beyond any blessing and song, praise and consolation that are uttered in the world.” This statement, casting doubt on the very activity of prayer, establishes an important, if subtle, theme of humility in Jewish worship. Such humility has particular value for the cantor, who sings the prayers of the congregation to God. Jewish prayer is synonymous with song: liturgical texts are sung, not merely spoken. And while the cantor’s song should be moving and inspirational, its value, according to Jewish tradition, lies in the modesty and sincerity of its presentation, not its aesthetic qualities. Indeed, regardless of the certainty with which the sacred text is written, humility should underlie all that the cantor sings; just as the cantor is not a musical performer but a messenger of the congregation, his or her song should be free of pride and vanity, and imbued instead with a palpable sense of awe and wonder. This examination is composed of two parts: an analysis of humility in Jewish liturgy, as exemplified in Kaddish, and an overview of the importance of modesty to the vocation of the cantor. I will argue that being humble before God is fundamental to the spiritually efficacious singing of sacred text, and that such humility begins with sincere and total acknowledgement of one’s personal finitude. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that music in Jewish ritual is employed primarily to help worshipers transcend the inherent limitations of language. Where words often fail to capture the grandeur of the sacred moment, music enhances the words of prayer, providing them with a greater emotive range and associational power.9 Thus, sacred song, and the manner in which the cantor sings it, may inspire within worshipers the simultaneous and spiritually necessary feelings of elation and trembling before God.

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I. Jewish Liturgy Prayer is, in the words of Milton Steinberg, “the bridge between man and God.”10 In response to God’s longing for devotion,11 man presents prayer— the service of the heart12—and forges a divine-human fellowship.13 Yet the subject of theology cannot be depicted justly in human vocabulary. God is, after all, “that which nothing greater can be conceived.”14 This concept of “negative theology” is implied in the Talmud, when Rabbi Chanina encounters a man appealing to God as “the great, mighty, awesome, powerful, potent, feared, strong, valiant, enduring, and honored God.”15 After the man finishes his list of laudations, Rabbi Chanina scolds him for heaping attributes onto God, stressing that any attempt to describe God—even in the most exalted language—is ultimately futile. In the twelfth century, Maimonides reiterated this position: The best thing said on the subject was said by the Psalms: “To Thee silence is praise” (Ps. 65:2). The interpretation is that silence with reference to Thee is laudation, for everything that we might say, though we intend with it magnification and laudation, there is always connected with it something that besmirches the rank of the Highest, and we can detect in it a degree of inadequacy.16

Similarly aware that no word is adequate for God, Christian mysticism favors silent devotion over what William Law called “vain babble.”17 As expressed by John Tauler, a medieval contemplative: If a man would prepare an empty place in the depths of his soul there can be no doubt that God must fill it at once. . . . So you must be silent. Then God will be born in you, utter his word in you and you shall hear it; but be very sure that if you speak, the word will have to be silent. The best way to serve the word is to keep silent and listen. If you go out, He will most surely come in; as much as you go out for Him, He will come in to you; no more, no less.18

For this reason, it has been argued that silence, not prayer, is the ideal mode through which one experiences God. Many theologians favor “silence in the face of mystery,” viewing speechlessness as the most appropriate expression of awe and wonder before the divine.19 But the fact remains that without words, one is left without knowledge of any kind. Language is, whether describing physical or extra-physical reality, a flawed yet indispensable component of human consciousness. As such, the words of prayer reveal

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a profound paradox: “we cannot speak, and yet speak we must; God cannot be addressed and yet he must be spoken to; man cannot say what goes on in his heart, and yet he does not even exist unless he speaks out.”20 Biblically, this tension is expressed in Nehemiah 9:5: “May Your glorious name be blessed, exalted though it is above every blessing and praise.” Following such recognition of the limits of language, one would expect to find careful avoidance of divine praise; yet after offering this humble concession, the text continues with a sustained and detailed exposition of God’s characteristics and achievements. With this contradiction we encounter a central motivation behind Jewish prayer: though words cannot capture or convey the divine, our response to the mysteries of the universe nevertheless compels us to engage in worship. In other words, “we pray because we must.”21 A similar paradox is conveyed liturgically in the Kaddish prayer, Judaism’s primary doxological statement. Tellingly, Kaddish contains both a declaration of God’s attributes, “Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, mighty, upraised, and lauded be the Name of the Holy One,” and a startling admission, “Blessed is He beyond any blessing and song, praise and consolation that are uttered in the world.” In one succinct, contradictory sentence, Kaddish illustrates the self-conscious character of Jewish liturgy, which directs lofty language toward an entity beyond all words. Drawing attention to this important juxtaposition, both halves of the prayer conclude with affirmative congregational responses: “Blessed is He” following the list of accolades, and “Amen” following the proclamation against such praise. Even as the activity of prayer seeks to make God immanent,22 Kaddish reminds the worshiper of God’s ineffable transcendence. Within the highly structured Jewish liturgy, Kaddish seems antistructural: with intended irony, Kaddish recognizes both its own futility, and, implicitly, the futility of all liturgical worship. Like Rabbi Chanina’s admonition of the man who listed God’s attributes, Kaddish—in more genteel language—forces the worshiper to descend temporarily from the ecstasy of prayer, and into a more primitive state of fear and trembling. In no uncertain terms, Kaddish reminds the worshiper of his own finitude in the presence of God. This is especially important as Kaddish is used to divide major sections of the liturgy, creating a motif of uncertainty and human inadequacy in a service otherwise aimed at drawing near the immanent presence of God. In this way, Kaddish is used in Jewish worship to express an anthropological concept: liminality. Rather than simply marking the conclusion of significant liturgical units—as is commonly assumed23—Kaddish is a transitional prayer,

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linking one portion of the service to the next. Just as times of transition are filled with uncertainty, angst, and a realization of one’s powerlessness, Kaddish brings to the prayer service a shuddering awareness of the awesomeness of God, and a sense of confusion in the midst of prayers brimming with confident declarations of God’s majesty. So, by examining Kaddish as a sort of case study in “liturgical anthropology,” we find that it embodies, perhaps more than any other prayer in Jewish liturgy, the larger theme of humility in worship.24 Kaddish Kaddish was not originally part of the synagogue service, but emerged out of doxological affirmations presented by the sages after a teaching25—a practice attested to specifically in Talmud.26 Kaddish is, accordingly, written in a literary dialect of Aramaic (the vernacular of Babylonian Jews) used by the sages in a house of study.27 As liturgist Ismar Elbogen explained: The rule was that every sermon had to conclude with words of consolation— that is, with references to the messianic age—and some preachers added another short prayer to these eschatological conclusions. This prayer may at first have had no fixed formula, but was freely worded by the preacher. One such prayer that became established in the course of time was the Kaddish.28

As a liturgical prayer, Kaddish first appears in the seventh-century Tractate Soferim, where it comes at the end of the Torah reading (21:6), in connection with Barchu (“Bless the Lord”) (10:8), and at the conclusion of the service (19:1).29 It retains a messianic message in its opening sentence: “May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created as He willed. May He give reign to His kingship in your lifetimes and in your days, and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel, swiftly and soon.” Such messianism is, however, found more forcefully in other Jewish prayers,30 and Elbogen and others agree that the Kaddish’s placement in the liturgy owes more to its mention of blessing, song, and praise than to its hope for messianic redemption.31 In other words, Kaddish entered the Jewish liturgy as a transitional prayer precisely because it contains the paradoxical statement, “Blessed is He beyond any blessing and song, praise and consolation that are uttered in the world.” In this brief proclamation, Kaddish reveals two concepts fundamental to the Jewish religion: (1) prayer is a necessary means of cultivating an awareness of God, and (2) God is, by definition, beyond everything, including prayer. Moreover, because it is placed between major sections of

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liturgy, Kaddish humbles the worshiper emboldened by the liturgy’s myriad affirmative statements about God. In this way, the assuredness of Jewish liturgy makes Kaddish—and the liminality it suggests—a religious necessity. As one scholar noted, “[this] very repetition suggests that the previous recitals were ineffective, not surprisingly in view of the declaration of the inefficacy of language with which the second paragraph ends.”32 Thus, the architects of the prayer service, I would argue, understood the humility of Kaddish to be an obligatory antidote to what can be called the “arrogance of prayer.” Likewise, the careful placement of Kaddish in the liturgy reflects an important theological tension between certainty and doubt. To this point, it is helpful to view Kaddish in light of the theories of Bronislaw Malinowski, who maintained that religious rituals reduce anxiety and fears,33 and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, who noted that insecurity and doubt might also arise because of such ritual.34 The grand sweep of Jewish liturgy conveys an attitude of spiritual confidence, evident in prayers and petitions extolling God, asking Him for reward, and calling for future redemption—all of which suggest an immediate and intimate knowledge of (and even influence over) the divine. But while these prayers reflect an existential need for certainty in the worshiper’s ultimately precarious life, they are tinged with a subtle sense of doubt—what Rudolf Otto described as a feeling of “personal nothingness and submergence before the awe-inspiring object directly experienced.”35 Participation in ritual, therefore, can stimulate a euphoric response, as one finds comfort in the presence of the sacred; but the sacred presence remains beyond one’s total comprehension—a realization that can create uncertainty and angst. Both serenity and anxiety stem from God-consciousness. No matter how eloquent its language of devotion, spiritual empowerment, and comfort, prayer cannot capture the grandeur of the divine, but only hint at what is beyond our blessings, songs, and praises. It is the role of Kaddish, then, to remind the worshiper of the limits of language, and of the healthy tension between confidence and unknowing in mature faith—that is, the simultaneous emotions of love (intimacy) and fear (unease) in the presence of God. As Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, an eighteenth-century Jewish mystic, wrote: One of the things that one must strengthen within himself is his love and fear of God. He should consider the unimaginable loftiness of God and the great lowliness of man, and humble himself before God, standing in awe before His greatness. He should then yearn and desire to be among those who serve Him, to exult in His praise and be exalted by His greatness.36

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Liminality and Anti-Structure In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell argues that the triadic structure of rites of passage reflects a universal cosmic force present within us all. Identifying these three stages as separation, struggle, and incorporation, Campbell suggests that such rituals demonstrate a social, psychological, and spiritual dynamic fundamental to human life—a process evident cross-culturally in sacred stories, rites, and dreams. In particular, Campbell saw this universal phenomenon exemplified in dreams of archetypal heroes, figures who, in Jungian psychology, are projections of us all: A Hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder [separation]; fabulous forces are there encountered, and a decisive victory is won [struggle]; the hero comes back from his mysterious adventure with power to bestow boon on his fellowmen [incorporation].37

The journey of the hero begins with separation from the relative stability of ordinary life, and entrance to a realm of the unknown. He endures hardship and doubt, tests and ordeals, all of which he must triumph over before crossing the threshold and returning home. According to Campbell, such mythic adventures are paralleled—though perhaps less dramatically—in lifecycle rituals. Like the stories of heroes, rites of passage follow a narrative in which the individual leaves his or her previous status, experiences uncertainty, and, having overcome a challenge (e.g., a bar/bat mitzvah or wedding ceremony) reenters society in a transformed state. In liturgical ritual, the stages of separation, liminality, and incorporation may also be symbolically conveyed. As mentioned, Kaddish, with both its placement between sections of liturgy and its admission of the insufficiency of praising God, marks a transition between two stable units of worship. In the weekday morning liturgy, for instance, Kaddish first appears between Pesukei D’Zimrah (“Songs of Praise”), which contains the laudatory Psalms 145–150, and the Shema and its Blessings, which, among other things, express God’s mastery over nature, and describe God’s role in the flow of history.38 More specifically, this first Kaddish comes between two verses of confident praise: “Blessed are You, Lord, God, King exalted through praises, God of thanksgiving, Master of wonders, Who chooses musical songs of praise” (Yishtabach) and “Bless the Lord, the Blessed One” (Barchu). These firm theological statements can thus be seen as analogous to the well-defined stages of the lifecycle, while Kaddish represents the liminal period of anxious transition. It is, after all, no accident that Kaddish’s words

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against the suitability of songs and praises come directly after a prayer that proclaims God’s desire for those very things. Importantly, too, Kaddish represents the anti-structure anthropologist Victor Turner believed inherent to rites of passage. From his close analysis of Ndembu ritual, Turner concluded that the characteristics of a social structure are “no longer and not yet applicable” during the immediate period of liminality.39 At this time of uncertainty and marginality, the ritual subjects find themselves “neither here nor there,” and are forced to realize their ultimate mortality and equality before the daunting presence of the unknown— what Turner called communitas.40 In the context of worship, this is reflected in the contention that “Every human being feels lowly when he stands before the Lord in prayer.”41 This is of particular relevance during the recitation of Kaddish, which is intended to humble the worshiper caught up in the ecstasy of prayer. As mentioned, such humility before God is an essential element of prayer, as it both inspires gratitude from the individual who, despite personal finitude, is deemed spiritually worthy to “stand before God,”42 and creates among worshipers a “comity of comrades and not a structure of hierarchically arrayed positions.”43 Stated more poetically: Humility does not consist in hiding our talents and virtues, in thinking ourselves worse and more ordinary than we are, but in possessing a clear knowledge of all that is lacking in us and in not exalting ourselves for that which we have, seeing that God has freely given it to us and that, with all His gifts, we are still of infinitely little importance.44

So, inasmuch as the goal of worship is to inspire spiritual growth, Kaddish serves as an analogous representation of the liminal periods experienced in physical growth—transitional states Turner described as “betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial.”45 Following Arnold Van Gennep’s study of rites of passage,46 Turner argued that ritual exemplifies the transition of an individual from one state to another.47 In Jewish worship, this three-phased process of ritual48 is conveyed in (1) the movement away from a section of liturgy (separation), (2) the recitation of Kaddish (liminality), and (3) the beginning of a new liturgical unit (incorporation). Of course, this deep symbolism would not be possible without Judaism’s embrace of liturgical expression. Even as there is biblical precedence for silence in the presence of God—e.g., “keep silent before Him, all the earth” (Hab. 2:20)—the language of liturgy was developed enthusiastically, tempered though it is by a keen acknowledgment that words cannot capture the grandeur of the divine. The language of Jewish worship, when balanced with

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the humbling statement of Kaddish—“Blessed is He beyond any blessing and song, praise and consolation that are uttered in the world”—illustrates clearly an eternal truth: because humanity is finite, the infinite God is ultimately beyond human expression. By critiquing the institution of prayer in this way, Kaddish embodies both the need for and the shortcomings of structured, God-directed speech; it simultaneously praises and deems praise futile.

II. Jewish Sacred Music The humbling words of Kaddish can be applied to the entirely of Jewish liturgy: even those prayers that praise or describe God in bold language should be weighed against the realization that God is beyond all words. Though the worship experience may be intimate and profound, the relationship between God and man is, by definition, unequal. Judaism views prayer as an encounter between the finite (humanity) reaching toward heaven, and the infinite (divine) descending from on high—a “symbolic handshake”49 depicted in Exodus 19:20: “The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.” In order for such an encounter to materialize in worship, it is believed, one must first shudder at the awesomeness of the divine, and then recite quietly the Psalmist’s verse, “O Lord, open my lips, and let my mouth declare your praise” (Ps. 51:17).50 Only through proper mindfulness and humble self-perception can one truly direct his or her heart heavenward.51 The Cantor’s Role The challenge of directing prayers toward heaven is amplified in Jewish congregational worship, where the cantor is charged with converting, through song, an assemblage of worshiping individuals into a liturgical community, and transmitting its prayers to God. In the words of Cantor Benzion Miller, the cantor is “an intermediary . . . a lawyer, pleading a case for [a] client.”52 It is the cantor’s unique responsibility, then, to generate a prayerful experience. A cantor who is devoted to both the sacred text and to an atmosphere of prayer is also an expert sheliach tzibbur (messenger of the congregation). Yet, as a singer, the cantor must be especially aware of the need for humility in prayer; he or she must fight the temptation to “perform.” As Cantor William Sharlin has written, for the cantor, “To move or to impress” is the central question.53 Cantorial “nonperformance” implies a careful distinction between the necessity of emotionalizing the fixed liturgical service through

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prayer-song, and the spiritual damage done when liturgy is sung to satisfy the ego or to “entertain.” Understanding well the need for humbleness in the cantorate, the eleventh-century poet Yekutiel B. Moses composed this meditation: With trepidation I pour forth my fervent plea as I rise to beseech Thee, awesome and exalted God. Because of my insignificant deeds I am seized with apprehension; lacking wisdom, how dare I hope? My Creator, grant me the wisdom to transmit my holy inheritance. Strengthen and fortify me against weakness and vacillation. May my whispered plea be as acceptable to you as rare incense, and may my sacred utterances be to you sweeter than pure honey. Accept them as uttered in sincerity and not to deceive. Let those who have made me their emissary find atonement and forgiveness.54

As this passage suggests, achieving such humility in prayer requires great sincerity; a prayer without the heart is like a body without a soul.55 The cantor’s song must therefore be triply directed: inward toward his or her soul, outward toward the congregation, and upward toward God. If the cantor’s mind is misdirected from this delicate task, the efficacy of the liturgy itself may be compromised. Likewise, as prayer begins with “personal introspection, meditative self-judgment, spiritual self-examination of feelings, thoughts, deeds, directions and motives,”56 it can be said that egocentric singing is the greatest barrier to attaining sincere cantorial prayer. Without doubt, the close relationship of prayer and song in Judaism, as in other religions, is due primarily to music’s emotional qualities. Through the direct channel of human emotion, truly effective prayer-song transcends the confines of language and provides a sense of the immediate yet ineffable presence of the sacred. Just as God is beyond theology, the experience of music is beyond rational analysis. This analogous representation of the sacred through music, while limited, is of central importance to the cantorate. As one scholar suggests, “When the hazzan (cantor) prays in a spirit of genuine piety and avodat hashem (love of God) he can with his melodious voice and his cantorial talent inspire the congregation and lift the worshipers to greater spiritual heights.”57 The cantor’s sincerity, however, cannot be measured objectively. And, it can be argued, a cantor who lacks deep religious commitment may still be capable of singing the liturgy in an inspiring way, though the source of inspiration may not be the holy text, but the music itself or the thrill of performance. For this reason, Heschel insisted, “Reverence and faith are as important as talent and technique, and the music must not lose its relationship to the spirit of the words.”58

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Since reverence and faith, like sincerity, cannot be gauged objectively, various standards of behavior were developed for the cantorate—many of which can be viewed as external, ethical expressions of the internal humility demanded of the cantor. In particular, it is worthwhile to examine cantorial imperatives presented in two documents: Aruch ha-Shulchan (compiled 1884–1906), and the Eighteen Takkanot for the Cantorate (1910). Both texts list specific behavioral guidelines for the cantor, and, importantly, both place these guidelines above the demand that the cantor possess a pleasant voice. Aruch ha-Shulchan and Eighteen Takkanot for the Cantorate Aruch ha-Shulchan (“Laying of the Table”) is Belarusian rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein’s commentary on the sixteenth-century codification of Jewish law, Shulchan Aruch (“Set Table”). This eight-volume catalogue contains regulations specific to the cantor’s personal character, including a summary of qualities that deem one worthy of leading a congregation in prayer: It is written in the Book of Jeremiah, chapter twelve: “She has raised her voice against me, therefore I despise her.” The Rabbis in Tractate Ta’anit 17b, explained this verse to refer to a Sheliah Tzibbur (messenger of the congregation) who is not worthy to approach the prayer desk. What determines the meaning of worthy? He must be free of sin, without a bad reputation even from childhood, a humble individual, accepted by the people, pleasant personality, pleasing voice, and one who is accustomed to read the Torah, Prophets and Hagiographa. If it is impossible to find an individual with all these characteristics, the congregation should choose the best candidate who has wisdom and performs good deeds.59

Not accidentally, good reputation, sinlessness, humility, and pleasant personality are grouped before the more obviously relevant skills of singing and Hebrew fluency. And, if all of these prerequisites are not met, it is wisdom and commitment to good deeds, rather than an outstanding voice, that remain necessary attributes of the cantor. The text even goes on to state, “If there is a choice between an elderly, ignorant person who has a pleasant voice and a young person of thirteen years who understands the meaning of the words of the prayers, but whose voice is not as pleasant, the younger person has preference over the older person as Sheliach Tzibbur (messenger of the congregation).”60 Understanding the meaning of the words in this context implies also commitment to them—that is, as the sacred words are the source from which requirements of character are drawn, one who truly understands

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them is also one who lives by them. Indeed, this reflects a central theme in Jewish ethics: the partnership of belief and right actions.61 For this reason, Aruch ha-Shulchan states that a cantor “must be a Godfearing person, otherwise his prayer is an abomination.”62 In addition to the ethical behavior discussed above, ritual decorum is also delineated to represent this inward humility and devotion. For example, the text states that the cantor must stand before the prayer desk as if he or she were standing before a king, “Tallit (prayer shawl) over his head, not on his shoulders, without bizarre movements, not looking to the side or the back, not yawning, not spitting.”63 And, in its central statement urging humility in the cantorate, the Aruch ha-Shulchan declares: Whomever God blessed with a pleasant voice should chant with joy of performing a mitzvah. This singing should not include secular songs and certainly not love songs, which are most sinful. A Sheliach Tzibbur who prolongs the prayers in order to express his delight in giving thanks to the Almighty will be blessed. If his intent is to impress others with his singing, he is doing a terrible wrong. Whoever prolongs the prayers is causing uneasiness for the congregation in that the worshipers grow weary.64

The theme of humility in prayer is emphasized further in Pinchas Minkowski’s Eighteen Takkanot for the Cantorate. Developed in pre-revolutionary Russia, these takkanot (enactments) were intended to raise the professional standards of the cantorate, and to enhance the overall dignity of the synagogue service. The text begins with the fundamental statement: “The person who carries the responsibilities of leading the liturgical service is firstly a Sheliach Tzibbur and afterwards an artist. He can be the greatest performer but his art must be treated with secondary importance.”65 In order to express this to the congregation, Minkowski argued, “A distinguished cantor should not wave his hands or head nor practice any theatrical mimicking during the service. These special effects belong in a circus or theater, but not in the synagogue. . . . He must remain dignified at all times.”66 As part of his effort to rid the synagogue of cantorial “performers,” Minkowski condemned the then emerging phenomenon of cantorial recording: Don’t record synagogue compositions on the gramophone. Flee from that terrible development. Take a holy oath not to introduce into the liturgy any melody heard from the gramophone. Run from that modern desecration. Don’t sing the immoral compositions of Warsaw and Vilna. We are not like the other nations. We have only prayers and songs in the service of our synagogue. Don’t introduce them into the cabarets.67

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Added to this, Minkowski wrote, “a distinguished cantor must also be a distinguished person. If a cantor wants to be received by the community as a distinguished cantor and not as an itinerant singer, he must first honor himself.”68 Without upright character—rooted in humility before God and expressed in outward behavior—the cantor is not considered a worthy emissary of the congregation. Humble devotion to God is, then, an essential prerequisite for prayer-song. As it is written: “the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant, Moses. Then sang Moses and the Children of Israel this song to the Lord” (Exod. 14:31, 15:1).

Conclusion Rabbi Brad Hirschfield wrote, “To be a true monotheist is to understand that no one human understanding of the infinite power can ever fully capture what that power is, or how, exactly, to relate to or honor it.”69 While Jewish religiosity is expressed through a complex system of liturgy, employing language that extols the greatness of God, there is subtle recognition—in Kaddish and elsewhere—of the inability of such words to capture the vastness of God and His attributes. It is therefore evident that both confident prayer and a sense of personal finitude are necessary for Jewish spirituality: prayer helps establish and maintain an awareness of God, while realization that God is beyond full human comprehension—and thus beyond prayer—enables one to remain in a state of humble religiosity. Moreover, as music expresses the verbally inexpressible,70 it has for centuries been used to convey the mystery and majesty that lies beyond the sacred text. As one scholar noted, “only the elevated language of tones is fitted for speaking with God.”71 Poet Naphtali Herz Imber described succinctly this profoundly spiritual quality of music: [Only] music is able to speak to the inner spirit in its own language, whose words are expressions, and whose arguments are feelings. Only on the wings of music can we best make the flight to unseen space; and music is the only medium through which our astral body goes out from its clay prison and walks among the Celestials, in the realm of the ethereal universe. Music is the language spoken by the angels.72

Truly effective sacred music can both foster and enhance a meaningful religious experience, making the transcendent present among the worshiping congregation. Indeed, liturgical language begs for musical presentation: as an

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aid to worship, music helps clarify the religious emotions and divine presence that holy words often fail to convey. And, as the sages maintained, only a prayer sung by a humble cantor, fully aware of his or her role as (imperfect) intermediary between the congregation and God, can reach its highest spiritual potential.

Notes 1. Rabbi Bachya ibn Pakuda, Duties of the Heart, vol. 2, trans. Daniel Haberman (New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1996), 589. 2. Jeanie Grenberg, Kant and the Ethics of Humility (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 133. 3. Augustine of Hippo: “Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues: hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.” Quoted in Judith Fitzgerald and Michael Oren Fitzgerald, Christian Spirit (Bloomington, Ind.: World Wisdom, 2004), 31. 4. Berakhot, 28b. 5. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), 247. 6. Walter Orenstein, The Cantor’s Manual of Jewish Law (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1994), xxiv. 7. Orenstein, The Cantor’s Manual, xx. 8. Abraham Joshua Heschel, “The Spirit of Jewish Prayer,” Journal of Synagogue Music 29, no. 1 (1989): 96. 9. Don E. Saliers, Music and Theology (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 2007), 6. 10. Milton Steinberg, Basic Judaism (New York: Harcourt, 1947), 116. 11. Yebamot 64a. 12. Ta’anit 2a. 13. Heschel, “The Spirit of Jewish Prayer,” 96. 14. Anselm of Canterbury (eleventh century). 15. Berachot 33b. 16. Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed I, ch. 59. 17. William Law, quoted in Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper and Row, 1944), 216. 18. John Tauler, Spiritual Conferences (Rockford, Ill.: Tan, 1978), 157. 19. Saliers, Music and Theology, 72. 20. Steven S. Schwarzschild, “Speech and Silence before God,” Judaism 10, no. 3 (1961): 204. 21. Orenstein, The Cantor’s Manual, xx. 22. Heschel, “The Spirit of Jewish Prayer,” 89. 23. See, for instance, Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), 538;

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and Philip Birnbaum, Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts (New York: Hebrew Publishing, 1979), 80. 24. The theme of humility is also expressed in the High Holy Day prayer Hineni he’ani mima’as (“Here I am, poor in worthy deeds”), in which the cantor states, more explicitly, his inadequacy before God. While this prayer is only recited annually, the Kaddish, which is read multiple times daily, is a more familiar and constant reminder of the virtue of humility in Jewish prayer. 25. Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1993), 185. 26. Sotah 49a. 27. See David de Sola Pool, The Kaddish (Leipzig: Rudolf Haupt, 1909). 28. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 80. 29. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 81. 30. See, for instance, references to the messianic age in the weekday Amidah (“standing prayer”). 31. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 81. 32. Jeremy Schonfield, Undercurrents of Jewish Prayer (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006), 306–7. 33. See Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Role of Magic and Religion,” in Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed., ed. William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 37–46. 34. See A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society (New York: Free Press, 1965). 35. Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational (London: Oxford University Press, 1923), 17. 36. Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, The Way of God, trans. Aryeh Kaplan (New York: Feldheim, 1988), 69. 37. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 30. 38. See Elie Munk, The World of Prayer: Volume I (New York: Feldheim, 1963). 39. Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969), 94–97, 125–30. 40. Victor Turner, Dramas Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974), 45–55. 41. Orenstein, The Cantor’s Manual, xx. 42. Zvi Yehuda, “The Dialectical Quality of Jewish Prayer: Appreciating the Paradox in the Style of Jewish Liturgy,” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 25 (2002–2003): 27. 43. Turner, The Ritual Process, 94–7. 44. Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, quoted in Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper and Row, 1944), 164. 45. Turner, The Ritual Process, 95.

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46. See Arnold Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (London: Routledge, 1960). 47. Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithica, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967), 93–103. 48. Mathieu Deflem, “Ritual, Anti-structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic Analysis,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30, no. 1 (1991): 13; Roger Schmidt, Exploring Religion, 2nd ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1988), 436. 49. Orenstein, The Cantor’s Manual, xxvi. 50. Zvi Yehuda, “The Dialectical Quality of Jewish Prayer: Appreciating the Paradox in the Style of Jewish Liturgy,” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 25 (2002–2003): 22. 51. Berakhot, 31a. 52. Benzion Miller, quoted in Gigi Yellen, “Scales out of Shul,” Hadassah Magazine 88, no. 9 (2007): 50. 53. William Sharlin, “Why Can’t a Woman Chant Like a Man?” in Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity: Continuity and Fragmentation, ed. Jonathan L. Friedmann and Brad Stetson (St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2008), 93. 54. Yekutiel B. Moses, quoted in Leo Landman, The Cantor: An Historical Perspective (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1972). 55. Bachya Ibn Pakudah, Chovot ha-Levavot 8:2, 9. 56. Yehuda, “The Dialectical Quality of Jewish Prayer,” 20. 57. Gersion Appel, “The Sheliah Tzibbur in Halakhah and Jewish Tradition,” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 3, no. 1 (1979–1980): 5. 58. Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom, 249. 59. Wilfred Wolfson, “Laws and Customs for the Sheli’ah Tzibbur According to the Arukh ha-Shulhan,” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 14 (1991–1992): 4. 60. Wolfson, “Laws and Customs,” 4. 61. Norman Lamm, The Shema: Spirituality and Law in Judaism (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2000), 6. 62. Wolfson, “Laws and Customs,” 15. 63. Wolfson, “Laws and Customs,” 7. 64. Wolfson, “Laws and Customs,” 7. 65. Solomon F. Rybak, “Minkowski’s Eighteen Takkanot for the Cantorate,” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 6 (1983–1984): 25. 66. Rybak, “Minkowski’s Eighteen Takkanot,” 25. 67. Rybak, “Minkowski’s Eighteen Takkanot,” 27. 68. Rybak, “Minkowski’s Eighteen Takkanot,” 26. 69. Brad Hirschfield, You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith without Fanaticism (New York: Harmony, 2007), 152. 70. Saliers, Music and Theology, 9. 71. Oskar Söhngen, “Music and Theology: A Systematic Approach,” in Sacred Sound: Music in Religious Thought and Practice, ed. Joyce Irwin (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983), 8.

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72. Naphtali Herz Imber, “The Music of the Psalms,” Music: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Art, Science, Technique and Literature of Music 6 (1894): 571.

Bibliography Appel, Gersion. “The Sheliah Tzibbur in Halakhah and Jewish Tradition.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 3, no. 1 (1979–1980): 2–9. Birnbaum, Philip. Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts. New York: Hebrew Publishing, 1979. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. Deflem, Mathieu. “Ritual, Anti-structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic Analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30, no. 1 (1991): 1–25. Dov Schwartz, Gedalia. “Halakhah and Minhag in Nusach Hatefillah.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 8 (1990–1991): 1–4. Eckstein, Simon. “Aspects of Synagogue Music and Decorum.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 7 (1984–1985): 33–37. Elbogen, Ismar. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History. Trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. Fitzgerald, Judith, and Michael Oren Fitzgerald. Christian Spirit. Bloomington, Ind.: World Wisdom, 2004. Friedmann, Jonathan L., and Brad Stetson, eds. Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity: Continuity and Fragmentation. St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2008. Grenberg, Jeanie. Kant and the Ethics of Humility. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Heinemann, Joseph. Prayer in Talmud: Forms and Patterns. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977. Herrmann, Robert L. God, Science and Humility: Ten Scientists Consider Humility Theology. Radnor, Penn.: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Insecurity of Freedom. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. ———. “The Spirit of Jewish Prayer.” Journal of Synagogue Music 29, no. 1 (1989): 77–103. Heskes, Irene. “The Cultural Leadership Role of the Cantor.” Journal of Synagogue Music 3, no. 3 (1971): 13–16. Hirschfield, Brad. You Don’t Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right: Finding Faith without Fanaticism. New York: Harmony, 2007. Huxley, Aldous. The Perennial Philosophy. New York: Harper and Row, 1944. Ibn Pakuda, Bachya. Duties of the Heart, vol. 2. Translated by Daniel Haberman. New York: Feldheim Publishers, 1996. Imber, Naphtali Herz. “The Music of the Psalms.” Music: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Art, Science, Technique and Literature of Music 6 (1894): 568–88.

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Jassinowsky, Pinchos. “Hazzanim and Hazzanut.” Journal of Synagogue Music 6, no. 1 (1975): 12–19. Kahn, Aaron. “Music in Halakhic Perspective.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 9 (1986–1987): 55–72. Klein, Earl. Jewish Prayer: Concepts and Customs. Columbus, Oh.: Alpha, 1986. Lamm, Norman. The Shema: Spirituality and Law in Judaism. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2000. Landman, Leo. The Cantor: An Historical Perspective. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1972. Luzzatto, Moshe Chaim. The Way of God. Trans. Aryeh Kaplan. New York: Feldheim, 1988. Malinowski, Bronislaw. “The Role of Magic and Religion.” Pp. 63–72 in Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed., edited by William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt. New York: Harper and Row, 1978. Munk, Elie. The World of Prayer: Volume I. New York: Feldheim, 1963. Novak, David. “Is the God of the Philosophers That Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived?” Jewish Studies Quarterly 13, no. 3 (2006): 196–204. Nulman, Macy. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1993. Orenstein, Walter. The Cantor’s Manual of Jewish Law. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1994. Otto, Rudolph. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational. London: Oxford University Press, 1923. Pool, David de Sola. The Kaddish. Leipzig: Rudolf Haupt, 1909. Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. Structure and Function in Primitive Society. New York: Free Press, 1965. Rybak, Solomon F. “Minkowski’s Eighteen Takkanot for the Cantorate.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 6 (1983–1984): 24–30. Saliers, Don E. Music and Theology. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 2007. Schachter, Hershel. “Halakhot and Minhagim for the Shatz and Congregation.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 5 (1982–1983): 11–23. Schmidt, Roger. Exploring Religion, 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1988. Schonfield, Jeremy. Undercurrents of Jewish Prayer. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006. Schwarzschild, Steven S. “Speech and Silence before God.” Judaism 10, no. 3 (1961): 195–204. Söhngen, Oskar. “Music and Theology: A Systematic Approach.” Pp. 1–20 in Sacred Sound: Music in Religious Thought and Practice, edited by Joyce Irwin. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983: Steinberg, Milton. Basic Judaism. New York: Harcourt, 1947. Tauler, John. Spiritual Conferences. Rockford, Ill.: Tan, 1978.

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Turner, Victor. Dramas Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974. ———. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithica, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967. Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. London: Routledge, 1960. Wolfson, Wilfred. “Laws and Customs for the Sheli’ah Tzibbur According to the Arukh ha-Shulhan.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 14 (1991–1992): 1–15. Yehuda, Zvi. “The Dialectical Quality of Jewish Prayer: Appreciating the Paradox in the Style of Jewish Liturgy.” Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy 25 (2002–2003): 20–29. Yellen, Gigi. “Scales out of Shul.” Hadassah Magazine 88, no. 9 (2007): 48–53. Zahavy, Tzvee. “Kavvanah for Prayer in the Mishnah and Talmud.” Pp. 37–48 in New Perspectives on Ancient Judaism: Vol. I, edited by Jacob Nuesner, et. al. Atlanta: Scholars, 1990.

CHAPTER FOUR



Gender and Liturgy in Music: Masculine and Feminine Forms of Language and Ritual in Sephardic Secular and Sacred Music1 Vanessa Paloma What is the intersection between language and music, ritual and memory and how can it express and influence Sephardic identity through gender-role based expression? Starting from this question and the knowledge of the clear boundaries and established roles between public and private rituals in Sephardic Judaism, this is an exploration of the layers that affect the role of music as it connects liturgy and ritual within Sephardic secular and sacred contexts. I categorize Judeo-Spanish as a “feminine” language because it was the home-based Jewish language, whereas Hebrew was used for synagogue, the public sphere. Using examples from Morocco, Turkey, and Rhodes I will demonstrate specific points within the liturgy that permit women’s songs or what I am naming the “feminine” language of Judeo-Spanish to incorporate into the other Jewish language which I call the “masculine” in Hebrew dominated liturgy. Public liturgical Judaism is traditionally considered the masculine realm, but private Jewish rituals have more elasticity as refers to gender-roles. Women’s Judaism in the Sephardic milieu is more visible in home-based or private practices and includes silent repetitive ritual actions, as well as music and songs. Women’s Jewish Sephardic songs are dominantly in the private realm of family, women’s groups, or communal life-cycle celebrations.

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The Song of the Soul: Music as Religious Tool Music is a dominant and meaningful vehicle for religious expression, and its overarching influence does not function solely as an artistic expression of the inner individualistic self, but as a vehicle for stirrings of a community’s soul. Cross-culturally music has historically had multiple functions in religious contexts. In traditional religions, including Orthodox Judaism, it has also functioned as a memory device for memorization of long texts, also serving as a vehicle that carries unnamable emotions that go beyond verbal expression. Music is present throughout religions and spiritual traditions. A compelling combination, spiritual yearning and creative expression are like two sides of the cornerstone that form ritual into liturgy. Structured liturgy has the repetitive quality which supports memory and identity formation. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow suggests in his work All in Sync that the adult connection to spirituality is forged from pursuits that have brought art and religion together: “those who are involved in artistic interests are more likely to engage in devotional activities than those who are not involved, no matter what their interest in spirituality.”2 One reason for music’s power in religious expression is because melody and rhythm are abstract nonverbal vehicles, which facilitate memory retention of text or emotion. Human memory is a major component of the self and the formation of identity. An important factor in the crafting of an individual’s self-conception and of personal and communal identity has to do with religion and the stories and texts associated with their particular tradition. The repetition of myths and stories creates memory pathways that cement versions of one’s self-understanding. According to Martin Conway in his article “Memory and the Self ”: The representations of the conceptual self are socially constructed schema and categories that define the self, other people, and typical interactions with others and the surrounding world. These schema and categories are drawn largely from the influences of familial and peer socialization schooling, and religion, as well as the stories, fairy-tales, myths, and media influences that are constitutive of an individual’s particular culture.3

Who Am I? Identity Formation Ritual, liturgy and communal practices represent defining elements in formation of the self. Wuthnow’s study emphasizes the magnitude of influence the arts have in bonding a young person to religious feelings:

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The childhood activities that so strongly influence adult spirituality are the ones that bring the arts and religion together. Hymns and other religious music, memories of religious pictures or plaques in one’s childhood home, and religious objects powerfully influence the likelihood that adults will be interested in spiritual growth. These hymns, pictures, and objects are also works of art. People who score high on artistic interests of other kinds are more likely to have been influenced by these kinds of religious music and art as children.4

When a young girl in late 1940s Northern Morocco sang Judeo-Spanish songs walking through the streets of Alcazarquivir in the celebration of a wedding, this memory was etched into her mind as one of a string of selfdefining moments as a Jew and as a woman. The Judeo-Spanish song, although in Spanish, belonged exclusively to the Jewish community’s oral literature. This musical identification with Spanish culture connected the young singer to the dominant political force in the Northern Morocco of that time when the area was still under the Spanish Protectorate, while defining an exclusive Jewish stamp to it. As a woman, she was continuing a line of women’s oral literature. Las canciones de las Señoras as they are called by the community are known by both men and women, but it is the woman’s realm, responsibility, and desire to pass these on to the next generation and sing them at life-cycle celebrations and holidays. Although the men are familiar with the melodies and their texts, invariably they defer to certain women who are considered experts and have been informally defined as the main cultural transmitters and guardians of this oral literature. Earle Waugh states in Memory, Music and Religion, “Memory is a constitutive ingredient in the self-formulating process, a process that has religious implications.”5 Conway also states that the brain has two memory storing functions: one that serves for functional short-term memories and the other for long-term goals. “It is through goal hierarchy that new knowledge enters long-term memory and it is also through the working self that preexisting knowledge is accessed and memories are constructed.”6 For Judaism to remain within a person’s long-term memory as an intrinsic part of the self, it must exist as part of a long-term goal within the construction of the person’s identity. If long-term goals have particularly strong “sticking power” in our memory banks, which help us define our self to others and ourselves, then Judaism as a “goal” is what ensures it will continue to be a priority for memory retention of self-defining goal-relevant experiences. Aimed at maintaining the social and religious group, the “continuity of the Jewish people” functions as a long-term goal that touches on a person’s interest with bequeathing a part of his or her own history and self to the

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world through the next generation. It functions as a personal goal and also as a general goal for the larger group. This is a unifying objective for the whole of the Jewish people: maintaining and continuing its traditions and numbers. It is not a goal of expansion but one of continuity through the next generation. The concept of spiritual inheritance, from generation to generation is a handing off of responsibility of an almost otherworldly mission which fulfills an ancient covenant with the Divine. On a more human level, it ensures the immortality of each person and family unit through the continuity of their biological/familial lines. Women’s Words: Gender, Language, and Memory Formation “Memory is essential for filling up space with enactments replicating religion’s establishment stories.”7 In Sephardic Judaism, as in other religious traditions, not only are actions and goals important for memory and identity formation, but another element that also plays into the intersection is language and its relation to identity and ritual. Language centers in the brain relate to the capacity to relate to others and create a narrative in the context of a society and communal history. This vector is particularly important given the difference of musical and textual repertoire Sephardic women and men are responsible for as regards to oral transmission. Women are more attuned to language and emotion than men by mere fact of brain biology. The ways that women use language to convey emotional information must be taken into consideration. Women’s use of language and words as capsules conveying emotional information must be understood as serving a different function within mechanisms of identity formation. According to recent studies of the brain and verbal development, men’s use of language serves defined goals, whereas women’s use of language is to build emotional context. The female brain devotes more importance to language and emotion as demonstrated in Louann Brizendine’s recent book The Female Brain. Under a microscope or an MRI scan, the differences between male and female brains are revealed to be complex and widespread. In the brain centers for language and hearing, for example, women have 11 percent more neurons than men. The principal hub of both emotion and memory formation—the hippocampus—is also larger in the female brain, as is the brain circuitry for language and observing emotions in others. This means that women are on average, better at expressing emotions and remembering the details of emotional events.8

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Ritual: A Generational Link Ritual falls within public and private practices of Judaism. The public liturgical aspect of ritual, predominantly dominated by Hebrew language, falls under the masculine realm. Personal private ritual can be silent ritual action, or action with verbal accompaniment in Hebrew or the vernacular, such as Judeo-Spanish. This private ritual brings a “sacramentalization” into daily tasks. Private forms of interacting with the sacred are undoubtedly not gender-specific. They simply provide a personal relationship with the holy though specific actions or prayers. Through the repetition of specific rituals the devotee connects to certain familial or societal traditions, thus connecting in a chain of action and belief to the ancestral past or future. The connection created by the action itself is as much to the past as it is to the unseen future, which is directly impacted in the devotee’s perception. Simultaneously, the past and the future coincide and connect with the central point—the present moment of ritual action. Ritual as a repetitive action functions to connect the past and the future. The repetition of physical actions, of words and patterns of words or melodies are an active embrace by the performer or devotee into a relationship with the energetic field or furrow created by all people who have repeated the same words, actions, or melodic patterns. Not only does the devotee connect with those in the past through ritual action, but the very event in the present also continues a chain which could be fatally severed if it is not set into action by the person involved. This simultaneous perception of responsibility toward the past and the future creates a dynamic balancing point from where tradition and innovation interact. The actions I am referring to can be subdivided in different ways which impact levels of commitment and involvement. According to the subject’s feelings of responsibility and accountability to her ancestors and descendants she may choose to be more or less implicated in certain repetitive ritual actions.

Jewish Life/Ritual In Jewish life there are various levels of ritual: I. Nonverbal action rituals II. Actions with verbal accompaniment III. Actions with verbal and melodic accompaniment

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These three categories have innumerable examples. I am presenting some below as a varied set of possibilities to show the variety of forms of ritual repetitive action within public and private faces of traditional Sephardic Judaism. I. Nonverbal action rituals: a. Kashrut (dietary laws) b. Kissing a mezuzah walking in and out of rooms c. Putting on shoes (first right then left) and tying them (first left then right) d. Pouring water out of a still bottle e. Ritual hand-washing in Passover without a blessing f. Refraining from the thirty-nine “melachot” or forms of work that constitute violations of the Shabbat II. Actions with verbal accompaniment: a. Eating (pre-blessings and after eating blessings) b. Putting a mezuzah up c. Seeing hail, thunder, a rainbow, a beautiful place or person, a king, a head of state . . . d. Smelling a fruit, herb, tree . . . e. Going to the bathroom (Asher Yatzar) f. Going to bed (Shema Israel) g. Traveling (Yehi Ratzon) h. Rosh Hashana Yehi Ratzon evening-meal ceremony III. Actions with verbal and melodic accompaniment a. Reading the Torah and Haftarah b. Reading Psalms with trope c. Prescribed liturgical prayer d. Reading of the Passover Hagada e. Saying Kiddush (sanctification) on Shabbat I. Nonverbal Action Rituals Repetitive action rituals without verbal or musical components reiterate the idea of engaging with the “numinous” through simple actions. In The Idea of the Holy Rudolf Otto states, “it is our task to inquire into these ‘stimuli’ or ‘excitations,’ these elements that cause the numinous feelings to appear in consciousness, to intimate by virtue of what analogies they came to be able to do so, and so to discover the series or chain of these stimuli by whose operation the numinous feeling was awakened in us.”9

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By simple repetitive ritualistic actions conjoined with ideas of the Divine and one’s relationship to it, the person is engaging with a process of relationship to the intangible. The arousal of religious feelings can come first in the chain of action, e.g., feeling inspired and then kissing a mezuzah while walking through the door. On an opposite side of the spectrum, a person can have a mechanistic physical ritual integrated into her daily actions, and the mechanical action itself can remind the person of a previous moment of inspiration thus unexpectedly thrusting her into feelings of the numinous. These nonverbal rituals require almost no Jewish literacy and reside mostly in the realm of the private personal relationship to the Divine. Silent action rituals are easy to acquire at a young age and do not require knowledge of Hebrew or of the liturgical structure. They also can become visceral connections to Jewish identity. For some who have been raised in a kosher home, the very thought of combining meat and milk makes their stomach churn. It has been internalized, not only as a theological, moral action, but also as one that is instinctively reactive. The ritual of refraining from activity, like refraining from any of the thirty-nine melachot (labors) prohibited on Shabbat, also creates a relationship to the numinous while not requiring any level of Hebrew literacy or formulaic texts. It is the space created by refraining from a certain action, which allows a connection to the holy, more from the absence than the presence of action. II. Actions with Verbal Accompaniment Verbal ritualistic formulas that accompany actions offer a next step of commitment and literacy for the worshiper. There must be a minimal knowledge of Hebrew, in addition to understanding which verbal formula is appropriate for specific repetitive actions. In these cases it is more common to find that mundane rituals are imbued with feeling and linked with the transcendent than vice versa. These fall under the category of uplifting the mundane rather than mechanizing the spiritual. This intermediate level of ritual bridges between the divide of nonverbal actions requiring no Jewish literacy and the level of actions with verbal and melodic accompaniment, which are in their majority liturgical and represent a committed codified expression of Jewish ritual and high levels of Jewish literacy. This second category also includes home-based rituals in JudeoSpanish, and short formulaic verbal rituals, which are learned by children, men, and women as part of basic Jewish learning.

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The Yehi Ratzon ceremony, done in the home on both nights of Rosh Hashana in Judeo-Spanish serves as a moment of identity building and ritual connection to the holiday in a vernacular home-based ritual. It is full of imagery relating to the evil eye, and protection against enemies and negativity. Other examples of short verbal formulas accompanying actions relate principally to actions in the physical world, which aim to bring holiness into the mundane (asher yatzar blessing after using the bathroom) or actively seeking protection (putting a mezuzah up in the house). There are also short formulaic prayers said at home in Judeo-Spanish, asking for protection or to be released from a bad dream, which are accompanied by an action which can be viewed by some to be insignificant. This ritual involves pouring salt into a glass of water followed by a verbal formula asking God to dissolve the bad dream just as the salt was dissolved in the water. This form of practical invocation of God’s protection is one of a series of homebased rituals, which are found not only in Moroccan Jewish communities but also in the Sephardic communities of the Ottoman Empire. In this intermediate level of actions with verbal accompaniment, women’s participation is most visible. Female healers who removed curses of the evil eye spoke formulaic prayers invoking the angels with an admixture of JudeoSpanish and Hebrew. It was only in private Judeo-Spanish ritual leading that women were able to act as shaliah, or envoy, of blessing into this world. Once rituals are public and in Hebrew, a woman’s power to lead and affect others is nullified. This intermediate level of actions with verbal accompaniment was as far as women acted as ritual leaders in the public milieu. III. Actions with Verbal and Melodic Accompaniment Public liturgy and Torah reading bring us into the realm of the musical component as an intrinsic unifying element in creating a communal spiritual rhythm. The action of praying in community with melodic and textual formulas familiar to the gathered devotees facilitates a communal rhythm of prayer. Women are not included as participating active members in public liturgy and Torah reading within traditional Jewish practice. This requires a closer look into what forms of expression were available to women as spiritual alternatives within structured liturgy. The assumed conclusion is that women’s participation was minimal, and thus they were passive and their voices were silent. The woman’s voice, the feminine voice, was not completely blotted out of the public liturgical sphere in the Sephardic world. However, it appears

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disguised within the melodies taken from Judeo-Spanish songs women would sing which then migrated as contrafacta into the synagogue ritual, or by the occasional use of Judeo-Spanish songs in the public liturgical sphere during special holidays.

The Rhythmic Arc of Liturgy in Tangier, Morocco The standard traditional liturgy of Shabbat and Chagim (holidays) serves as a blueprint for developing a communal and personal rhythm in the prayer service, with moments of pause, tension, and resolution. In the enacting of the words, songs, and silent meditations, the worshiper is given keys to ascend into chambers of unity and closeness with the Divine. One way of considering the five main sections of the liturgy are (1) Psalms of Praise, (2) Shema and its blessings, (3) the Amidah (silent prayer), (4) Torah service on the day the Torah is read, then leading back down from the high point of the Torah, and (5) concluding prayers. An expansion on this division is using the four worlds according to Kabbalah and placing the order of the service as a progression into and out of these worlds, as if to say that through the words of the liturgy the worshiper is traveling into alternate realms of existence. The five sections delineated above turn into the following seven with a slightly different set of divisions that are based on Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azoulay’s siddur for the weekday service. Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azoulay (1724–1807), also known as the Chida, has a siddur (prayer book) replete with kavvanot (kabbalistic unifications), halachic (legal), and midrashic (exegetical) explanations. He also follows a Kabbalistic structure of the worlds, which serves as a ladder to ascend and descend through prayer. These seven sections correspond to steps the worshiper ascends and descends during prayer, as indicated in the siddur of the Chida, which is the liturgy followed in Tangier. Table 4.1 Olam Olam Olam Olam Olam Olam Olam

HaAssiyah—Action HaYetzirah—Creation HaBeriyah—Formation HaAtzilut—Emanation HaBeriyah—Formation HaYetzirah—Creation Ha’Assiyah—Action

Akeidah to Baruch SheAmar Baruch SheAmar to Yotzer Ohr Yotzer Ohr to Ga’al Israel Amidah and Torah Service Ashrei to Tefilat LeDavid Tefilat LeDavid to Kave el Ad-nai Kave el Ad-nai to Aleinu

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In the liturgy of Northern Morocco during a regular Shabbat morning service, the melodies that predominated were Andalusian. The shaliah tsibur (prayer leader) played the role of the main instrument, or soloist, on a text or even on a vowel, as a long melisma while the congregation responded in kind with the instrumental answers that are customary in orchestral performances. The instruments are done with the mouth (because of the Shabbat prohibition to play instruments). There is interplay between the shaliah and other soloist members that responded and the kahal (community) responding as the orchestra would, either on Hebrew text or on a melisma on a vowel. These classical Andalusian melodies that made it into the liturgy were originally in Arabic, which served a public societal purpose in Moroccan communities in the North. Haketía, or Moroccan Judeo-Spanish, was the language of the community and the family. A mixture of Hebrew, Spanish, and Arabic, Haketía is a compression of the complex, multiple identities found in the Jews of cities like Tetuan and Alcazarquivir among others. Written in Rashi script, using words in Hebrew, verb roots from Arabic conjugated with the Spanish -ar verb form, and a vocabulary and grammatical base of Spanish, Haketía is a linguistic embodiment of hybrid identity. In the liturgy itself we find a musical language hybridity as well. The Psalms, Torah, and Haftarah are read with te’amim (chant markings). The additions are the musical base of nuba for the nussah in addition to wellknown Andalusian melodies interspersed throughout the service and, in the North of Morocco, the addition of melodies from Judeo-Spanish songs, which are usually in the realm of women’s music. Secular Judeo-Spanish melodies are sung in the synagogue, thus bridging the male and female musical and textual language in a simultaneous collapse of gender, religious, and spatial barriers. I am interested to note at which points of the service it is that the “women’s voice” pierces into the commonly assumed male sphere and what can be gleaned from this piercing. Especially because of the strict halachic laws surrounding women’s voices as prayer leaders in mixed company, finding traces of women’s voices within the liturgical structure is a meaningful observation. This examination reveals levels of interplay within gendered forms of language and music that have been previously dismissed as insignificant. Parting from the following five common permutations of melodic languages in relation to textual language and moments in the prayer, patterns emerge.

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a. Classical Andalusian music with Hebrew text b. Judeo Spanish music with Hebrew text c. Judeo Spanish music with a mix of Hebrew and Spanish text or completely in Spanish d. Te’amim with Spanish text (as in Haftarot of the seventh day of Passover and the second day of Shavuot) e. Te’amim with Hebrew text I will follow the Chida’s structure to denote the points where traditional Andalusian melodies dominate the musical language of the liturgy. The points of punctuation are added by inserting melodies from songs in Haketía, or with a song in Haketía itself during specific points in the service on specific holidays. In exploring the relationships between the Chida’s liturgical structure and the choices of different music for specific moments in the building of liturgical rhythm, I find an interplay, which sheds light on undercurrents of gender dynamics that exist within the Jewish communities of Northern Morocco. What I am classifying as traditionally masculine music are the classical Andalusian melodies and the nuba. What I am naming feminine music in Northern Morocco is las canciones de las antiguas, as they are referred to today, and are the songs in Haketía, such as wedding ballads and romances. Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah, which means to receive, in its essence deals with unifications. The Zohar, the Book of Splendor, which is the basic treatise of Kabbalah, has pages on end of details on the unification between the feminine and masculine aspects of God. The Zohar has been studied in Morocco since the Middle Ages and is found repeatedly throughout the libraries of the North. These mystical secrets are described in what would seem to an uninitiated reader as explicit terms of physicality between a man and a woman not seeming to relate to spirituality and God. However, the deepest mystery is in the union of the masculine and feminine aspects, because it is through this balance that creation and life continues. In the service itself, with the interplay of “masculine voice” and “feminine voice” musical languages, there is a unification at work. Through the ladder that builds based on the Chida’s system, the bouncing between Andalusian melodies and Judeo-Spanish melodies suggests a development that peaks in the world of atzilut, emanation.

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Andalusian music (masculine voice): Table 4.2 Olam HaAsiyah Olam YaYetsira

Olam HaBeriah

Olam HaAtsilut

Hashem Melech in Hagaz • Shirat HaYam—in any of the eleven nubas • Nashafta (in the middle of Shirat HaYam)—making change to another nuba Andalusian until the end of BeFi Yesharim (Itzhak/Rivka acrostic) • Kaddish before Barechu and as many Kaddishim as the paytan wants in Andalusian song El Adon (after Yotser Ohr) Kriat Shema in Teamim (trope) or in a nuba as per the leader’s choice Kedusha

Judeo-Spanish music (feminine voice): Table 4.3 Olam HaYetzirah Olam HaAtzilut

Olam HaAsiyah

• Piyyut in Hebrew “Shiru Shir VaShevaj” on first day of Pesaj before the Nishmat with the melody of Paipero • Kedusha in Hebrew of Musaf with the tune of Rachel Lastimoza • At the opening of the Heichal on Simjat Tora and Shavuot : Hi Torá Lanu Nitana in Haketía • Shevi’i shel Pesaj: Ya viene el Señor de la redención in Hebrew and Haketía • Haftara in Spanish on the seventh day of Pesaj and the second day of Shavuot Adon Olam on a tune from a Romance (Rosablanca or another)

The musical unification of masculine and feminine languages that happens during the development of the liturgy is most active in the first half, in other words, as we are building toward the world of emanation (atzilut). There is one instance of an Andalusian melody in Olam HaAsiyah and no Judeo-Spanish; two instances of Andalusian music plus the Kaddish in Olam HaYetzirah, and only one of a Judeo-Spanish melody on the first day of Passover; two possible instances of Andalusian music in Olam HaBeriah (one is optional) and no Judeo-Spanish; in Olam HaAtzilut there is an Andalusian melody for the Kedusha and four possible instances of Judeo-Spanish melodies in Hebrew and Spanish depending on the holiday; in the descent from the height of atzilut in both Olam HaBeriah and Olam HaYetzirah there is

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no Andalusian or Judeo-Spanish melody; finally in Olam HaAsiyah for the final melody of the service there is the option of the melody of the Romance Rosablanca and no Andalusian melody is usually done. In the arc that is created in the musical development of the liturgy I find that the “climbing” of the ladder of the worlds is where the interplay between Andalusian and Judeo-Spanish melodies is most present. Upon arrival to the world of Atzilut (emanation) there is a peak, and the descent is a sudden cliff-like void of the presence of these other musics. Only with the final Adon Olam is there a reappearance of a “gendered” musical language. During the peak of the service, when the Amidah is said, the heichal (ark) is opened, and the Torah and Haftarah are read, is when Judeo-Spanish melodies, both in Hebrew and in Haketía, appear with the most frequency. It is interesting to note that this point, considered in the liturgical arc as the most removed from the world that humans inhabit, is where “feminine” musical language is the most present. It is as if to say that because of the spiritual height achieved by the worshipers, there is an openness for the “woman’s voice” to pierce into the liturgy and complete the unification of masculine and feminine only at the peak of the service. When the heichal is open is the only instance the words of the songs are completely in Haketía (as in Hi Torah Lanu Nitana). The heichal is the womb where the Divine light pours out into the congregation in an unlimited flow. It is exactly at this point that piyyutim (liturgical poems) are sung in Spanish on holidays. Conversely, one can say that it is not a “piercing” of the male musical sphere that happens in Atzilut, but a revealing and emanating of the hidden “feminine” that can only be reached and perceived at the peak of the service and in its most dramatic examples on holidays, where it is not only the presence of Judeo-Spanish melodies that we encounter, but the texts in Haketía as well. Jewish ritual life in Northern Morocco is completely divided according to gender. Liturgy and the synagogue are traditionally male-dominated spaces. Men are the Rabbis, officers, and prayer-leaders. In the majority of the synagogues of Northern Morocco, a second floor separates the physical space between the genders. The women are above the men as the men lead the service and act out the ritual in which the women participate in a nonphysical manner. This follows the division as men being the “owners” of the public space and rituals, while women “own” the private domain and rituals. But like any division, the lines are not as harsh as theory would make them to be. For example, men lead the public ceremonies in the synagogue and the reading of the Torah from the lower level while women watch from above as active-private participants. However, many women sing, following and

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participating actively, even though they do not lead publicly; and learned women even shout out corrections to the reader of the Torah from above when he makes a mistake. The high point for private women’s prayers in the vernacular is at the opening of the heichal, when in Spanish and with hands open to receive Divine light the women ask for their needs and the needs of their families while the men are singing the Mizmor or other prayers. Women are in charge of the ritual aspects in the home. Laws of taharat haMishpacha (family purity) and the level of adherence to the laws of kashrut (appropriate food consumption) are completely trusted to the woman. These are the metaphysical aspects that relate to the body, which is considered to be the vessel for spirituality in this world. The woman is in charge of the tahara/purity of the food that nourishes the body; and by following laws of family purity, the children that she bears will either be considered more or less tahor (pure). Creation of life and sustenance of life are in the feminine domain—Las cosas de las Señoras, as they call it in the North. The woman is the one that creates the container for spirituality, just as the home itself is considered to be a container for Divine presence—like a womb. According to Zohra Mezgueldi, who specializes in women’s literature and images on the feminine in Moroccan writing, the mother is assumed to create the imaginary realms of perception.10 Women create the realms of the imaginative because they are considered to be more “natural” and “primitive.” Typically, Sephardic male language is expressed through ritual and prayer while female language is identified through Romances, wedding songs, and historical poems.

Simultaneity of Opposite Thoughts during Liturgy Different forms of language, song, and social functions are used in accordance to gender in North Moroccan Jewish music. There is a hidden influence of women’s language and melody within the ritual sphere, typically considered to be masculine. In addition, many of these women’s songs tell specific narratives that give instruction to women on how they should and should not behave. The songs function as a form of cultural encoding for young girls. In Tangier’s synagogue liturgy on Shabbat, the Kedusha (sanctification) of Musaf (addition service), which is the holiest part of the morning on the holiest morning of the week, is sometimes sung to the tune of Rachel Lastimoza, a well-known Romance. This Romance tells the story of how a young, beautiful, married woman was courted by a handsome, wealthy, young man. He offered her jewels that were worth half the city, but since she was married (to the governor) she refused all his advances. In an earlier version

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the jealous husband cuts off his wife’s tongue. Even though she refused this man’s advances, she was punished for the very fact that she was proposed to. However, all the versions that were sung to me in Tangier have suppressed that portion of the Romance, and they end praising God in Hebrew (Hodu Ladonai ki tov, ki le’Olam Jasdo) and speaking of God’s mercy after the episode where she denies the advances from her would-be lover. This Romance is found in a more violent original version in the Romances that were gathered by Zarita Nahon during the late 1920s in Tangier. It is interesting to note the suppression of the violent finish that has evolved in the past ninety years since Ms. Nahon did her fieldwork. This version from the 1920s was an even further attenuation of the violence found in an earlier colonial Argentinian version of this Romance from the 1630s, where the wife was mutilated and murdered by her husband who had found her at home alone with her lover with whom she had enjoyed many years of a passionate affair. While the men are leading the prayers in the synagogue and singing the Kedusha in the holiest part of the Shabbat service, there is a textual undercurrent of Rachel Lastimoza. There is a simultaneous dichotomy at work here. People are very joyful when singing this song; however, the original has a text which functions to train women in a graphic and harsh manner on how they should and should not behave. El Paipero tells the story of a young man who impregnates 120 women in one afternoon. After he forgets the maid and upon hearing her complaint, he takes her between the cooking implements and impregnates her. She, in the end, is the only one of all the women to bear a son. The desired prize of a male heir was only given to the worthy woman who vocally demanded her sexual rights. This melody is sung for a piyyut before Nishmat on the first day of Pesaj, as well as for a piyyut praising Rabbi Yitzhak Bengualid, who is the most venerated Tsaddik in Northern Morocco. In the second part of the nineteenth century, when Rabbi Bengualid was the Dayan from Tetuan, his ruling accepted the entry of the Alliance Israelite Universelle schools in Morocco, completely changing the face of the Jewish community through French education. Members of the Tangier community have expressed both their laughter at the humor of the song and its interplay in the liturgy. However, one of Rabbi Bengualid’s descendants repeatedly communicated his disapproval with the vulgarity of the song. He claimed it was not appropriate to join this text to the holiness of his ancestor. These mixed reactions and discussion of the lack of respect to the holiness of the tsaddik (righteous man) from the North by connecting him to a vulgar song confirm that the original text is simultaneously playing in the mind of some of the people as they sing the contrafacta

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of these popular secular songs within the liturgy. The mental simultaneity of sacred and secular texts in the mind of the worshiper is a concrete presence of unification of opposites. The very simultaneous presence creates a form of unification. This is why the very presence of Judeo-Spanish melodies within the context of the liturgy is a Zoharic form of musical unification of masculine and feminine musical languages. Just as there is a hybrid language connected to identity in Northern Morocco, there are complex identities through music, which have connotations as belonging to masculine and feminine musical and social worlds. However, in the ritual enactment of Kabbalistic unification through the building of the musical language in the morning service of Shabbat and Chagim, according to the Chida’s structure, the boundaries between the genders are broken down and there is a musical equality reached at the point of most Divine flow. This opening and acceptance of feminine musical language in the traditionally male- and masculine-dominated sphere appears to be a tangible acknowledgement of the presence and importance of the feminine and the creative power of this unification, which is the basis of Kabbalah.

Other Liturgical Examples: Turkey and Rhodes Within the Liturgy of Turkey and Rhodes there are many examples of JudeoSpanish texts integrated into the cycle of holidays. Most of these texts are either for home-based rituals like the Passover seder, or for special holidays such as Shavuot and Rosh Hashana. The special readings that are done in both Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish in the synagogue are: Megilat Ruth and the Haftarah for the ninth of Av. Just as in Tangier the reading of the Haftarah for the second day of Shavuot is translated into Spanish, we find during Shavuot another instance of Spanish inclusion in the liturgy of this holiday. The holiday that symbolizes the marriage between God and the Jewish people, Shavuot, the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, is celebrated with songs in Spanish. Isak Maçoro, the great Turkish Hazzan of the early part of the twentieth century, sang La Ketubá de la Ley in Judeo-Spanish at the moment of the opening of the heichal. The Ketubá, or marriage contract, is traditionally read under the marriage canopy just before the sanctification of a couple to each other in traditional Jewish ritual. La Ketubá de la Ley between God and the Jewish people is sung in the synagogue in Judeo-Spanish so that all members of the kahal may understand the marital commitment

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that is renewed during the Shavuot holiday. During the Shavuot holiday the story of Ruth the Moabite is also read in Judeo-Spanish. These two texts, which are intrinsic elements that connect the community to the holiday in a personal way, are astoundingly connected by the fact that they involve women. The ketubá is the contractual promise of a man to a woman on what his responsibilities are to her within the context of marriage. On the other hand, the story of Ruth relates how a Moabite woman converted to Judaism to commit to her husband’s people; because of her actions she was worthy to become the grandmother of King David. The narrative describing this tribal fidelity by a woman who was originally an outsider leads to expansion of the in-group. Its reading on Shavuot, the holiday that marks the marriage to God by the Jewish people accepting the Torah, reiterates the parallel between her behavior and what the Jewish people should emulate. Ruth showed her total devotion to her husband’s mother even after his death. The ketubá, the promise of devotion of a husband to his wife, and Megilat Ruth, the example of devotion of a woman to her husband’s people, are pillars that connect Jewish continuity and the unification of masculine and feminine in Turkish ritual during Shavuot. It is striking to notice that these two parallel texts were chosen by the community, possibly unconsciously, to be sung in Judeo-Spanish, thus creating a form of unification of action that could be assimilated by all members of the congregation. During Rosh Hashana and the preceding preparation month of Elul there are selihot (penitential prayers) sung in Judeo-Spanish. In Rhodes, Im Afes, Et Sha’arei Ratzon, Achot Ketana, and Ayom Arat Olam are examples of prayers that were sung in both Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish. These are all piyyutim added into the cycle of the liturgy. These four selihot have texts detailing different aspects of the judgment of Rosh Hashana. Im Afes “If the service were abandoned,” a prayer sung during the month of Elul, talks about what would befall the Jewish people if the sacrifice service were abandoned. Et Sha’arei Ratzon “The Gates of Will” is a famous piyyut sung throughout the Sephardic world detailing the binding of Isaac with midrashic interpretations. In many communities, Ayom Arat Olam “Today is the day of the world’s creation” is recited after the blessing at the end of each of the three special sections of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf. Achot Ketana “Young sister” is sung the eve of Rosh Hashana before the beginning of the service welcoming the young sister, the New Year and its blessings and saying goodbye to the old year with all its curses. These four texts in JudeoSpanish during the New Year cycle serve the purpose of opening the person’s heart and deepening his or her intentions during the prayers. Again, we find

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a focus on Judeo-Spanish to ensure the full understanding of the participating congregation. Those who were dominated by Hebrew understood the standard liturgy. Those who were not, both men and women, could also be moved and inspired through the inclusion of Judeo-Spanish. In these piyyutim the only explicit example of a feminine presence is in Achot Ketana—where the young sister symbolizes the new year and brings with her blessings and the excitement of a fresh start. The young sister in Achot Ketana reminds the devotee of the young sister in Song of Songs at the end of the final book. The word for sister in the Song of Songs can be read synonymously as the bride, the beloved—it represents another aspect of the relationship between two lovers: that of closeness and friendship without the sexuality. During Rosh Hashana the relationship to God is not as two lovers, contrary to Shavuot, which is the marriage celebration. In Rosh Hashana the aspect that is emphasized is the return to the original intention in the relationship with God. There has been an “infidelity,” a departing from the original commitment and returning to a fresh, young sister; bride/virgin symbolizes the reconnecting to the potential of what could exist and the desire to start fresh. Turkish and Rhodesli Judeo-Spanish insertions in the liturgy noticeably show the feminine in female characters more than in melodic representation as is so dramatically seen in Northern Morocco. The presence of Ruth in Spanish, the ketubá implying a bride, and the young sister of Achot Ketana are three vivid examples. Women are present as mother, bride, or sister— fulfilling a female role, not simply speaking as nongendered members of the community, in their own voice.

Woman Permeates the Forbidden Space Strict boundaries between the genders vis a vis liturgy and who dominates and participates in its public face have predetermined public understanding of hierarchy between masculine and feminine in Sephardic liturgy. Jewish laws on who may be counted in the minyan (prayer group) and who may lead prayers seem to further alienate women from the liturgical space. However, it is worthy of note to see the instances of woman’s presence within the rhythm of liturgy. Be it through melodies that are known by all members to belong to the women’s domain, or through the language of the private realm, or female characters during peak moments of the yearly cycle, their vantage point is expressed simultaneously and possibly heard only in a subconscious manner by those voicing the majority of the public ritual.

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Notes 1. This chapter is a development from a paper first given at the ICTM Colloquium on Al-Andalus and its Jewish Musical Diaspora, given at Cambridge University, England, on July 22, 2008. Researched while Senior Fulbright Scholar in Morocco 2007–2008 and written while Scholar in Residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University in 2008. 2. Robert Wuthnow, All in Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 70. 3. Martin A. Conway, “Memory and the Self,” Journal of Memory and Language 53 (2005): 597. 4. Wuthnow, All in Sync, 70–71. 5. Earle Waugh, Memory, Music and Religion: Morocco’s Mystical Chanters (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005), 5. 6. Conway, “Memory and the Self,” 597. 7. Waugh, Memory, Music and Religion, 4. 8. Louann Brizendine, The Female Brain (New York: Broadway, 2006), 5. 9. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), 44. 10. Zohra Mezgueldi, El papel de la madre en la formación del imaginario. La Mujer En La Otra Orilla (Barcelona: Flor del Viento, 1997), 45.

Bibliography Azoulay, H.Y.D. Siddur HaHIDA, beNusah k’k Sefaradim. Jerusalem: Machon Ahavat Shalom, 1999. Bengio, Alegria. Interview by author. Casablanca, Morocco. January 2008. Bengualid, Jan. Interview by author. Tangier, Morocco. April 2008. Brizendine, Louann. The Female Brain. New York: Broadway, 2006. Conway, Martin A. “Memory and the Self.” Journal of Memory and Language 53 (2005): 594–628. De Nesry, Carlos. Le Juif de Tanger et le Maroc. Tanger: Editions Internationales, 1956. Lacoste-Dujardin, Camilla. La Vaillance des Femmes: les relations entre femmes et hommes berberes de kabylie. Paris: Editions La Decouverte, 2008. Levy, Nelly. Interview with author. Tangier, Morocco. November 2007. Mayesh, Jack. Interview by author. Los Angeles, California. January 2004. Mezgueldi, Zohra. El papel de la madre en la formación del imaginario. La Mujer En La Otra Orilla. Barcelona: Flor del Viento, 1997. Muyal, Messod. “Music from Tangier Liturgy and the Florilegio Sefaradi.” Unpublished manuscript.

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Nahón, Zarita. Romances Judeo-Españoles de Tánger. Madrid: Cátedra Seminario Menéndez Pidal, 1977. Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961. Waugh, Earle. Memory, Music and Religion: Morocco’s Mystical Chanters. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. Wizman, Yaakov. Interview by author. Casablanca, Morocco. June 2008. Wuthnow, Robert. All in Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

CHAPTER FIVE



Trust the Process: My Life in Sacred Song William Sharlin as told to Jonathan L. Friedmann

The Yeshiva Boy My father, Isaac, lived in Jerusalem and delivered mail on a mule for the Turkish government, which controlled Palestine at the time. Chaya, my mother, was from Hebron. They were second- or third-generation Palestinian Jews. They must have met each other in Jerusalem, but I’m not quite sure. One of the things I regret terribly is that I never sat down with my father to ask him such questions. I never even thought about it. There are endless questions I should have asked. Originally, my father came to New York alone. It was around 1910, and he came to investigate the possibility of moving the family to America. I was not yet born, but my oldest brother Edward and sister Rachel were already in grade school. My father landed a job with a Jewish organization in the United States, and my mother, with her two children, worked her way through Europe, eventually coming to the American consulate in Switzerland. From there, she was able to relocate the family to New York. My older brother Hillel and I were born in New York, about a year and a half apart. I came into the world on January 7, 1920, and was given the name Wolf. I never found out how my name was changed to William—I forgot to ask my father. In any event, that’s what it is. We settled in Harlem, which in those days had a large Jewish community. When I was a child, we attended services at a modest and unpretentious synagogue. One special Shabbat morning, famed Cantor Yosele Rosenblatt (1882–1933) sang for our congregation. Possessing an exquisite tenor voice 97

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and remarkable falsetto, Rosenblatt was a busy concertizer and recording artist. He was the greatest and most popular cantor of his generation, and was also very short. I remember they had to place a stool in front of the bimah (pulpit) for him to stand on. I must have been nine years old at the time, and I didn’t appreciate fully the remarkable beauty of his voice. But this was nevertheless my first encounter with truly elevated hazzanut (cantorial art). At Yeshiva D’Harlem on 114th Street, my brother Hillel and I studied together in a combination class. Once, when I was about eight or nine, our class finished reading a major portion of the Torah. Following Jewish custom, we celebrated with a modest party. The teacher asked my brother and I to bring a bottle of wine. When the party was over, about half of the bottle remained full. Being good children, we took the remaining wine home with us. Unfortunately, on our walk home we became thirsty (and perhaps a bit mischievous) and finished all the wine. When we reached home, my mother saw us holding the empty bottle and swaying from side to side. We were really far gone. She immediately got us undressed and put us into bed. It is likely that my mother never told my father. He never even brought it up.

The Outside World On 110th Street, overlooking Central Park, there was a building owned by a Jewish organization, which staged plays, hosted community gatherings, and ran an educational program. We often went there for extracurricular activities, usually held on the rooftop. Living in an Orthodox home, I rarely thought of anything outside of my enclosed environment. When I would walk by a church, for instance, I was fearful to look inside—I was afraid to be in touch with that alien tradition. During the Christmas season, I would turn away from the trees I saw displayed in peoples’ windows. It was a natural instinct for me. But when I was on that rooftop, I actually got a good look at the outside world. It was beautiful. Sometimes, too, my father would suggest that we daven (pray) early Shabbat morning. Normally, Shabbat services began at 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning, but once in a while we’d attend an early service, around 6:00 a.m. Afterwards, we would return home for a quick bite to eat, and my father would take us for a walk through Central Park. That was a special treat. Early in my yeshiva days, I became enthralled in Hebrew studies. Partly because of this, I didn’t feel an urge to break away from Orthodoxy as a child, and I later enrolled in Yeshiva University High School. My brother Hillel, on the other hand, chose to attend a public school. Astonishingly, my father accepted Hillel’s decision, though I am not sure why. In our home, there was

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no such thing as a family discussion. My father was the ultimate and only authority, and his approval meant everything. While my father was busy ruling the family, my mother was active making a living. In New York, she designed infant wear and worked hard selling her creations. Eventually, her clothing business became modestly successful. At one point, she even had about ten seamstresses working for her. To meet the growing demand, the first floor of our two-story apartment was converted into a small factory. My father helped with the business, hiring salesmen who would take my mother’s products around town. Still, my father struggled to find steady work. He didn’t have an advanced education, and he was always fiddling around with different jobs. In spite of it all, he maintained a strict Jewish lifestyle for the family, and was not willing to allow us to Americanize for the sake of success. When my brother Hillel was still in New York, my father searched hard to find him a job that was closed on Shabbat. He couldn’t bear seeing us desecrate the Sabbath. I believe he found him a job at a place collecting rags. That was the kind of man my father was. Over the years, Harlem began to change. The Jewish population receded and moved westward, and anti-Semitism became more and more common. One afternoon, my brother Hillel and I were walking home, and we were stopped by a group of Puerto Rican teenagers. In those days, Puerto Ricans were new arrivals in Harlem, and there were tensions between them and the more established Jewish community. We found ourselves surrounded by these bullies, who demanded to know if we were Jews. For a moment we stood in silence and fear. Then my brother responded, “We are Spanish Jews.” This, of course, was not true, but after Hillel professed our invented Hispanic roots, the boys left us alone. My brother Edward, who was eight years older than me, was the first to drift away from Orthodoxy. I remember one Friday night after davening (praying) our family gathered for Shabbat dinner, as we did every week. Edward, however, was nowhere to be found. This was highly unusual as Edward, like the rest of us, was always present at these dinners. My family began eating without him, and when he finally came through the door at a very late hour, my father picked up a dish and threatened to throw it at him. He was so angry. Looking back, if my father had expressed a different attitude toward his Jewishness, I may have continued to live an Orthodox life. But his linkage with Judaism was never joyous. He was observant out of respect for tradition; he had little positive motivation for living a traditional life. Even as a child, I recognized this about him and, had I been raised in a more positively Jewish

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home, who knows where I would have ended up? My father’s entire family eventually came to the United States—his parents, brothers, and sisters. But my mother’s family remained in Palestine, and subsequently Israel. We were all clustered together in Harlem. Importantly, we had a piano at our home. My sister Rachel used to play it, though I don’t know for sure if she studied piano formally—I never asked. That would have certainly been unusual for an Orthodox girl in those days. At night, my brother and I would not fall asleep until she played the piano for us. That was the beginning of piano in my life.

Heartache in Jerusalem For reasons I do not know, my grandparents decided to move to the Bronx. Perhaps it was because my grandfather got a new job. He was a carpenter and a devout Jew. Every morning before work he’d get up at 6:00 in the morning to daven (pray) at his shul (synagogue). On at least two occasions, I walked with my father from Harlem to the Bronx to celebrate Shabbat with my grandparents. At sundown, they gave us money to ride home on a bus. One by one, my family began settling in the Bronx to be closer to my grandparents; but two of my father’s sisters didn’t make the move. One sister married an interesting man named David, a freethinking and marginally religious Jew, who wasn’t compelled to preserve the traditional family cluster. They settled in Borough Park. Another sister, who was very observant and involved in Jewish charities, also moved to Brooklyn. The rest of us were now within walking distance of my grandparents’ home in the Bronx. Every Shabbat after shul we’d meet at my grandparents’ home, where my grandmother would serve us kugel. When we moved to the Bronx, the piano came with us. I remember the movers having trouble getting the piano down the steps, and taking the windows out to lower it to the street. Once the piano was in our Bronx home, I started fiddling around with it. Without any lessons, I began to understand the structure of music, and started to read written notes. I was blessed with a musically gifted family, and I used to write three- or four-part harmonies to sing with my siblings. Before long, my sister encouraged me to begin piano lessons. Whenever my teacher would give me a new piece to study, I would rush home to sit down at the piano. I couldn’t wait to sight-read the piece; I needed to play it right away—slowly perhaps, but right away. This habit quickly became a problem for me. Because of my urge to instantly learn a piece, I did not have

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a careful transition into sight-reading, and my impatience prevented me from exploring proper technique. In 1935 my parents moved the family to Palestine. My mother’s father had passed away in Jerusalem, and she hadn’t seen her family in many years. This was also during the Great Depression, and the clothing business was quickly failing. My father found himself without much to do, and we were struggling. I believe my brother Edward helped out with some of the expenses. By that time, he had managed to finish college, and had a sophisticated job of some sort. He was out on his own, having left Orthodoxy some years before, but remained in touch with the family. At any rate, things became unbearable, and my parents, brother Hillel, sister Rachel, and I relocated to Jerusalem. This was a tremendous blow for my grandparents in the Bronx. My grandmother had been the center of the family, and this move marked the beginning of our split from her benevolent control. Yet for all of the heartache that this entailed, our move to Jerusalem was nevertheless a fantastic thing. We lived about two blocks from Meah Shearim, Jerusalem’s old ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. Established in 1874 as a Jewish religious settlement outside of the Old City, Meah Shearim remains an old-fashioned East European–style enclave in the midst of a modernizing city. From time to time, my mother would get dressed up to go shopping there, and I’d be so proud. She was beautiful. And being the youngest child, I often had the honor of accompanying her. My father went into business with my mother’s nephew, who owned a sandwich shop on Jaffa Road. I attended a yeshiva in Jerusalem, and used to come by the shop after school to help squeeze orange juice. My mother learned how to make donuts and, through the shop, introduced donuts to Jerusalem. This was a real innovation for the people living there. Sadly, about a year later my mother discovered she had cancer and, after a short struggle, she died. She was only in her late forties, and I was just sixteen years old. She died on a Saturday morning, and we had to wait until Shabbat ended to visit her body in the hospital. Following Orthodox tradition, my brother Hillel placed sand on top of her eyelids. My mother’s funeral was held later that night. It was close to midnight when we boarded a school bus with my mother’s body on a stretcher. This was during the 1936 riots in Jerusalem, when Arab rebels were smuggling arms into the Old City. Violence had erupted in April of that year, after six prominent Arab leaders joined forces to protest Zionist advances in Palestine. Occasionally, a Jew was shot along the border of the Arab quarter, and conditions became rather dangerous.

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Palestine was under British control at the time, and British soldiers accompanied us as we rode to the cemetery on the Mount of Olives. These soldiers stood guard as we conducted the funeral. My mother’s body was wrapped in a simple shroud and laid on flat stones. Additional stones were placed on top of her, and she became one with the hill. My father could not bear my mother’s death. He never even mentioned her name after she passed away. Subsequently my siblings and I also remained silent about her death. I would often walk into my mother’s closet where her garments still hung, and I’d hold the fabric and smell her aroma. When she was sick, everyone else in the family was working, so I was the one who helped take care of her. She had such terrible seizures. One time she began to get chills, and I lay down next to her, holding her, trying to give her warmth. Because of all of this, I used to have vivid daydreams that my mother was still alive, and that she had come back home. I cannot describe in words the realism of these dreams—they were so believable. I must have daydreamed about her for almost two years. After a short while, my sister moved back to New York City where she was engaged to marry a young man. Though this marriage never came to be, my father soon followed her back to the States, leaving Hillel and me at my uncle’s home in Jerusalem. I was finishing my yeshiva education, and Hillel had a job at Barkley’s Bank on Jaffa Road, next to City Hall. Eventually, in 1939, I also resettled in New York, followed by Hillel later that year. The most amazing story I remember from my time in Jerusalem is also one that may not have actually happened. Regardless, I still have my written account of this episode, which took place during the 1936 riots. My mother had just died, and we were living with my uncle in a brand-new apartment built by an Arab sheik next to the Old City. The Haganah used our home as a command center. Founded during the Ottoman period, the Haganah (1920–1948) was an underground military organization dedicated to defending Palestinian Jews. My brother Hillel was a member of this organization for a short time, and I used to see him around the city standing guard in his hat and uniform. One day, I observed a suspicious Arab man walking the streets of our neighborhood. I informed one of the Haganah soldiers, who happened to speak Arabic fluently. He dressed himself in Arab garb and approached the suspicious man, who revealed that he was carrying a bomb. Fortunately, there was a British police station next door to our home. Officers were promptly notified, and they arrested the suspicious man. Again, I am not certain if this story is true—I may have written it as an exercise for school—but it nevertheless gives a glimpse of life in Jerusalem in those days.

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Music’s Sacred Potential Back in New York, my sister Rachel encouraged me to continue studying piano. I also reenrolled at Yeshiva University High School, taking Hebrew classes, and soon realized I needed a legitimate high school diploma. Naturally, my transcripts from Palestine revealed a major gap in American history and civics, and I attended a public school in the Bronx to fulfill these requirements. Around this time, my brother Hillel and I stumbled upon a sidewalk hotdog stand. We had already been gradually drifting away from my father’s rigged Jewishness—we stopped observing the Sabbath as strictly as he would have liked—and I had been playing with the idea of eating non-kosher food. We decided to try one of these treyf (“unclean”) hotdogs. I felt little guilt. I had begun to see myself as both a universalist and a Jew, and this manner of eating seemed a natural extension of my developing persona. I think my father knew this about me, but he never brought it up. After high school, I entered the Manhattan School of Music, where I studied piano and composition. This was a wonderful environment. I recall that the administrative director of the school was especially kind to me. From time to time, she would give me unclaimed tickets to symphony concerts she had reserved for wealthy patrons of the school. On one occasion, I attended a concert of a well-known pianist, and had the good fortune of sitting in the orchestra section, among high-class social elites. As the pianist began the first phrase of the piece, there was a hush throughout the audience. The beauty of his playing was beyond words; he elevated the entire concert hall to an ethereal plane. Even though I cannot remember the name of that gifted pianist, I remember the uplifting effect of his performance. In just a few measures, he demonstrated music’s sacred potential. At the Manhattan School of Music, composition studies were under the direction of a figure—I hesitate to call him a teacher—who was halfway known in the world of music. He didn’t teach a class, per se. Instead, we simply approached him with our compositions, essentially to prove that we were working on the craft. He never guided me; he just looked over the pieces and gave his approval. He was not really in touch with what I was doing, which, in a way, allowed me the freedom to develop my own compositional voice. One year, there was a special program at the school featuring student pieces. I had committed to memory one of my large piano works, and, reluctantly, agreed to perform it. During the performance, my mind went blank, and I was unable to continue. In the pressure of the moment, all I could think to do was begin the piece over again, hoping that, when I came to that

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point a second time, I would remember how to go on. I was able to finish the piece, but regretted that I was not able to find anyone other than myself to perform it. While studying at the Manhattan School of Music, I also became involved at the Hebrew Union College (HUC) School of Sacred Music. I took sporadic courses there—along with others at Columbia and New York Universities—in order to fulfill general requirements toward my masters degree. As a matter of fact, I remember playing that piano composition for a few of my buddies at the School of Sacred Music around the time of my shaky performance. One of them, Sheldon Merel, is still alive, and is cantor emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel in San Diego, California.

Kitchen Patrol and Sergeant Stripes In 1942 I was drafted into the United States Army, and my studies were suspended until I completed my military service in 1945. I was in what was called “limited service,” though I wanted very much to go abroad. Unfortunately, because I had trouble hearing in one ear, I was stationed outside of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Many who were housed at the base had jobs at the Pentagon, but I was limited to kitchen duty, guard duty, and the like. Once in a while, though, I did have the opportunity to train doctors who were going overseas in the use of firearms. Before long, I made friends with a young man named LeBrie, who was a French Canadian working as an army recruiter. One of the things that drew him to me was my piano playing. Not too far from our base was a housing complex for Pentagon secretaries. There was a large playroom in their complex, which had a nice upright piano. LeBrie encouraged me to sit down and play, mainly because, when I did, young ladies would gather around the piano. We made friends with a number of girls on and off—sometimes serious, other times not so serious. Once, when I was on leave, I decided to visit my grandmother in the Bronx. Almost immediately she asked me, “Do you eat everything?”— wondering whether or not I was keeping kosher. I told her that, in the army, there wasn’t the option of keeping kosher, and that I had to eat what they gave me. Remarkably, she responded, “It’s alright.” She kept strictly kosher, of course, but she showed me an unusual tolerance; she understood my situation. To be sure, this deep understanding stemmed from the unique relationship my grandmother and I had developed over the years. I was an easygoing and rather shy young man. But there were a couple of occasions when I had

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explosions of rage. One day in my late teens, my grandmother kept nudging me about something, and I couldn’t take it. I lost control and yelled at her. I was shocked by my own actions; I did not know I was capable of doing such a thing. After that, instead of seeing my grandmother as an enemy, we became very close. Another time, out on the street, my brother and his friends decided to pick on me. They were unrelenting. I became infuriated and really tore into them. They were so scared they actually ran away. There was also a period of time when my grandmother had a very bad back and she couldn’t get out of bed. The doctor would make regular house visits and treat her, and she complained constantly of her debilitating pain. One afternoon, I happened to be at my grandparents’ home, and I peeked inside of her bedroom. I expected to see her resting in her bed, but she was sitting on a stool in front of a mirror, fixing her hair. I stood there speechless. She had been playing a game; she was just pretending to be in pain. I kept this encounter a secret. I refused to let anyone know about my grandmother’s little game. Toward the end of my Army service, the Department of Personal Affairs was formed at the base. For one reason or another, I was made assistant to the director. In this capacity, I helped soldiers obtain information they needed prior to leaving the army and, if they had personal or family problems, I would help arrange meetings with counselors. Most importantly, having this job meant I could abandon kitchen duty and other mundane tasks. I even got sergeant stripes out of it. After the military, I completed my studies at the Manhattan School of Music, earning a Masters Degree in Piano and Composition. In 1949 I entered the HUC School of Sacred Music as a fulltime student. I must say that my father took this decision rather well. The school is part of the Reform movement, which, particularly then, was well removed from the world of Orthodox Judaism. In those days, the classical approach of Reform Judaism was still dominant. Classical Reform was based almost exclusively upon monotheism and morality. The bulk of Jewish law and custom was considered a thing of the ancient past, and thus no longer appropriate for Jews of the modern era. By this time in my life my father had become less strict in his rule of the family, as all of his children were already adults. Still, he did ask me from time to time why I couldn’t have joined the more traditional Conservative movement instead.

Entering the World of Jewish Music While studying at the HUC School of Sacred Music, I befriended esteemed musicologist Eric Werner (1901–1988). Knowing that I had a background in

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Jewish studies and music, and because I was one of the few students at the school who had done research in musicology, Dr. Werner saw great potential in me. Werner was a musicologist, teacher, composer, and writer. He was appointed professor of Jewish music and liturgy at the HUC, Cincinnati, in 1939, and became chairman of the HUC School of Sacred Music, New York, in 1951. On a number of occasions, Werner asked me to proofread an article he was working on. He was particularly concerned about his use of Hebrew— he knew Hebrew, but not the way I knew Hebrew. More than once, I visited Dr. Werner at his home. After dinner, we would sit down at his piano and play Mahler symphonies arranged for four hands. Werner was, of course, well known in the world of musicology; but I learned later that some of his colleagues looked at him with a slight chuckle. Musicologists were generally a straight-laced bunch, and Dr. Werner’s eccentric nature, coupled with his sometimes radical scholarship in the area of Jewish music, made him a bit of a character. When I entered the school, I originally thought I would train to become a music director at a large Jewish center, which in those days had major musical programs. I was not yet thinking of becoming a cantor; I had no prior training in voice. I did sing in the choir at the Manhattan School of Music, but that was not an intense experience. Regardless, I decided to dig deeper into Jewish music. I was familiar with synagogue song from my experience growing up as an observant Jew, but I lacked formal training and familiarity with contemporary Jewish sacred music. I enrolled in a repertoire class full of cantorial students, singing with whatever voice I had. My good friend Sheldon Merel studied with me, and encouraged me to “go all the way” and immerse myself in cantorial studies. I took his advice, and began voice lessons with a Jewish opera singer. This teacher would sometimes put on concerts of Jewish music at Central Park, and as payment for lessons I helped him—musically, not vocally—with these performances. Overall, I wouldn’t say he was a great teacher. Many singers teach voice to make a steady income, but are not really gifted in the art of instruction. At any rate, he was my teacher, and he did introduce me to the complexities and nuances demanded of high-level vocal performance. Also in those days, I became a close friend of Saul Sanders. Saul was a cantorial student at the HUC, though he was about twenty years older than the rest of us. He lived not far from me in the Bronx, and on Shabbat mornings we used to visit different synagogues in New York, particularly ones with big-time cantors. Once we traveled together to Brooklyn, where Saul somehow heard that Richard Tucker’s son was having his bar mitzvah. Tucker

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(1914–1975) was both a cantor—at Temple Adath Israel in Brooklyn and later at the Brooklyn Jewish Center—and a star tenor with the Metropolitan Opera. We sat in the congregation and waited for Tucker to appear. As was typical in those days, the synagogue’s sheliach tzibbur (prayer leader) would begin the service, and at a certain point hand it over to the “showcase” cantor. Sure enough, as the Torah Service began, Richard Tucker emerged in full glory, awing the daveners (worshipers) with his powerful tenor voice. That was a treat. We also used to frequent Cantor Moshe Ganchoff’s Shabbat morning services. In addition to his pulpit job, Ganchoff (1905–1997) was a teacher at the HUC. Above all else, he was a fabulous improviser of hazzanut (cantorial art)—a real cantor’s cantor. At his services, after the sheliach tzibbur chanted the preliminary prayers, Ganchoff would appear, singing Shokhayn Ad (“He who abides forever”). He never sang this prayer the same way twice. He was always in the proper mode, of course, but he would play with the text, taking it into different and wonderful directions. At the school I had the pleasure of transcribing some of Ganchoff’s liturgical creations, as his ability to notate music was not always on par with his virtuosic improvisations. I also attended classes with the son of Adolph Katchko, the famous cantor of New York’s Anshe Chesed. Katchko (1877–1958) was both a master of cantorial singing and a well-known preserver of European synagogue musical traditions. At that time, the school had already been using transcriptions of Katchko’s music, but the professors decided to collect these pieces into the multi-volume Thesaurus of Cantorial Liturgy (1952), suitable for publication. Since I was one of the few students with a composition background, I was chosen to help his son compile and edit these volumes, which covered the entire cycle of the Jewish year. Adolph Katchko was an old man by that time, and I remember once I even had to visit him on his hospital bed to ask a question or two about his manuscripts. The Katchko collections we produced became the standard curriculum for the School of Sacred Music and, for a time, the school was very hesitant to make these books available to the public. They zealously guarded these treasures from cantors who could have benefited from the wealth of material they contained. The president of the HUC became aware of the policy and condemned it as a sin against God. He believed that sacred music should be made accessible to all, and should be allowed to elevate the Jewish community as a whole. As a compromise, the school maintained control of the books, publishing them under its Sacred Music Press, but also made them available to the interested public.

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A Famous Rabbi and My Twenty-Five-Dollar Guitar In the early 1950s I got a call from a man asking if I’d like to be the musical director of a camp for disabled children in New Jersey. The person originally scheduled for the position had a change of plans, and someone at the camp had heard about me, and wondered if I’d like to fill in. I took the job, bought a twenty-five-dollar guitar, and committed to spending a month at the camp. I discovered that the specialists—in music, dance, art, and so on—not only taught their subjects, but were also caretakers of the children. Some of these children required a great deal of attention; they were suffering from very serious conditions. Like the other counselors, I helped the children eat, dress, bathe, and even use the toilet. This was most unusual for me. I still marvel at how I was able to take on this task without any prior experience. On the musical side of things, I first set out to determine which songs the campers knew and liked. This was not a Jewish camp, and I was not used to singing in English; this was all new material for me. Still, I managed to ease into my role, and over the course of the month became rather attached to the kids. At the end of the camp session, the counselors accompanied the campers to the ferry, not knowing for sure what would happen to them next. Their parents were awaiting them on the other side of the Hudson River, and some of us were concerned that the wonderful experience we shared with them would soon be forgotten. Without doubt, they would return to the relative staleness of the special facilities they lived in. We had trouble letting them go. Next came my three-year teaching fellowship at the HUC in Cincinnati. I had completed my studies in New York, earning a bachelors degree in sacred music (1951), and was ready to enter the profession. Eric Werner, however, who had ties to the Cincinnati school, informed me that the music department needed my help. He had already arranged a fellowship for me, and was awaiting my response. I accepted the offer, but before I was officially awarded the fellowship, I had an intensive interview with a few of the professors. One of them asked me to demonstrate a high level of German fluency, which, fortunately, was not a problem. I had taken advanced German courses in New York, and was a star student. Perhaps it was because I had spoken Yiddish since my youth. Another professor asked me about a different subject, but before I could answer, a third professor objected, claiming the question was irrelevant. They argued back and forth in this manner while I sat quietly.

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It was quite an interview. At any rate, I got the fellowship and relocated to Cincinnati. I was hired primarily to lead the school’s choir. My most important job came Saturday mornings, when the students and faculty gathered for Shabbat morning tefillah (prayer). Normally, one of the students would give a sermon, and I’d lead the choir up in the choir loft. The singers were made up of all-male rabbinical students, as females didn’t enter the Reform rabbinate until 1972. Through this experience, I began to write music for Jewish worship, arranging pieces for the choir and writing settings for the organ. But this was a practical sort of writing, and I was not yet thinking seriously about becoming a synagogue composer. Rabbi Leo Baeck (1873–1956) was also teaching at the school, and his dormitory happened to be across the hall from mine. Among other things, Leo Baeck was a progressive rabbi and intellectual in Germany who defended the rights of Jews during the Nazi era. He refused all invitations to serve at synagogues or universities abroad, declaring he would remain in Germany with the last Jewish minyan (prayer quorum). He was deported to the Terezin concentration camp in 1943, and provided hope for its suffering Jews. After the war, he moved to London, and then to Cincinnati in 1948. Rabbi Baeck was about fifty years older than me, but despite our ages, we became friends, and regularly ate lunch together in the cafeteria. It was through this experience that I learned firsthand of Rabbi Baeck’s legendary warmth. He was always open to students seeking help with their studies or personal matters; he had such patience and understanding. This was one of his greatest gifts. Once in a while, Rabbi Baeck would also preach at the school. He knew enough English to do so, of course, but his Germanic manner, combined with his thick accent, made his sermons quite unusual. Rabbinic students were even known to chuckle during his delivery. Leo Baeck’s grandson-in-law was also a rabbi. On one occasion, he was being installed at a congregation in a nearby state, and Leo Baeck was invited to speak at the ceremony. To my great surprise and honor, he asked me to come along with him as his cantor. We rode a train together for nearly four hours. I didn’t have the nerve to ask Rabbi Baeck about deep theological issues. Instead, Baeck, being a remarkably sensitive man, indulged me in conversation about music, which helped me feel at ease during that long train ride. I am truly blessed to have had this experience, and one thing that still troubles me is that I cannot find a photograph I once took standing next to Rabbi Leo Baeck.

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The Man with the Golden Feet One Friday morning, I noticed some HUC students taking pots and pans out of the kitchen and loading them onto a truck. I asked what was going on, and they explained they were packing for a weekend trip to the National Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY) camp not too far from campus. They asked me if I’d like to come along, and I told them I would. And though I accompanied them initially as an interested observer, I soon found myself hired as the camp’s song leader. Evidently, someone knew about my twentyfive-dollar guitar. NFTY was founded in 1939 as the youth movement of the American Reform movement. Conceived by the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods as an alternative to synagogue Judaism for young people, NFTY’s early membership was composed primarily of college students. In 1951 NFTY entered the camping movement, purchasing land in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, and began catering to younger Jews. At the Wisconsin camp, I came up with an important principle: If you don’t love what you teach, don’t teach it. I was hired as a music instructor, and was determined to communicate my love for Judaism and the music; I would not be “just” a song leader. Before I would even begin to teach a song, I’d start a conversation with the young campers, trying to get them engaged in some way. I’d read a verse from the song and ask if anyone knew what it meant. Then I’d sing a few bars—with my heart and soul—and glide up and down the rows of students, strumming my guitar. This made an impression, and one of the camp rabbis even wrote a poem about me called “The Man with the Golden Feet.” After I introduced a song, I’d pose a challenge to the campers, like “What do you think this sounds like?” I didn’t do all of this because I thought it was a good idea. I just did it intuitively because of my love for what I was doing. Sometimes there were a half-dozen or more songs the children were learning, and I’d write the lyrics down on chalkboards around the dining room where we met. As they learned the words, I’d erase them, one by one, making sure the kids were internalizing the text. I never used song sheets. That would have been a sure way to lose them: they’d get buried in the paper, and never be at one with the music. By doing all of this, the kids were brought into a real experience. They became engaged in a dialogue with the song, with me, with each other, and with their own Jewish identities. Most gratifying for me were the camp bus trips. Quite spontaneously, the students would begin singing the songs I had taught them—they memorized them all.

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Another year, one of the sessions was devoted to “a walk through history,” and the counselors were assigned different episodes in Jewish history to act out. As the children marched through the campsite, they’d encounter us at various locations for a short play. My friend Joe Glaser and I were assigned to climb a tree and act out the receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. To liven things up, Joe brought a small bottle of booze with him, and we took a few sips. I would never have done this on my own, mind you, but Joe had the ability to bring people into otherwise unthinkable experiences. We had a blast, and when the campers came by, we were on a real high. We delivered a rather hilarious performance.

Why Did You Come to Ohio? During my stay at the Cincinnati school, the students would gather annually to poke fun at the faculty. I distinctly remember Joe Glaser’s outstanding impression of Nelson Glueck, then the president of HUC. Gleuck (1900–1971) was both a rabbi and an archaeologist, and he’d typically spend half the year in Israel on a dig. During his career, Glueck uncovered the Nabatean Temple at Jabel el-Tannur (1937), excavated an Iron Age site near Akaba (1938), and from 1952 onward surveyed ancient sites in the Negev. Because of all this, it seemed to me that he was not too concerned with his position in the Reform movement—his heart and mind were in the Holy Land, and in the arena of archaeology. He was a passionate man and would often get fired up when he spoke to us about his archaeological work. One year, Rabbi Glueck heard that the students were gathering to poke fun at the faculty. Someone told him about Joe Glaser’s impersonation, and he wanted to see it for himself. To our surprise, he really enjoyed it. That was the kind of man he was: serious about archaeology, but not too serious about himself. I remember playing the piano during the event, accompanying songs addressed to the faculty, like “Go home, go home. Why did you come to Ohio?” Importantly, too, the Cincinnati campus was in those days divided between those with a strictly Jewish focus, and those with a more universal worldview. Over time, these divisions became very sharp. I was at home with the traditionalists—they liked me and the music I chose for the services— but I found myself gravitating toward the universalists. These two worlds really came together for me, and my musical taste turned to themes of universal needs—social justice, peace, love, and the like. Also, when I began my fellowship in Cincinnati, I started studying voice more seriously, taking lessons with teachers at the Cincinnati Conservatory.

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During my three-year fellowship, I became more and more interested in the cantorate. I worked hard, and began to enter that world.

Never Give Up the Pulpit When my fellowship expired, Nelson Gleuck asked me to become the school’s permanent musical director; but by that time, I longed to be connected with a congregation. When I was still in Cincinnati, Tifereth Israel, a major synagogue in Cleveland, was looking for a cantor. They had a worldfamous rabbi, Abba Hillel Silver (1893–1963), whose charisma and oratory skills brought in all sorts of people—both Jewish and non-Jewish. Born in Lithuania, Rabbi Silver was ordained at HUC, and became well known as a champion for human rights. A brilliant and persuasive speaker, Silver dedicated much of his time and energy to Zionist causes, and helped found a number of local and national Jewish organizations. Silver’s son, Daniel, then the synagogue’s junior rabbi, knew of me from my camp work. Tifereth Israel never had a cantor before, and Daniel called me up, asking if I might be interested in the new position. I indeed wanted to become a congregational cantor, and this was a terrific place to start, so I agreed to audition for the job. My Cincinnati fellowship, in addition to room and board, came with a $1,000 a year honorarium—mainly for going out on the town with rabbinic students. I used some of this money to take the trip to Cleveland. I came for a weekend and participated in an early Friday evening service with the Temple’s quartet, up in the choir loft. I was not, however, permitted to sing from the pulpit. After the service, I joined Abba Hillel Silver for Shabbat dinner at his home. There, I discovered the private side of this very public rabbi. Like most people, I had only known of him as a largerthan-life figure. But when I visited his home, it was like being in an Eastern European shtetl (Jewish village). Few people realize that Rabbi Silver had a shtiebel (small synagogue) background in Lithuania, and that he was a simple man in many ways. At heart, he was an old-fashioned Jew—very different from the elegant and progressive man who stood on the bimah (pulpit) in a striped suit. On Sunday morning, I was again asked to sing with the quartet in the choir loft. At that moment it became clear to me that, if I were to become the cantor of this congregation, I would never sing from the pulpit. The pulpit, it seemed, was the sole domain of the rabbi and his powerful sermons. I was not comfortable with this possibility, believing as I still do that there should be an equal partnership between rabbi and cantor. My main job would be

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to simulate the camp experience with the children enrolled in the Temple’s school. That would not have been a problem, of course, but my skills were not limited to song leading. I had to turn down the job. I would not give up the pulpit.

Leo Baeck Temple My next offer came from Los Angeles. Jack Skirball happened to be on the board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC), and was also on the cantor search committee at Leo Baeck Temple in Los Angeles, which was named after the beloved rabbi. Skirball was himself an ordained rabbi, though by that time he was busy working as a Hollywood film producer. He never returned to the pulpit, but became a well-known philanthropist and organizational leader in the Jewish community. Today, the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles bears his name. Rabbi Skirball had the task of traveling the country in search of the synagogue’s new cantor. Leo Baeck Temple had been making use of noncantors—singers who could present the liturgy, but were not necessarily Jewish professionals. One day, Jack Skirball appeared at the Cincinnati school. I’m not sure if he had heard of me, or if it was merely a coincidence, but we did end up meeting with each other. He presented me with two appealing possibilities: the HUC campus in Los Angeles was looking for someone to teach a course on Jewish music education, and Leo Baeck Temple was looking for a full-time cantor. For one reason or another, Leonard Beerman, the rabbi of Leo Baeck, also happened to be in Cincinnati at the same time as Skirball. Again, I’m not sure if their visits were coordinated in advance, but I nevertheless took the opportunity to chat with Beerman, telling him a bit about my background. Interestingly, he never asked me to sing for him, but instead had me sit down at the piano. He requested that I play something popular—something from a Broadway show. I started playing a medley of show tunes, and he shouted, “That’s it! I want this man!” He never even heard me sing. Thinking back, I’m not quite sure how Rabbi Beerman ended up in Los Angeles. Ordained in 1949 after serving in the Haganah (1947–48), Beerman was the founding rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple. He was both a Jew and a universalist, and—through the power of his personality—was able to draw a growing number of wealthy Jews into the synagogue. Beerman was also a devoted and respected activist for human rights and world peace. In those days, Leo Baeck Temple was not on the west side of the city as it is today, and it was somewhat removed from Los Angeles’ Reform Jewish

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community. Instead, the synagogue was located in a rather small neighborhood on San Vicente Boulevard, with a modest community of old-time, traditional Jews. I must admit I was quite nervous the first time I led services at Leo Baeck Temple. I possessed a sensitive, though not yet professional, voice. I knew I had to improve, so I found a voice teacher in Los Angeles. After working with him for about two years, he told me, “That’s it, you’ve got it.” I knew this was not the case—there was so much about singing that I had not yet even begun to explore. On my own, I continued to learn everything I could, practicing daily, attending concerts, and reading articles and books. In fact, from that day forward I never stopped working on my voice. Today, at the age of 89, I am a better singer than ever. All I have to do is open my mouth, and my complete and natural voice comes out. After a short while, it became apparent that Leo Baeck Temple’s original building could not handle its growing membership. The sanctuary only had 120 seats, and for the High Holy Days we had to rent a local theater. During my fourth year at Leo Baeck Temple, the congregation purchased a plot of land on Sepulveda Boulevard, and built a new facility. This new location attracted many successful west-side Jews—Jews who were not deeply connected to “old style” Judaism, but who needed a Rabbi like Leonard Beerman. Beerman was, after all, a modern man engrossed in the major issues of the day. So, in the end, Leo Baeck became known for its universalist concern. Additionally, Rabbi Beerman made music out of reading the liturgy. He didn’t “just read” the words—he prayed. To be honest, there are few rabbis who can do this. Most just read the text routinely, without an aura of tefillah. Beerman, on the other hand, made the text believable even for those congregants who were not internally connected to the liturgy. Through his reading, Beerman taught the congregation that one does not have to believe in the literalness of the text to understand its underlying value and poetic beauty. He communicated the loftiness of the language. I respected deeply Beerman’s approach to prayer. Like Beerman, I considered the liturgy as something holy and worthy of my full effort. I have always maintained that, even if the music itself is not of great beauty, it can be elevated if imbued with a sense of holiness. Whenever I sang in the synagogue, I was in a state of prayerfulness. This was especially important when I came to the well-known folk tune for Etz Hayim Hi (“It Is a Tree of Life”), a melody I sang every Shabbat morning. Each time I sang this prayer, I experienced it as something new. Needless to say, because of our similar attitudes and approaches, Rabbi Beerman and I became great partners on the bimah (pulpit).

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Largely due to this “synagogue culture,” I was free to develop as a composer of Jewish liturgical music. From the pulpit, I introduced the congregation to new melodies, particularly during the High Holidays. I was determined to have the congregants learn challenging music, rather than instantly catch on to simple ditties. I had enough respect for them to present music of substance. I began researching all the possible synagogue music that was coming forth from America, Europe, and Israel. On a few occasions I visited Jerusalem, searching for interesting material at a small music store. I brought many of these melodies into my synagogue, and they caught on. To this day, some of these pieces are sung at congregations throughout the country. I continued to improve my voice—an endeavor that soon paid off. In the late 1950s, the HUC held an event honoring Eric Werner, and I was asked to present some of his compositions. I was well on my way vocally, and when I finished singing Werner’s Kedushah (“Sanctification”), I stepped off the bimah and walked past two cantorial voice teachers who had known me in the past. I noticed a look of awe on their faces—they couldn’t believe the improvement in my voice. Another time, Eliyahu Schleifer, esteemed professor of music at the HUC campus in Jerusalem, heard me singing and commented that I had a pure, easy-flowing voice. I was touched.

Settling Down I was single for quite a while. Of course, I dated a few young ladies in Los Angeles, but most of these relationships were not very serious. The primary exception was when I dated a non-Jewish woman. After a while, I started bringing her to services at Leo Baeck Temple. One evening, an elderly woman approached me after the service, and warned me not to make a mistake. It was clear to me at that moment that to marry a non-Jewish woman would pose major problems, both for me personally and for my congregation. So, with some difficulty, we ended the relationship. Soon afterward, I met Isaiah Zeldin, founding rabbi of Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles. I took a course of his at HUC on the piyyutim (liturgical poems) of the High Holy Days, and we became fast friends. In addition to his synagogue position, Zeldin was also employed as regional director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. One of his duties was to visit synagogues throughout the West, giving presentations about the Union. While visiting one of these congregations, a woman asked Rabbi Zeldin if he knew any nice Jewish boys in the Los Angeles area. She was looking to find a match for her niece who, like me, had been dating a non-Jew. Her niece’s

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name was Jacqueline (Jacqui) Drucker, and she happened to be an accomplished concert pianist, and a student of famed pianist E. Robert Schmitz. Rabbi Zeldin thought of me, knowing of my situation and my involvement in the world of music. Though she was born a Jew, Jacqui had little exposure to the Jewish religion. Her father was a dedicated trade union man and labor Zionist, and had little interest in Jewish ritual or belief. Nevertheless, Jacqui was comfortable with my job as a synagogue cantor, knowing that I was also caught up in the world of composition and secular music. Within a few months it was clear that we were to be married. It was 1958. By that time, my name was becoming more prominent in the Jewish world. My compositions were being performed at synagogues across the country. Sometimes my father would even attend concerts featuring my work, but would not applaud with the rest of the audience. He never openly praised me, though I know that, behind the scenes, he would talk with pride about me to his friends.

Singing and Teaching Shortly after I began at Leo Baeck Temple, I was hired as chairman of the department of sacred music at the HUC in Los Angeles. At first, I taught a Tuesday night class for lay synagogue leaders, focusing on teaching music to kindergarten-aged kids. This was a new experience for me, as I was not yet familiar with all the details of synagogue life. I had to prepare myself diligently for each lesson, though, fortunately, I had by that time gathered a substantial library of music for kids. Gradually, this job evolved into a full-blown music program, and I found myself teaching all aspects of the craft to cantorial, rabbinic, and education students, as well as to synagogue musicians. To be honest, this transition came as somewhat of a surprise, but I continued teaching there as professor of sacred music until my retirement in 1994. Incidentally, upon my retirement, the school awarded me an honorary doctorate, and even created the Cantor William Sharlin Award for Excellence in Liturgy, which is given annually to deserving rabbinic students. At the school I also developed a program for synagogue organists and choir directors. This was a one-year program, which introduced synagogue musicians, who were often non-Jews, to the basics of biblical cantillation, nusach (modal liturgical chant), and major issues and movements in Jewish music history. The goal was to bring into their lives and work a rich variety of Jewish music and a sense of its cultural-historical context.

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A particularly memorable experience at the school grew from the prayer Ahavah Rabbah (“With Abounding Love”). I was never satisfied with the widely used folk melody for the prayer, finding that it has little to do with the text. Like many songs used for the Jewish liturgy, it is simply a melodic shell into which the holy text is stuffed. During a class with rabbinic students, I wanted to make a statement about the importance of text in Jewish music, so I introduced a melody I had composed for Ahavah Rabah. I distributed the sheet music and very gently invited the students into the melody. When I introduced the new melody, I knew the students would not take to it right away—I had to be patient. Added to that, most of them did not jump for joy when they first heard it; they were so used to the old tune. But I introduced it with my heart and soul, and they eventually accepted the melody as their own. In fact, when this group of rabbis graduated from the school, they presented me a beautiful manuscript of the Ahavah Rabah music I had composed. I still occasionally hear this melody sung at rabbinic conventions. The piece made an impact. A similar thing occurred when I introduced new melodies at Leo Baeck. On a number of occasions, I would be approached by someone after a service asking, “Why did you change the melody to that prayer?” My response was always the same: “Where were you last week?” I tried to communicate that, if they had attended services in the previous weeks, they would have noticed that I was introducing the piece slowly, and that it was gradually becoming familiar to the congregation. Likewise, if they were regulars at our services, they would have surely wanted a variety of music.

The Art of Introduction When I began at Leo Baeck Temple, I was fortunate to have a quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) for every Friday night service, as well as talented organist Shirl Lee Pitesky. In those days—the 1950s and 1960s—synagogue music was more formal; there was not yet the major shift toward congregational melodies as we have today. “Listening music” was more widely accepted. Added to that, Leo Baeck Temple had a large number of musically sophisticated congregants, along with some old-fashioned shul-goers, and I was motivated to write music that would please both groups. Rabbi Beerman also had a great appreciation for music, and allowed me to experiment with new musical settings of the liturgy. Beerman was more willing than many current rabbis to make changes to the music of the service.

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Leo Baeck Temple was the perfect place for me. There was always the possibility of introducing new music—cantorial, choral, and congregational— and I never denied the congregation. I welcomed their participation, both in listening and singing. I made sure the service was balanced, allowing for substantive hazzanut (cantorial art) for cantor and choir, as well as congregational melodies. I always strived to bring the congregation into the process of prayer. Unlike many of my colleagues, I had great patience with my congregation. I did not have a need for them to learn melodies instantaneously; I eased them into a new prayer-song over a number of weeks. When I introduced a new piece, I engaged the congregation emotionally and spiritually. It was not an externalized experience. By explaining some of its nuances, and by showing my love for the music and the text, I tried to stir a sense of excitement around the new melody. I developed a method of bringing new material to the congregation in a way that inspired interest. I would sing a short section of the piece, and invite the congregation to listen carefully for that section during its full performance. In this way, the congregants were, in a sense, already involved in the piece. Sometimes I’d even have my quartet sing sections of the music while I explained what was being sung, both textually and musically. The congregants would also see me conducting the choir on the bimah (pulpit), expressing with my body movement a genuine involvement in the music. This sort of presentation begs for active listening, where the heart and soul—not just the ears—are listening to the song. This is, in effect, “spiritual listening.” Over the years, my music began to reach other congregations—particularly large ones with choirs. Somehow or another, my name started to spread around, and various publishing companies became interested in my music. Consequently, I was asked on a number of occasions to visit congregations across the country as a composer-in-residence. I would send the music to a synagogue in advance, rehearse with the cantor and choir, lecture on the music, and direct a performance of the material. I am grateful that Leo Baeck Temple allowed me to take a number of weekends off to travel to distant synagogues, often in the Midwest and on the East Coast. Of course, I would be sure to arrange for a substitute before visiting these interesting synagogues, and I always approached these opportunities as a great honor. I believe, too, that the congregants of Leo Baeck felt a sense of pride. They were happy to know that their cantor’s name meant something.

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In those days American Jews welcomed synagogue music of grandeur and substance. Other prominent composers of the time, such as Max Janowski and Herbert Fromm, had similar opportunities to visit dispersed congregations, and being in the company of such luminaries was, and still is, quite humbling. At the time, I was considered a newcomer, often in a derogatory sense. When my music was first gaining popularity, I remember being shrugged off as an arranger—not being respected as a full-fledged composer. As a matter of fact, I overheard this insult after a major performance of one of my pieces. At the reception, I passed by a group of established synagogue musicians, who were reflecting on the performance. One of them said glibly, “William Sharlin, he’s a competent arranger.” He was not willing to put me in the category of composer. That incident revealed a larger problem of competition in the synagogue— a competition that exists today between composers, cantors, and rabbis. Yet with all of my early disenchantment, I was supported and encouraged by one of the greats: Max Helfman (1901–1963). Helfman worked as musical director for Reform and Conservative synagogues in New York, and in the 1950s became involved with the Brandies-Bardin camps, first in Pennsylvania and then near Los Angeles. He was dean of fine arts at the University of Judaism, Los Angeles, and a gifted composer of choral and synagogue music. We had a meaningful, though not terribly close, relationship, and his interest in my work meant much to me. Unfortunately, Max died at an early age, and we were prevented from strengthening our friendship. The composer-in-residence opportunities brought me into some unique experiences. Most of these synagogues had cantors, though there were times, especially early on, when large Reform congregations didn’t have cantors. Weeks before my visit, I would send the music to the cantor and/or music director, hoping that the choir would have some familiarity with the music before I arrived. I remember one instance in particular when a synagogue choir was planning to perform some of my pieces. When I came to the rehearsal, the cantor immediately told me, “We couldn’t make it work.” They had rehearsed the music but, in his words, “it wasn’t coming off.” As was normally the case, I arrived there on the Wednesday before the Friday night service, and I asked politely—holding back my frustration—if I could work with the choir. I conducted them for five minutes, stirring them up about the piece, and the cantor turned to me and said, “Now I understand.” This sort of thing happened on a number of occasions, and I was always able to solve the situation. By simply explaining that there is something of substance in the piece, the choir would catch on. I owe much of this to my pa-

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tience and determination, but it is remarkable the degree to which discussing the music can help in the learning process. Indeed, without such guidance, many choirs—and cantors as well—are unable to catch on to a new piece. This was particularly true when I was preparing for my most grandiose and challenging work, The Service of Inauguration for Alfred Gottschalk. In February of 1972, Rabbi Gottschalk was made the fifth president of the Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion. Importantly, during his career as president of the school, Gottschalk ordained the first woman rabbi of the modern era, Sally Priesland, and opened both the rabbinical and cantorial programs to women. The ceremony was held at Isaac Mayer Wise Temple in Cincinnati, and I had the distinct honor of composing the music. Written for solo voice, male choir (mostly rabbinic students), two trumpets, two trombones, horn, harp, and organ, this was lofty and demanding music. When I arrived in Cincinnati to rehearse for the event, I met with a cantor who was to sing Eylu D’vareem (“These Are the Obligations”) with me. He informed me of the difficulty he had with the music, and of his doubts about singing it at the ceremony. Undaunted, I worked with him, giving him confidence and helping him make the piece his own. I must have spent two hours with him on the piece before he finally remarked, relieved and uplifted, “So, that’s how it goes.” His performance, along with the rest of the music, was a great success. To this day, I am most known in the world of composition for the Gottschalk Service I composed in 1972. In terms of my compositional style, I am most proud of the fact that I live in two words: the world of Judaism, and the larger world of Western-universal music. Through my combined yeshiva background and experience at the Manhattan School of Music, I have constantly found these two streams coming together in my music. I have a deep interest in the history of both Jewish and general music, and each musical period and style I come across somehow finds its way into my compositions—usually unconsciously. I have always been drawn to music and, over the years, have evolved gradually into a pianist, composer, and cantor. Likewise, because of my intimate love and knowledge of Hebrew liturgy, I am always aware of the interplay of text and music. Oftentimes, synagogue composers come up with a melody first, and then set the liturgy on top of it. They have a neat musical idea and then scramble to find a prayer that might fit with the melody. This sort of music does not necessarily relate to the details and movements of the text, and may actually hinder the worship experience.

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Unfortunately, many melodies detached from the text have become standards in American synagogues. This is largely due to the erosion of the choral tradition, and the move toward the exclusive use of congregational melodies. There are few congregants who feel deeply connected to the liturgy, and even fewer who have an intimate knowledge of the Hebrew language. As a result, they sing along with the simple melodies presented to them, not necessarily knowing what or why they are singing. Because of this rather bleak reality, much of my music is rarely performed—especially those pieces considered “too sophisticated.”

Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish I was invited one weekend to speak at Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C., as part of my engagement as composer-in-residence. As I was giving a lecture-demonstration on synagogue song, I posed a rather challenging question to the audience, “What is Jewish in Jewish music?” My own response was, “everything—and nothing.” As a diaspora people, the Jews have traveled all over the world and, as a result, were constantly under the influence of the environment in which they lived. The remarkable duality of Jewish life for over 2,000 years was a need to preserve a traditional way of life and to survive and adapt among the larger society. Wherever Jews have lived, they have been influenced by various traditions and cultures. The larger world permeated all facets of life, including the synagogue and its music. A number of Jewish liturgical melodies—including some still used today—have been borrowed from both church and secular sources. The popular Hanukkah melody for Maoz Tzur (“Rock of Ages”), for instance, was originally a German Lutheran chorale; and even the Slavic-minor mode commonly associated with Jewish melodies found its way into the liturgy in the seventeenth century, when German Jews migrated eastward through the Slavic countries. Consciously or unconsciously, Jews heard certain music in the various countries in which they lived, and absorbed them—digested them—into whatever musical tradition was dominant in the synagogue. The pain, the passion, the pathos of our existence in the diaspora transformed what was brought in from the outside. So, why do we assume everything we hear in the synagogue is Jewish? The answer to this question is language. Language has the enormous power to transform the music that accompanies it. It is the very taste, the feel, the

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association, and the context of that language. It’s so powerful that you can put almost anything against that language and you will experience it as a Jewish experience. This language is, of course, Hebrew. To demonstrate this point to the Washington congregation, I sat down at the piano and played several commonly used musical examples from the liturgy. I started a rendition of Sim Shalom (“Grant Peace”), which had all the earmarks of a cantorial melody. Then I played the melody on the piano without words, and asked the crowd if they could name the tune. “It’s a Mahler song,” a man replied. He was right—it was Mahler’s “Song of the Wayfarer.” Through this and other pieces, I illustrated the power of language to transform musical content. In nineteenth-century Europe, hazzanim (cantors) were influenced greatly by the opera. They went to the opera, and were fascinated by its florid style. They may have lived in the segregated ghetto, but they learned a great deal from opera, often transporting melodies they had heard into the synagogue service. It is likely that most congregations never realized their beloved hazzanim were using secular, operatic melodies set to the prayer-text. All they heard was beautiful music, and they experienced it in a soulful way. It was only through the oral tradition, and the virtual absence of written notation until the nineteenth century, that we have come to identify certain sounds as Jewish. As musical styles were incorporated into the synagogue from surrounding cultures, they were passed down from generation to generation, and eventually became accepted as minhag (Jewish custom). For this reason, Jewish music is both Jewish and universal.

Musical Rabbis Over the years, I have been blessed to know and work with musically interested rabbis. I remember in particular my old friend Rabbi Wolli Kaelter (1914–2008). We taught together at the HUC in Los Angeles, and I soon discovered that he was much more musically knowledgeable than the average Reform rabbi. Born in the Free City of Danzig, Rabbi Kaelter was ordained in 1940, and served congregations in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Arkansas before joining the staff of the UAHC. In 1955 he assumed the pulpit at Temple Israel of Long Beach, California, where he served until his retirement in 1979. Kaelter was also a cellist, a lover of classical music, and functioned as both rabbi and cantor at his congregation in Long Beach. Importantly, Rabbi Kaelter was also founding director of the Camp for Living Judaism at Saratoga, California (about an hour’s drive from San Francisco). As mentioned earlier, I became heavily involved in the camp

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movement when I was in Cincinnati and, thanks to Rabbi Kaelter, I was able to continue when I moved to Los Angeles. I spent time at Camp Saratoga virtually every summer, and there were times when I would stay there the entire summer. I was the song-leader of the camp. This became a way of life for me: Leo Baeck Temple would give me time off, and Jacqui would often go with me. When she did, she had all sorts of interesting acquaintances to hang around with, and it worked out fine. One year, Jewish organizational leaders in San Francisco caught word of the things that were happening at the camp, and some of them came to visit. As soon as they arrived, we started showing off what we could do. What was especially appealing to them was our lively Shabbat service. Whatever the kids learned during the week, whatever theme was being explored—the prophets, mitzvot (commandments), etc.—became the focal point of that week’s services. Also, once during each session, the camp would have “Upside Down Day.” There would be breakfast for dinner, evening activities in the daytime, and so forth. In those days, I had a small German car, and in celebration of this unusual day, I would drive my car backwards into the dining hall, hop out, and begin singing. The kids really got a kick out of it. At any rate, through rabbis like Wolli Kaelter, music of substance—both old and new—is able to enter the synagogue. Even more than the cantor, the rabbi has a unique and important responsibility to create the musical culture of his or her synagogue. If the rabbi is sophisticated, the music will be sophisticated; but when the rabbi lacks knowledge or is insecure in the area of music, the congregation—and indeed the cantor—will likely be drawn into simplistic, unchallenging, and oftentimes spiritually empty settings of the liturgy. This is why the musical life of the rabbi is so crucial—not necessarily the rabbi as musician, but as someone who appreciates music of substance. This is what drove me to teach Jewish music to rabbinic students at the HUC, a job I held for forty years. I have also been credited with introducing the guitar into the synagogue service. Today, guitar-playing cantors and rabbis are nearly everywhere in the Reform movement, a reality which has contributed to the influx of simplistic “sing-along” songs into the Jewish liturgy. For this reason, some cantors still shrug me off, saying, “William Sharlin? He’s one of those guitar-playing cantors.” But I always maintained that congregational singing is not just congregational singing; it is a form of communication between the congregants and, more importantly, between the congregation and the divine. With this always in mind, I had no choice but to elevate the experience. Even if a song is ordinary, lacking an intrinsic spirit of the holy, it can be lifted to a higher

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state. When I led congregational singing, I was truly involved. I wanted my heart to reach out to the congregants. The problem with much of the guitar-led services today, however, is a general lack of proper attitude. Consent has emerged among rabbis, cantors, and, as a result, congregations that liturgical songs should be overly simple and easily learned. When I led services, I avoided such ditties, believing that Leo Baeck Temple—and indeed God—deserved better. Though we had a quartet, much of our service contained congregational melodies; but I treated congregational singing as an art, not just a simplistic, participatory routine. Moreover, there are some service leaders—cantors and rabbis—who hide behind the guitar. They play around with the instrument, plucking out fancy passages, without realizing they are in a sacred setting. What is it that they wish to communicate to the congregation—how to play the guitar? What does that have to do with prayer? This “showing off” may be used, I suppose, to compensate for a lack of voice or, perhaps more likely, a lack of spiritual engagement. But in my opinion, the only use for the guitar in the synagogue is to provide rhythmic and harmonic support. The congregation will respond to simple strumming, but will be distracted by fancy playing. I would even walk among the worshipers with the guitar, engaging them in the process of prayer. I didn’t merely lead the congregation; I led from within the congregation. In any given service, I would have the quartet, organ, cantorial solos, and the guitar. As a result, the service was not dominated by any single style. There was, I believe, something for everyone.

The Children I also had an active role in childhood education at Leo Baeck Temple. I noticed early on that there were a few students who were moving on in their religious schooling—from third to fourth grade, etc.—without having acquired the necessary skills. In a typical situation, there would be a child who was stumbling with the Hebrew, not quite able to make all the proper sounds or recognize all the letters. He or she would move on to the next year, still stumbling, never having addressed specific deficiencies. I tried to communicate to the teachers—especially in the early grades—to be aware of children’s weaknesses. For example, if a student was not automatic in his or her recognition of the vowels, it was crucial for that weakness to be addressed early on; and those kids who had serious difficulty were assigned tutors. In my last ten or fifteen years at Leo Baeck Temple, I taught classes for the older students, requiring that they demonstrate adequate skills in order to proceed to their bar or bat mitzvot. This was true not only in the area of

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liturgy, but also for cantillation, the ritual public chanting of biblical books based on prescribed musical patterns. I was against the practice of recording and distributing tapes for students to learn their specific Torah and Haftarah cantillation. Such a system only leads to memorization, and does not require that students develop a recognition of trope markings and the ability to chant different texts in the future. One of my innovations in teaching biblical chant was the use of English texts with trope markings printed on it. With this, the students—particularly those who struggled with Hebrew— could focus intently on the symbols and their musical interpretation. This made the experience less foreign and, as it turned out, helped to create an atmosphere of fun. Later on, when a student was ready to apply cantillation to the biblical readings, it was generally not a problem. There were also elements in teaching religious school that were similar to the camp experience. The students, like the campers, had to be motivated to learn the liturgical melodies in such a way that they would, ultimately, internalize them. When I presented them with something new, I was sure to project a high level of energy, which I hoped would be contagious. I avoided the drudgery of having them repeat and memorize, and instead tried to get them to learn the liturgy actively in a spirited environment.

The Temple Shows During my cantorial career, I became caught up with writing parodies of Broadway shows for the clergy, staff, and congregants to perform. I was inspired—at least in part—by my years in Cincinnati, when the HUC students would put on shows poking fun at the faculty. Using the music from popular shows, I’d write humorous lyrics specific to the synagogue and Jewish life. Over the years, too, some talented congregants joined up in creating scripts and lyrics for many shows. We’d generally put on a couple of shows each year, and there was a time when they were very popular, and we’d be compelled to put on repeat performances. One particularly memorable show I wrote was “A Tsuris Line,” which was a takeoff on A Chorus Line, the popular Broadway musical. In the original show, seventeen young dancers audition to be in a Broadway musical. In our show, a rabbi suddenly leaves the synagogue before the High Holy Days, giving us no time to interview potential rabbinic candidates individually. The congregation is struck with tsuris—a Yiddish word meaning troubles, worries, and suffering—and all we could think to do was have all the candidates come at once, and lead the High Holy Day services together—a sort of on-the-job audition. They became the “Tsuris Line.”

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Another year, we produced a takeoff on A Fiddler on the Roof. The following lyrics from that show, sung to the tune of “If I Were a Rich Man,” poke fun at our modest beginnings in the little shul (synagogue) on San Vicente, our friend and competitor Rabbi Zeldin at Stephen Wise Temple, and a host of other things: If we were a rich shul . . . We’d line our social hall floor with another purple carpet To tie things together wall to wall; Install a P.A. system with speakers in every pew. And then our Rabbis could preach a double sermon side by side You could tune in on channels one or two, Or dial an old favorite rerun just for you. We’d build an on and off ramp right from the freeway Directly to our door—oh what a sight, With parking attendants to ease our tired feet; We’d hire 300 Jewish extras To fill our sanctuary every Friday night, Imagine, Leonard, not one empty seat! If we were a rich shul . . . We’d have our own little cemetery, halfway up the hill, With a catchy name like “Baeck to Mother Earth.” Oy what a place for a family Sunday climb; We’d hire Bateman and Eichler and maybe even Hill Just to help us keep track of what we’re worth; And finally we’ll make the cover of Time. We’d offer workshops to our sister congregations; They’d come pounding on the door; To consult and advise, They would plead, Leonard Beerman, How did you do it, Leonard Beerman? It would bring our friend Reb Zeldin down to size. We could delight our Rabbis, Cantor and Exec. With a brand new Mercedes every year; How else can we let them know how much we care? We’d even hire one more Rabbi who would only handle The nudnicks and the benders of the ear; One more Cantor just to fill that fourth red chair.

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We’d build a Temple extension closer to the beach For unusual occasions of the year; Like a very hot weekend that falls on Yom Kippur. We’d acquire that cozy little place on San Vicente For those old members who complain That those were the good old days when we were poor. Lord who made the lion and mule, We realize that you’re nobody’s fool, But at least we could have livened up Our dreary vestibule . . . If we were a wealthy shul.

These shows became a staple during my time at Leo Baeck Temple— something the congregation really looked forward to. These performances contrasted sharply with my more serious side, the part of me connected to the traditional world of my youth. I guess you could say that the temple shows revealed my “entertainment side.” I was a big fan of Broadway, and through these performances, I was able to blend this love quite naturally with my deep connection to Judaism and to Leo Baeck Temple. Importantly, too, these shows allowed us to joke around about the clergy and congregation, which surely added to the “family” atmosphere and camaraderie of the synagogue. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously, and that’s just what the synagogue needed. Plus there was always an element of truth in those humorous shows.

My Family Along the way, Jacqui and I produced two daughters, Ilana and Lisa. Since their early years, both of our daughters have been quite musical—a quality owing much to Jacqui and I being involved in the world of music. When they were young, I would sing lullabies to them, and they’d respond most remarkably. I also used to play a game with them where they’d identify for me three objects—totally unrelated—about which I’d have to compose a unifying story. For example, they’d say, “table, crocodile, pizza,” and I would spin an entertaining tale, connecting these items. They loved to watch me do that. Our younger daughter, Lisa, worked for years as a cantor in Orange County, California. Some time ago, on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), I invited Lisa onto the pulpit with me to sing my dialogue, Eylu D’vareem (“These Are the Obligations”). We really wowed the congregation. Ilana,

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while also musical, became involved with a South African man, and they currently live in Cape Town with their two children. Ilana’s husband is a non-Jew, though he is very much at home in a Jewish environment, having become very knowledgeable about Judaism. Still, I don’t think this union would have happened if my father were still alive when Ilana got married. It would have been a terrible thing for my father, and I don’t know what would have happened if he were alive. Indeed, there are those who struggle with this issue even today. They see intermarriage as a major obstacle to the preservation of Judaism. It is, of course, no secret that the preservation of Jewish identity is often challenged by intermarriage. This was even a problem for Jewish parents in the immigrant generation. Surely, there was less intermarriage among their children, but there was some. That was a very painful thing for first generation American Jews who, like my father, came from an environment where intermarriage was almost impossible. Similarly, my brother, when my father was still alive, married a Jewish woman who had previously been married, but did not get a Jewish get (divorce document)—just a legal divorce. So my brother had to take his future wife to a court of rabbis, who formally granted her separation from her ex-husband. That was when my father was still alive. If that were not the case, I don’t think they would have gone through all that trouble. We always tried to respect my father. Still, before he passed away, I realized that my father secretly admired that I had moved into a different (non-Orthodox) world. He would still say on occasion, “You could have at least been a Conservative cantor,” but it was not a dramatic thing for him. After all, I was still in a Jewish realm—I was working among Jews. My father visited me a few times at Leo Baeck Temple, but he would not walk into the sanctuary where men sat next to women and did not wear kippot (skullcaps) on their heads. That made him uneasy to walk into Leo Baeck’s beautiful sanctuary. Beautiful sanctuaries meant very little to the “old Jews.” All they needed was an ark and a Torah scroll; that was their sanctuary.

Trusting the Process To this day, I continue to mentor cantors privately at my home. The guiding philosophy I offer my students is “trust the process.” Long ago, I discovered that the major barrier in singing is that the persona must change. The individual must let go of all inhibitions, live dangerously, and allow him- or herself to be transformed into an instrument of song. This means singing with greater freedom, and going beyond conscious thinking about technique.

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Proper technique, after all, is but an avenue toward the ultimate goal: becoming one with oneself as a singer. Some of my students over the years have been very stubborn. They thought they already knew what they needed to know about singing and the cantorial world. They were, in a sense, complacent singers, making do with what they had, and were perhaps frightened of the possibility of singing with a totally abandoned voice. This attitude allows for vocal flaws, whatever they may be, to become part of the persona. My main job as a vocal teacher is to help free the singer from his or her self-constructed impediments. The tongue cannot be allowed to interfere with consonants and vowels, the jaw must be loose, the eyebrows must be raised, etc. And, the more one moves upward, the more one lets go. The voice becomes liberated. In this way, the voice is among the most difficult instruments to teach or learn. The violinist can always buy a better violin, but the singer’s instrument is his or her voice—an instrument bogged down by the tensions and complexities of everyday life. It is a living instrument. Sure, there are a select few who are born with natural voices; without taking lessons they sing quite beautifully. This happens once in a while. However, I for one was not born with a great voice; I had to work hard to set it free. Trusting the process, I grew over many years into a cantor. As far as I’m concerned, there is never an end to learning. Even at 89, I am constantly being driven to the next step. I often ask myself, “Where do I go from here?” As a singer, I’ve never stopped pursuing the possibilities of moving further ahead. The cantor owes it to the congregation to give his or her best; the congregation deserves the highest the cantor can achieve. I always strived to transmit my spirit to the congregation through my singing. Today, I am much freer in my singing than ever before. Reaching this level is the result of my constant, daily thinking and working on the craft, and I have benefited from what I have learned from teaching. I learn a great deal from communicating with my students. I have to first ponder within myself what is crucial to the cantorate, and then relate this discovery to the students. This has contributed greatly to my understanding of what it takes to be a cantor who is deeply committed to whatever he or she is singing. Also, during my career, there were times when the rabbi—first Leonard Beerman and later Sanford Ragins—would be out of town, and I would have the opportunity to lead the service alone with my quartet. As a cantor, I believe I had a natural link with my spiritual side. Music is, after all, the most otherworldly source of expression we can pursue. As a result, I felt at ease leading the service without a rabbi and, to a certain extent, felt more spiritual continuity when I was alone. The shared pulpit can become fragmented, due to the unavoidable

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need for stage direction and back-and-forth between rabbi and cantor. But when I was alone, I alternated quite seamlessly between the spoken and sung liturgy. Those were special experiences.

A Survivor from Warsaw Some of the members of Leo Baeck Temple were connected to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and in 1987 they suggested that I do two performances as the narrator of Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw with the orchestra. They were looking for someone who was musically adept and who could project his voice in an emotional and dramatic fashion. They thought I was the right man for the job. The first performance was at Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the second was at the Hollywood Bowl. I received the score well in advance, and became totally absorbed in it. As is well known, Schoenberg wrote very complex and difficult music, and for this piece, the narration was written out on the score with specific rhythms. Each word I read was synched up with the orchestra, and, in order to pull it off, I had to both learn my lines cold, and internalize the orchestral score. I walked back and forth through my house, repeating the words over and over until they became my own. I didn’t fool around. I wouldn’t consider myself a big fan of Schoenberg’s work, but I respected him and the piece enough to dedicate my entire being to the piece. In addition, Schoenberg’s son and his family were members of Leo Baeck Temple. As a matter of fact, when his children had bar mitzvah ceremonies, I sang some of Schoenberg’s more playful songs. By the time the first performance of A Survivor from Warsaw came around, I did not experience even an ounce of nervousness—I was totally at one with the piece. I stood next to the conductor and read my lines from the orchestral score I held in my hands. It was one of the most emotionally gratifying experiences I ever had. I was absolutely immersed in the experience. The opening words still resonate in my mind: “I cannot remember everything. I must have been unconscious most of the time. I remember only the grandiose moment when they all started to sing as if prearranged, the old prayer they had neglected for so many years; the forgotten creed.”

“Jewnius” The American Conference of Cantors held its convention one year in Los Angeles. As part of a showcase of the musical creativity of California’s syna-

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gogues, there was a performance of some of my major works. After the program, I overheard two cantors chatting. One said to the other, “Cantor Sharlin’s a genius,” to which the other replied, “No. He’s a ‘Jewnius.’” I couldn’t help but recall that instance many years ago when, in a similar situation, I was labeled a mere arranger. How far I had come. Still, I wasn’t quite sure how to take that comment. The modesty within me wanted to reject it as an overstatement, but my analytical self immediately began deconstructing that clever term. There was, I determined, some truth to the label “Jewnius.” Not fully accepting the demarcation as “genius”—that is for others to decide, not me—my identity as a Jew does in fact permeate all that I do. Fundamentally, I am a Jew. Even when I compose a piece for the synagogue—something intimately linked with a Jewish text— I do not ask myself, “How can I make this sound Jewish?” On the contrary, I simply immerse myself in the text, draw upon my musical knowledge, and emerge with something saturated with my internal experience as a Jew. As much as I rely on my secular training as a musician, my Jewishness remains a central part of my musical personality. My intimacy with synagogue music and the larger musical world are merged as one. The Hebrew language is second nature to me, and I have always been immersed in a Jewish environment. But when I entered the Manhattan School of Music, I entered the larger world. In contrast to the relative shelter of my yeshiva background, I was in a learning environment filled with all sorts of people with varying ideologies—musical, religious, cultural, and otherwise. From there, I moved into the cantorate. I never had a conscious desire to be a cantor; it just happened. Through the interplay of different experiences and the links that formed over a number of years, I ended up—perhaps inevitably—in that beautiful world. There are, of course, people with musical backgrounds who drift into the cantorate, sometimes because of practical concerns. After all, being a cantor is a coveted steady job in the often uncertain world of professional music. But many of them never make the text their own and remain, to a certain extent, outsiders to the experience of prayer. When the cantor’s goal is to sing Hebrew, he or she will never reach the height of prayer. The cantor must approach Hebrew as Lashon Kodesh—the Holy Language. The text must be internalized, not memorized. Personally, I have never stopped improving myself, both as composer and cantor. In recent years I have become a freak for the canon. The challenge of writing interesting and useable canons is very appealing to me. I am now working on a piece based on Rabbi Hillel’s famous saying, “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And

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if not now, when?” (Pirkei Avot 1:14). This last question, “if not now when?” is where I am now. This is never ending in me. I find myself learning and doing more and more, even at this old age. I never had a plan about where I was heading in life. I just seemed to float toward wherever I was going. Of course, music was always in my life, and was the guiding force—however unconsciously—which propelled me. One thing touched upon another, and I went along with whatever life presented me. I don’t buy into notions of this or that was “meant to be.” There were things, like singing, that I was not naturally very good at, but I pursued them until I was able to do them well. And, in the case of singing, I eventually reached a level of expertise that allowed me to become a voice teacher. I got caught up with particular aspects of musical life, and slowly built up the art. I am at one with coming to the end of my life. I am very comfortable—but I am not going to rush it. There are still many things that I still enjoy. I’m 89 now, and I’m pretty sure I’ll make it to 90—that’s a nice number. I don’t sit around and brag to myself about what I’ve done—I do more. I still love teaching, singing, and writing music.

Address to the American Conference of Cantors In 1989, the year after I retired from Leo Baeck Temple, the American Conference of Cantors honored me for my four decades in the profession. Below is the speech I delivered, which says it all: I am most grateful to you, my colleagues, for the honor given to me today. I do want you to know that I am particularly moved because, after all, I am a member of a community that has not always fared well in the eyes of the country—specifically the Eastern establishment. We on the West Coast carry a heavy chip on our shoulder—we are seen as the receptacle for all the odds and ends of the rest of the country. I’m sure you’ve heard that ugly rumor that when the map of the United States was tilted toward the West, all the “weirdos” and “misfits” rolled down into the Los Angeles area. No matter who we are and what we do we are given the Rodney Dangerfield treatment: “No Respect.” It has been very difficult. Our self-image has suffered. You can surely tell from the way I talk that I myself have not emerged unscathed. I want you to hear what they have been saying about me, and these are real live quotes: A colleague, in response to a recommendation that he attend services at Bill Sharlin’s synagogue, said, “You won’t catch me going into that guitarplaying cantor’s place! He’s just a camp-song leader.” On another occasion, someone remarked, “Bill Sharlin? His music is too highbrow for my people,” while someone else uttered, “Bill Sharlin? He’s too

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traditional; he’s out of touch with the ’80s.” I also heard someone say, “Bill Sharlin? He may be a good musician, but what does he know about singing?” And—this one will kill you—after a performance of one of my major original works at Lincoln Center, I heard one distinguished synagogue composer say to another, “We are composers; Bill Sharlin is an arranger.” Do I need to say more? What does one have to do to gain some respect? Retire? You’ll pardon me for getting all of this off my chest; but at least you can now understand why I am so deeply moved by this honor. Now that I have gotten that heavy stuff off out of the way, I’ll try to get down to some lighter fare—some words of wisdom I might offer after some forty years in the cantorate. What is it all about? Where are we now? Where should we be going? What is the magic word? If you are anxiously awaiting the ultimate message, I regret that I have to disappoint you; but, then again, some of you may be relieved. The fact is that the only wisdom I can muster up is my recognition that I have no answer—that there is no answer, and, frankly, I would be suspect of anyone who would claim knowledge of any answers. There is a story of a Hassid who was about to leave his shtetl (village), moving on to some distant city. What perturbed him especially was not the uncertainty of his distant and future abode, but his having to separate himself from his Rebbe—his Tzadik (righteous man). When he sought council from his Rebbe as to how to go about seeking out another worthy Rebbe, his Rebbe offered him the following: “When you think you have found such a tzadik, ask him how he deals with and transcends extraneous thoughts. If he gives you an answer, then you will know he is not a true tzadik, for it is our fate to struggle eternally with our extraneous thoughts. They will never leave us.” It is in this same manner that I would approach the quest for synagogue music of the future. Why is this so? Why is it so difficult to come up with answers? To begin with, too often when we examine or evaluate our musical tradition, as it was, as it is, and especially how it might be, we do so by looking at it as somehow independent of the larger and deeper phenomenon of tefillah (prayer) itself. Rather than recognize our musical content as a spontaneous response to a fundamental prayer experience—that is, for the music to react to an impetus of prayer—what we are inclined to do is to separate it from its core, to treat it, at best, as an adjunct and, at worst, as a cure for a troubled worship institution. We look for music to come to the rescue of prayer that is itself drifting in search of purpose, an identity, its own validation, struggling to preserve itself. Music, then, takes on the role of problem solving; but, in the arena of worship, problem solving can only bring temporary relief.

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To compound the dilemma, pursuit of direction becomes even more elusive because of the ever-increasing spread of pluralism within the Reform movement itself. We tend to think of pluralism only in the larger synagogue divisions and their interrelationship and lose sight of the pluralism deeply entrenched within our own group. Our temples are without a binding inner mainstream. We do not connect with each other in a deeper sense. We are, to a great extent, strangers in each other’s houses. Oddly enough, what does bind us together are the various external institutions—Union of American Hebrew Congregation, American Conference of Cantors, Central Conference of American Rabbis, etc. Each synagogue travels its own path filling the vacuum out of its own individuality and idiosyncrasies—guided by the individualities of its leaders, cantors, rabbis, and composers. Why should this not be so? After all, we live under the umbrella of the larger world in which the future is now, where the lack of concern for the broader world and its future has shifted to taking refuge in one’s own shul (synagogue), so to speak. These conditions make it virtually impossible to visualize a future way. Sound depressing? I don’t feel so. The fact that there are no clear answers should not discourage or paralyze us into a state of “what does it matter, anyhow?” What comes to mind are the words of Stephen Sondheim in “Sundays at the Park with George.” When George cannot think of anything new to say in his art, he is told, “Stop worrying where you’re going, move on—if you can know where you’re going, you’ve gone—just keep moving on.” Do keep in mind that these words essentially speak to the creative process and not, let’s say, to freeway travel. But, does “stop worrying where you’re going” mean that anything goes? That is, of course, the primary question. Come to think of it, our forebearers never asked the question, “Where shall we go from here?” They moved on without knowing that they were moving on. Yet, they did so because they had something that we didn’t have: an anchor. They could float around comfortably in the musical sea and not lose sight of home. It is here that I turn to the only possible words of guidance spoken, not by me, but by the great Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook (1864–1935). While his words don’t offer solutions, they may at least prevent complete drowning in the sea of the unknown. He said, “The sacred must be renewed, and the new must be sanctified.” Additionally, he wrote, “The sacred and the profane together influence the spirit of the individual who becomes enriched through absorbing from each of them whatever is suitable. In order for holiness to be achieved, the sacred and the profane must be synthesized.” Rav Kook, as Chief Rabbi of modern Israel in the 1920s and ’30s, was a remarkable orthodox personage, highly respected and admired by almost all segments of the country at the time—religious and secular alike—all because

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of his insights into and his willingness to face and respond to modernity. In the context of his being a strict halakhist (follower of Jewish Law) he was surprisingly liberal in much of his thinking, all of which led to these powerful words. I cannot think of a more penetrating thought that speaks so crucially to our present state of affairs, as we grope, actively and passively, for a musical identity. “The sacred must be renewed, and the new must be sanctified.” The concept of renewing the sacred—opening itself up to fresh stimuli and giving to it ongoing vitality—we would all agree is a valuable concept. Our tradition has always kept the door open to the new—allowing every conceivable musical entity to enter—from the world of high art to secular trivia. In fact, our musical tradition demanded such openness not only for its own selfstimulation but, equally important, to counter a static liturgical text that remained rigid and unchanged for well over a thousand years. So, as we reflect on the words of Rav Kook, what should prompt us to raise questions is not the idea itself, but the nature and manner of renewal, especially as it relates or does not relate to a sacred past. When we look behind the process of renewal we should first take notice of its motivation—what motivates the culture to renew. In the broadest sense, renewal comes about as a response to either a negative or a positive condition, along with the gray areas in between. On the one hand, one can be moved, or even persuaded, to renew the old because its fundamental value has either diminished sorely or has escaped us completely. It is here that renewal takes place in a vacuum, unrelated to the past, and, at least for some of us, can have an insatiable appetite. On the other hand, positive renewal is stimulated when the existent musical mainstream has retained enough of its value and continues on some level to gratify worship needs. It wants the new not because it is tired of the old, but because its own vitality encourages new interests. It wishes not to replace, but to expand upon the old. What is most interesting about the negative and the positive, as they relate to stability or instability, is that they both have a need for change but for different reasons, and with different results. In a stable period, change takes place gradually, sometimes unnoticeably, while the unstable period produces constant change. In a stable period it is the old that invites the new; in the unstable period, the old is ignored and forgotten by the new. This takes us to the second half of Rav Kook’s statement: “the new must be sanctified.” Given a consensus that the new should be transformed somehow into a state that is above the ordinary, that expresses some qualities of reverence, that touches off a spirit of devotion at both ends of the sanctuary, how does one achieve such a process? How does one sanctify the new?

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The answer, obviously, is not a simple one; such a process can involve a number of levels. To be sure, one needs to separate the two basic participants: the creator and the performer. The creator can be the composer as well as the folk process. Both the composer and the folk process, while creating something essentially new out of the old, often select, consciously or unconsciously, musical elements from the surrounding environment to expand the old. Additionally, just as the personality of the individual composer comes to the fore—influencing direction and contributing to diversity—so does the distinctive character of each congregation enter the void to assert its particular socioeconomic and cultural need. Never before have we witnessed so many sharply contrasting and varied ways of worship. I realize that we are all aware of this, but I mention it only as a caution when considering new ideas. There is no singular-universal way to serve the enormous complex of conditions in our synagogues today. As for myself, in the absence of clear and stable direction, I consider it most important to, at least, control the excessive wide-openness we have with us. The degree of success will vary from place to place, but the goal must be the same: Sanctification.



Selected Bibliography

This bibliography lists books and monographs valuable for the broader study of Jewish music. Included are works representing several decades of scholarship, and written from varied perspectives and disciplinary approaches. Adaqi, Yehiel, and Uri Sharvit. A Treasury of Yemenite Jewish Chants. Jerusalem: The Israeli Institute for Sacred Music, 1981. Adler, Israel. Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources up to circa 1840: A Descriptive Catalogue with a Checklist of Printed Sources. Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1989. ———, ed. Hebrew Writings Concerning Music in Manuscripts and Printed Books from Geonic Times up to 1800. Munich: G. Henle, 1975. ———. Musical Life and Traditions of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam in the 18th Century. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1974. ———. The Study of Jewish Music: A Bibliographical Guide. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995. Adler, Israel, Frank Alvarez-Pereyre, Edwin Seroussi, and Lea Shalem, eds. Jewish Oral Traditions: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994. Adler, Israel, Bathja Bayer, and Eliyahu Schliefer, eds. The Abraham Zvi Idelssohn Memorial Volume. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986. Adler, Israel, and Judith Cohen. A. Z. Idelsohn Archives in the Jewish National and University Library: Catalogue. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1976. Appleton, Lewis. Bibliography of Jewish Vocal Music. New York: National Jewish Book Council, 1968. Armistead, Samuel G., and Joseph H. Silverman. Folk Literature of the Sephardic Jews, Vol. 2: Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Oral Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

137

138



Selected Bibliography

———. The Judeo-Spanish Ballad Chapbooks of Yacob Abraham Yona. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Avenary, Hanoch. The Askenazic Tradition of Biblical Chant Between 1500 and 1900: Documentation and Musical Analysis. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1978. ———. Encounters of East and West in Music: Selected Writings. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1979. ———. Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue Music in Nineteenth-Century Reform Sources from Hamburg: Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of Modernity. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996. ———. Studies in Hebrew, Syrian and Greek Liturgical Recitative. Jerusalem: Israel Music Institute, 1963. Bacht, Nikolaus. Music, Theatre and Politics in Germany: 1848 to the Third Reich. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006. Bahat, Avner, ed. Jewish Music Listening Center Catalogue. Tel Aviv: Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1984. Bahat, Avner, and Naomi Bahat. Saperi Tama: The Diwan Songs of the Jews of Central Yemen. Tel Aviv: The Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1995. Barton, William Eleazer. The Psalms and Their Story: A Study of the Psalms as Revealed to Old Testament History, with a Preliminary Study of Hebrew Poetry and Music. Boston and Chicago: Pilgrim, 1898. Barzel, Tamar. “Radical Jewish Culture: Composer/Improvisors on New York City’s 1990s Downtown Scene.” Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan, 2004. Bassan, Jacqueline. From Shul to Cool: The Romantic Jewish Roots of American Popular Music. New York: Jay Street, 2003. Bauer, Susan. From the Khupe to KlezKamp: The Process of Change and Forms of Reinterpretation of Klezmer Music in New York. Berlin: Piranha, 1999. Beeber, Steven Lee. The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2006. Benarde, Scott. Stars of David: Rock ’n’ Roll’s Jewish Stories. Lebanon, N.H.: Brandeis University Press, 2003. Bennett, Roger, and Josh Kun. And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost. New York: Crown, 2008. Bergovski, Moshe. Old Jewish Folk Music. Translated by Mark Slobin. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Bernard, Andrew. The Sound of Sacred Time: A Basic Music Theory Textbook to Teach the Jewish Prayer Modes. Charlotte, N.C.: Temple Beth El, 2005. Bernstein, Leonard. Findings. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972. Billig, Michael. Rock ’n’ Roll Jews. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2001. Binder, Abraham W. Biblical Chant. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959. ———. The Jewish Music Movement in America: An Informal Lecture. New York: National Jewish Music Council, 1975. Birnbaum, Edouard. Jewish Musicians at the Court of the Mantuan Dukes. Translated and edited by Judith Cohen. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1978.

Selected Bibliography



139

Bohlman, Philip V. Jewish Music and Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. ———, ed. Jewish Musical Modernism, Old and New. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. ———. “The Land Where Two Streams Flow”: Music in the German-Jewish Community of Israel. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989. ———. The World Centre for Jewish Music in Palestine, 1936–1940: Jewish Musical Life on the Eve of World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Bohlman, Philip V., and Otto Holzapfel, eds. The Folk Music of Ashkenaz. Middleton, Wis.: A-R Editions, 2001. Bor, Josef. The Terezin Requiem. Trans. Edith Pargeter. New York: Avon, 1977. Botstein, Leon, and Werner Hanak, eds. Vienna: Jews and the City of Music. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Braun, Joachim. Jews and Jewish Elements in Soviet Music: A Study of a Socio-national Problem in Music. Jerusalem: Israeli Music, 1978. ———. Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archaeological, Written, and Comparative Sources. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002. ———. On Jewish Music: Past and Present. New York: Peter Lang, 2006. Brener, Milton E. Richard Wagner and the Jews. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2006. Brinkmann, Reinhold, and Christoph Wolff, eds. Driven into Paradise: The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany to the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Chicural, Steven R. George Gershwin’s Songbook: Influences of Jewish Music, Ragtime, and Jazz. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989. Cohen, A. Irma. An Introduction to Jewish Music in Eight Illustrated Lectures. New York: Bloch Publishing, 1923. Cohen, Judah M. “Singing Out for Judaism: A History of Song Leaders and Song Leading at Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute.” Pp. 173–208 in A Place of Our Own: The Rise of Reform Jewish Camping, edited by Michael M. Lorge and Gary P. Zola. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2006. Cohen, Judith, ed. Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Music. Tel Aviv: Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, 1982. Cohen, Mark R. The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s Life of Judah. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Cohen, Rich. Machers and Rockers: Chess Records and the Business of Rock and Roll. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Cohen, Yehudah. Ne’im Zemirot Yisrael: Musika U-Musika’im BeYisrael. Tel Aviv: Am Oved Productions, 1990. Cohn, Hans. Risen from the Ashes: Tales of a Musical Messenger. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2005. Corenthal, Michael. Cohen on the Telephone: A History of Jewish Recorded Humor and Popular Music. Milwaukee, Wis.: Yesterday’s Memories, 1984.

140



Selected Bibliography

Davidson, Charles. From Szatmar to the New World: Max Wohlberg, American Cantor. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2001. ———. Immunim Be-Nusach Ha-Tefillah: A Study Text and Workbook for the Jewish Prayer Modes. Elkins Park, Penn.: Ashbourne Music, 1996. ———. Immunim Be-Nusach Ha-Tefillah II: Hallel (A Study Text and Workbook). Elkins Park, Penn.: Ashbourne Music, 2004. De Vries, Willem. Sonderstab Musik: Music Confiscations by the Eisatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg under the Nazi Occupation of Western Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1996. Edelman, Marsha Bryan. A Bibliography of Jewish Music. New York: The Hebrew Arts School, 1986. ———. Discovering Jewish Music. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003. Eisenstein, Judith K. Heritage of Music: The Music of the Jewish People. Wyncote, Penn.: Reconstructionist Press, 1981. Engel, Carl. The Music of the Most Ancient Nations: Particularly of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Hebrews, with Special References to Recent Discoveries in Western Asia and in Egypt. London: J. Murray, 1864. Epstein, Lawrence. The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America. New York: Perseus/Public Affairs, 2001. Erdman, Harley. Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860– 1920. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997. Ewen, David. Hebrew Music: A Study and an Interpretation. New York: Bloch, 1931. Feinberg, Sheldon. Hava Nagila: The Story behind the Song and Its Composer. New York: Shapolsky, 1988. Fénelon, Fania. The Musicians of Auschwitz. Trans. Judith Landry. London: Michael Joseph, 1977. Fields, Armond. Sophie Tucker: First Lady of Show Business. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003. Filar, Marian, and Charles Patterson. From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002. Flam, Gila. Singing for Survival: Songs of the Lodz Ghetto, 1940–1945. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Fleisher, Robert. Twenty Israeli Composers: Voices of a Culture. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1997. Flender, Reinhard. Hebrew Psalmody: A Structural Investigation. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992. Fligel, Hyman. Zavel Zilberts: His Life and Works. New York: Shlusinger Brothers, 1971. Freed, Isadore. Harmonizing the Jewish Modes. New York: Sacred Music Press, 1958. Freedman, Jonathan. Klezmer America: Jewishness, Ethnicity, Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Freeland, Michael. Music Man: The Story of Frank Simon. London: VallentineMitchell, 1994.

Selected Bibliography



141

Friedmann, Jonathan L., comp. Music in Jewish Thought: Selected Writings, 1890– 1920. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2009. Friedmann, Jonathan L., and Brad Stetson, eds. Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity: Continuity and Fragmentation. St. Paul, Minn: Paragon House, 2008. Fromm, Herbert. On Jewish Music: A Composer’s View. New York: Bloch, 1978. Fruhauf, Tina. The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Gerson-Kiwi, Edith. The Legacy of Jewish Music through the Ages. Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1963. ———. Migrations and Mutations of the Music in East and West: Selected Writings. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1980. Gilbert, Shirli. Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Gilbert, Sylvia. Jewish Music from Bible to Broadway: A Short History of Jewish Music. Nashville, Tenn.: Winston-Derek Publishers, 1995. Glanz, Jerry, ed. Leib Glanz: The Man Who Spoke to God. Tel Aviv: The Tel Aviv Institute for Jewish Liturgical Music, 2008. Glazerson, Matisyahu. Music and Kabbala. Jerusalem: Raz-Ot Institute, 1988. Goldin, Max. On Musical Connections between Jews and the Neighboring Peoples of Eastern and Western Europe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. Goldsmith, Martin. The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2000. Golomov, Daliah, and Ben-Zion Orgad, eds. Madrich leHa’azanah liYetsirot Yisra’eliyot. Tel Aviv: HaMercaz HaMatodi LeMuzikah, 1984. Gorali, Moshe. AMLI Studies in Music Bibliography. Haifa: The Haifa Music Museum and AMLI Library, 1974. ———. The Old Testament in Music. Jerusalem: Maron, 1993. Gottlieb, Jack. Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley. New York: State University Press of New York, 2004. Gradenwitz, Peter. Music and Musicians in Israel, 3rd ed. Tel Aviv: Israeli Music, 1978. ———. The Music of Israel: From the Biblical Era to Modern Times. Portland, Ore.: Amadeus, 1996. Grossman, Elayne Robinson, and Ben Steinberg. One People, One Voice: How To Organize Jewish Community Chorus and Choral Festival. New York: Jewish Music Council of the Jewish Welfare Board, 1989. Guttman, Hadassah. The Music of Paul Ben-Haim: A Performance Guide. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1992. Harrán, Don. In Search of Harmony: Hebrew and Humanist Elements in SixteenthCentury Musical Thought. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Haensler-Verlag, 1988. ———. Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

142



Selected Bibliography

Heller, Charles. What to Listen for in Jewish Music. Toronto: Ecanthus Press, 2006. Herzog, Avigdor. The Psalm Singing of the Jews of San’a. Tel Aviv: Israel Music Institute, 1968. Heskes, Irene. Passport to Jewish Music: Its History, Traditions, and Culture. New York: Tara, 1994. ———. The Resource Book of Jewish Music. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985. ———, ed. Studies in Jewish Music: Collected Writings of A.W. Binder. New York: Bloch, 1971. Heskes, Irene, and Suzanne Bloch. Ernest Bloch, Creative Spirit: A Source Book. New York: Jewish Music Council of the Jewish Welfare Board, 1976. Heskes, Irene, and Arthur Wolfson, eds. The Historic Contribution of Russian Jews to Jewish Music. New York: Jewish Music Council of the Jewish Welfare Board, 1967. Hirschberg, Jehoash. Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine 1880–1948: A Social History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. ———. Paul Ben-Haim: His Life and Works. Trans. Nathan Friedgut. Jerusalem: Israeli Music, 1990. Hoffman, Lawrence A., and Janet R. Walton, eds. Sacred Sound and Social Change: Liturgical Music in Jewish and Christian Experience. London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Hoffman, Shlomo. Hamusikah Betalmud. Tel Aviv: Israeli Music Institute, 1989. Holde, Arthur. Jews in Music: From the Age of Enlightenment to the Present. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959. Idelsohn, Abraham Z. Jewish Music: Its Historical Development. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston: 1929. ———. Manual of Musical Illustrations for Hebrew Union College Lectures of Abraham Z. Idelson on Jewish Music and Jewish Liturgy. Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College, 1926. ———. Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies (10 volumes). Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1914–1933. Irwin, Joyce, ed. Sacred Sound: Music in Religious Thought and Practice. Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1983. Isaacs, Ronald H. Jewish Music: Its History, People, and Song. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1997. Isaacson, Michael. Jewish Music as Midrash: What Makes Music Jewish? Los Angeles: Egg Cream Music, 2007. Jacobson, Joshua R. A Selective Annotated Bibliography of Jewish and Israeli Choral Music. Newton, Mass.: HaZamir, 1990. ———. Chanting the Hebrew Bible: The Complete Guide to the Art of Cantillation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2002. Jani, Emilio. My Voice Saved Me: Auschwitz 180046. Milan: Centuaro Editrice, 1961.

Selected Bibliography



143

Kaczerginsky, Shmuel. Songs of the Ghettos and Concentration Camps. New York: CYCO Bicher Farlag, 1948. Kalib, Sholom. The Musical Tradition of the Eastern European Synagogue. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002. Kalisch, Shoshana. Yes, We Sang. New York: Harper and Row, 1985. Kantor, Kenneth Aaron. Jews on Tin Pan Alley: The Jewish Contribution to American Popular Music, 1830–1940. Jersey City, N.J.: Ktav Publishing, 1982. Karas, Joza. Music in Terezin: 1941–1945. New York: Beaufort, 1985. Kater, Michael H. Composers of the Nazi Period: Eight Portraits. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. ———. The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Kater, Michael H., and Riethmüller Albrecht, eds. Music and Nazism: Art under Tyranny, 1933–1945. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2003. Katz, Israel J. Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem, Vol. 1. New York: Institute of Medieval Music, 1972. ———. Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem, Vol. 2. New York: Institute of Medieval Music, 1975. Katz, Jacob. The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner’s Anti-Semitism. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1986. Katz, Ruth. The Lachmann Problem: An Unsung Chapter in Comparative Musicology. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2003. Keren, Zvi. Contemporary Israeli Music: Its Sources and Stylistic Development. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1980. Kligman, Mark L. Maqam and Liturgy: Ritual, Music, and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. Koskoff, Ellen. Music in Lubavitcher Life. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Krakower, Dora Brenner. Trusting the Song That Sings Within: Pioneer Woman Cantor. Ontario: Azure, 1997. Kushner, David Z. The Ernest Bloch Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001. Lachmann, Robert. Jewish Cantillation and Songs in the Island of Djerba. Jerusalem: Azriel, 1940. Laks, Szyman. Music of Another World. Trans. Chester Kisiel. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1989. Landman, Leo. The Cantor: An Historical Perspective. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1972. Lehman, David. A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs. New York: Schocken, 2009. Levi, Erik. Music in the Third Reich. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994. Levin, Neil, ed. Salomon Sulzer. Bregenz: Land Voraruberg, 1991.

144



Selected Bibliography

———, ed. Songs of the American Jewish Experience. Chicago: Board of Jewish Education, 1976. ———. Z’mirot Anthology. Cedarhurst, N.Y.: Tara Publications, 1981. Levin, Theodore. The Hundred Thousand Fools of Gold: Musical Travels in Central Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Levine, Joseph A. Rise and Be Seated: The Ups and Downs of Jewish Worship. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 2000. ———. Synagogue Music in America. Crown Point, Ind.: White Cliffs Media, 1989. Levine, Lee. The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Levy, Isaac. Anthologia de Liturgia Judaeo-Espagnoles. 10 Volumes. Jerusalem: Ministry of Education and Culture, 1974. ———. Chants judéo-espagnoles. London: World Sephardi Foundation, 1973. Loeffler, James Benjamin. A Gilgul Fun a Nigun: Jewish Musicians in New York, 1881– 1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Lyman, Darryl. Great Jews in Music. Middle Village, N.Y.: Jonathan David, 1986. Manushkin, Fran. Come, Let Us Be Joyful! The Story of Hava Nagila. New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 2000. Mazor, Yaacov, and Andre Hajdu. The Hasidic Dance-Nigun: A Study Collection and Its Classification Analysis. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1974. McKinnon, James. The Temple, the Church, and Early Western Chant. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1998. Melnick, Jeffrey. A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Mendelsohn, Ezra, ed. Modern Jews and Their Musical Agendas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Meyer, Michael. The Politics of Music in the Third Reich. New York: Peter Lang, 1991. Moddel, Philip. Joseph Achron. Tel Aviv: Israeli Music Productions, 1966. ———. Max Helfman: A Biographical Sketch. Berkeley: Judah L. Magnes, 1974. Monod, David. Settling Scores: German Music, Denazification, and the Americans, 1945–1953. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Montagu, Jeremy. Musical Instruments of the Bible. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2002. Mordecai, Yardeini. Words and Music: A Selection from his Writings. Edited by Max Rosenfeld. New York: Yiddisher Kultur Farband, 1986. Moricz, Klara. Jewish Identities: Nationalism, Racism, and Utopianism in TwentiethCentury Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Most, Andrea. Making Americans: Jews and the Broadway Musical. Cambridge: Harward University Press, 2004. Musleah, Rachel. Songs of the Jews of Calcutta. Owing Mills, Md.: Tara, 1991. Nathan, Hans, ed. Israeli Folk Music: Songs of the Early Pioneers. Madison, Wis.: A-R Editions, 1994.

Selected Bibliography



145

Netsky, Hankus. “American Klezmer: A Brief History.” Pp. 13–23 in American Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots, edited by Mark Slobin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Newman, Harry. Thirty-Four Years on the Bimah: Vignettes of My Life as a “Professional” Jew. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2007. Newman, Joel, and Fritz Rikko. A Thematic Index to the Works of Salamon Rossi. Hackensack, N.J.: Boonin, 1972. Newman, Richard. Alma Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz. Portand, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 2000. Nulman, Macy. Concepts of Jewish Prayer and Music. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1985. ———. Concise Encyclopedia of Jewish Music. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975. ———, ed. Essays of Jewish Music and Prayer. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2005. Orenstein, Walter. The Cantor’s Manual of Jewish Law. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1994. Paloma, Vanessa. Mystic Siren: Woman’s Voice in the Balance of Creation. Santa Fe, N.M.: Gaon, 2007. Pasternak, Velvel. Beyond Hava Nagila. Owing Mills, Md.: Tara, 1999. ———. The Jewish Music Companion: Historical Overview, Personalities, Annotated Folksongs. New York: Tara, 2003. Pasternak, Velvel, and Noah Schall. The Golden Age of Cantors: Musical Masterpieces of the Synagogue. New York: Tara, 1991. Peyser, Joan. Bernstein: A Biography. New York: William Morrow, 1987. Pinson, DovBer. Inner Rhythms: The Kabbalah of Music. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 2000. Piris, Eliyahu. The Music of the Mountain Jews. Jerusalem: Jewish Music Research Centre, 1999. Portnoy, Marshall, and Josée Wolff The Art of Cantillation, Vol. 2 (Haftarah and M’gillot). New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 2001. ———.. The Art of Torah Cantillation. New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 2000. Rabinovitch, Israel. Of Jewish Music: Ancient and Modern. Translated by A. M. Klein. Montreal: The Book Center, 1952. Ravina, Menasheh. “Hatikvah”: Mekoro Shel Ha-himmon, Toledotav Utkhunotav Behashva’ah Lehimnomim Shel Umot Aherot. Tel Aviv: Arielei, 1968. Regev, Motti, and Edwin Seroussi. Popular Music and National Culture in Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Rikko, Fritz, ed. Hashirim Asher Lish’lomo. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1973. Ringer, Alexander L. Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer as Jew. New York: Clarendon, 1990.

146



Selected Bibliography

Rogin, Michael. Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Rogovoy, Seth. The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music, from the Old World to the Jazz Age to the Downtown Avant-Garde. Chapel Hill, N.C.: Alonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2000. Rose, Paul Lawrence. Wagner: Race and Revolution. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992. Rosen, Jody. White Christmas: The Story of an American Song. New York: Scribner, 2002. Rosen-Bayewitz, Passi. Shiloah: Discovering Jewish Identity through Oral/Folk History: A Source Book. New York: Institute for Jewish Life, 1976. Rosenbaum, Samuel. A Guide to Haftarah Chanting. Hoboken, New York: Ktav, 1973. ———. A Guide to Torah Chanting. Hoboken, New York: Ktav, 1973. Rosenblatt, Samuel. Yossele Rosenblatt: The Story of His Life. New York: Cantors Assembly, 2005. Rosenfeld, Lulla. Bright Star of Exile: Jacob Adler and the Yiddish Theater. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1977. Rosowsky, Solomon. The Cantillation of the Bible. New York: The Reconstructionist Press, 1957. Rossen, Jane Mink, and Uri Sharvit. Fusion of Traditions: Liturgical Music in the Copenhagen Synagogue. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2006. Rothmüller, Aron Marko. The Music of the Jews: An Historical Appreciation. Cranbury, N.J.: A. S. Barnes, 1967. Rubin, Emanuel, and John H. Baron. Music in Jewish History and Culture. Sterling Heights, Mich.: Harmonie Park, 2006. Rubin, Ruth. Voices of a People: The Story of Yiddish Folksong. New York: McGrawHill, 1963. Saminsky, Lazare. Music of the Ghetto and the Bible. New York: Bloch, 1934. Sandrew, Nahma. Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater. New York: Limelight Editions, 1986. Sapoznik, Henry. Klezmer: Jewish Music from Old World to Our World. New York: Schirmer, 1999. Schiller, David M. Bloch, Schoenberg, and Bernstein: Assimilating Jewish Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Schneider, Gertrude, ed. Mordechai Gebirtig: His Poetic and Musical Legacy. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000. Sendrey, Alfred. Bibliography of Jewish Music. New York: Columbia University Press, 1951. ———. Music in Ancient Israel. New York: Philosophical Library, 1969. ———. Music in the Social and Religious Life of Antiquity. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1974. ———. Music of the Jews in the Diaspora. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1970.

Selected Bibliography



147

Sendrey, Alfred, and Milton Norton. David’s Harp: The Story of Music in Biblical Times. New York: New American Library, 1964. Serge, Marcella. Bibliography of Jewish Music Bibliographies. Haifa: The Haifa Music Museum and AMLI Library, 1970. Seroussi, Edwin. Popular Music in Israel: The First Fifty Years. Cambridge: Harvard College Library, 1996. ———. Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue Music in Nineteenth-Century Reform Sources from Hamburg: Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of Modernity. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996. Shatz, Adam. “Music: Crossing Music’s Borders in Search of Identity; Downtown, a Reach for Ethnicity.” New York Times, 3 October 1999. Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. Let Jasmine Rain Down: Among and Remembrance among Syrian Jews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ———. Music, Ritual and Falasha History. East Lansing, Mich.: African Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1986. ———. A Song of Longing: An Ethiopian Journey. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991. Shiloah, Amnon. The Dimension of Music in Islamic and Jewish Culture. Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1993. ———. Jewish Musical Traditions. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1995. ———. Music and Its Virtues in Islamic and Jewish Writings. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2007. Shiloah, Amnon, and Ruth Tenne. Music Subjects in the Zohar Texts and Indices. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977. Silverman, Jerry. The Undying Flame: Ballads and Songs of the Holocaust. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2002. Slavicky, Milan. Gideon Klein: A Fragment of Life and Work. Trans. Dagmar Steinova. Prague: Helvetica Tempora, 1995. Slobin, Mark, ed. American Klezmer: Its Roots and Offshoots. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. ———. Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. ———. Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. ———, ed. Jewish Instrumental Folk Music: The Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2001. ———. Tenement Songs: The Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996. Smoira-Roll, Michal. Folk Music in Israel: An Analysis Attempted. Tel Aviv: Israeli Music Institute, 1963. Soltes, Avraham. Off the Willows: The Rebirth of Modern Jewish Music. New York: Bloch, 1970. Sposato, Jeffrey. The Price of Assimilation: Felix Mendelssohn and the Nineteenth Century Anti-Semitic Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

148



Selected Bibliography

Staiman, Mordecai. Niggun: Stories behind the Chasidic Songs That Inspire Jews. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1994. Stanton, Steve, and Alexander Knapp, eds. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Jewish Music 1994. London: City University, Jewish Music Heritage Trust, 1994. Steinweis, Alan E. Art, Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany: The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Stevens, Lewis. Composers of Classical Music of Jewish Descent. London: VallentineMitchell, 2005. Strassberg, Robert. Ernest Bloch: Voice in the Wilderness. Los Angeles: California State University Press, 1977. Strom, Yale. The Book of Klezmer: The History, the Music, the Folklore. Chicago: Chicago Review, 2002. Summit, Jeffery A. The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Sutton, Silvia Hamui. Cantos Judeo-españoles: Simbología Poética y Visión Del Mundo. Santa Fe, N.M.: Gaon, 2008. Swerling, Norman P. Music of the Sephardic Jews of Curacao: Romemu-Exale. New York: Tara, 1998. Tischler, Alice. A Descriptive Bibliography of Art Music by Israeli Composers. Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park, 1988. Turner, Victor. Dramas Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974. Vigoda, Samuel. Legendary Voices. New York: M.P., 1981. Vinaver, Chemjo. Anthology of Hassidic Music. Jerusalem: Jewish Music Centre, 1985. ———. Anthology of Jewish Music. New York: E. B. Marks, 1955. Weiner, Marc A. Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Weisgall, Deborah. A Joyful Noise: Claiming the Songs of My Father. New York: Grove Press, 2000. Weisser, Albert. The Modern Renaissance of Jewish Music: Events and Figures, Eastern Europe and America. New York: Bloch, 1954. Wellesz, Egon, ed. Music in the Old Testament. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Werner, Eric, ed. Contributions to the Historical Study of Jewish Music. New York: Ktav, 1972. ———. From Generation to Generation. New York: American Conference of Cantors, 1967. ———. Hebrew Music: Anthology of Music. Edited by K. G. Fellerer. Cologne: Arno Folk Verlag, 1961. ———. Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and His Age. Trans. Dika Newlin. New York: Free Press, 1963.

Selected Bibliography



149

———. The Sacred Bridge: The Interdependence of Liturgy and Music in Synagogue and Church during the First Millennium. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. ———. The Sacred Bridge II: The Interdependence of Liturgy and Music in Synagogue and Church during the First Millennium. New York: Ktav, 1984. ———. A Voice Still Heard: The Sacred Songs of Ashkenazi Jews. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976. Werner, Eric, and Arthur Berger. Reviews of Selected Recordings of Jewish Music. New York: National Jewish Music Council, 1953. Whitfield, Stephen J. In Search of American Culture. Hanover, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 1999. Yardeini, Mordecai. Fifty Years of Yiddish Song in America. New York: Jewish Music Alliance, 1964. ———. Words and Music. New York: Yiddish Kultur Farband, 1986. Zimmerman, Akiva. B’ron Yahad: Essays, Research and Notes on Hazzanut and Jewish Music. Tel Aviv: Central Cantorial Archive, 1988. ———. S’harei Ron: The Cantorate in Responsa. Tel Aviv: Bron Yahad, 1992. Zorn, John, ed. Arcana I: Musicians on Music. New York: Tzadik Books, 2001. ———. Arcana II: Musicians on Music. New York: Tzadik Books, 2007. ———. Arcana III: Musicians on Music. New York: Tzadik Books, 2008.



Index

Abraham, 3 A Chorus Line, 125 Achot Katana, 93, 94 Adler, Chaim Hugo, 44 Adon Olam, 88, 89 A Fiddler on the Roof, 126 African-American Music, 22–23, 28 Afro-Cuban music, 26 ahavah rabbah mode, 49 Ahava Rabbah, 117 Akaba, 111 Akeida, 85 al-Andalus, 14 Alcazarquivir, 79, 86 Aleinu, 85 Alliance Israelite Universelle, 91 All in Sync, 78 American Conference of Cantors, 130, 132, 134 Americanization, 50, 51, 99 Amidah, 85, 89 Anashe Chesed, New York, 107 Andalucian music, 86, 87, 88, 89 angels, 69

anti-Semitism, 24, 34, 99 anti-tribalism, 20 anti-war, 13 Arabic, 86, 102 Arabs, 101, 102 Aramaic, 61 archetypal psychology, 63 Argentina, 91 Arlington, 104 Aruch ha-Shulchan, 67–68 Asher Yatzar, 82, 83 Ashkenaz, 14 Ashrei, 85 Asia, 2 A Survivor from Warsaw, 130 A Tsuris Line, 125 Augustine, 57 Auschwitz, 2, 3 avant-garde music, 11, 29 Aviv, Caryn, 33–34 avodat hashem, 66 Ayler, Donald, 30 Ayom Arat Olam, 93 Azoulay, Chaim Yosef David, 85, 87, 92

151

152



Index

Babylonian Jews, vii, 61 Bach, J. S., 48 Baeck, Leo, 109 Baez, Joan, 47 bar/bat mitzvah, 20, 63, 106, 124, 130 Barchu, 61, 63, 88 Barkley’s Bank, 102 Baruch SheAmer, 85 beat-boxing, 14 Beatles, 41, 46, 47 Beerman, Leonard, 113, 114, 117, 126, 129 Bengualid, Yithak, 91 Benjamin, Walter, 13, 14, 16 Bernstein, Steven, 10, 25–29, 31, 33 Bible, 42 bimah, 98, 112, 114, 115, 118 Binder, Abraham W., 44 Black–Jewish relations, 28, 29 blues, 15, 30 Borough Park, 33, 100 Bosnian ganga, 14, 15 Boyarin, Jonathan and Daniel, 9, 30–31, 32, 34 brain biology, 80 Brandeis-Bardin camps, 119 British Invasion, 41 British Mandate, 102 Brizendine, Louann, 80 Broadway shows, 125–27 Bronx, 100, 101, 103, 106 Brooklyn, 33, 100, 106 Brooklyn Jewish Center, 107 Buddhism, 19, 24 Buffalo Springfield, 47 Bu-Ju, 19 Bukharian Jews, vii Bulgarian music, 14 Burnett, Chester (Howlin’ Wolf), 30 The Byrds, 47 cabarets, 68 Campbell, Joseph, 63

Camp Boiberik, 51 Camp for Jewish Living, 122–23 camp movement, 49–52, 110–11, 122–23 Camp Ramah, 51 cancer, 101 cantillation, 116, 125. See also te’amim, trope cantor, 41, 53, 106–7, 112–13, 131 and humility, 58, 65–69, 70; recordings of, 68; requirements of, 67–69. See also hazzan Cantor William Sharlin Award for Excellence in Liturgy, 116 Cape Town, 128 Catholicism, 48–49 CBGB, 30 Cejwan camps, 51 Celestials, 69 cello, 122 Central Conference of American Rabbis, 134 Central Jewish Institute, 51 Central Park, 98, 106 cha-cha, 26 Chagim, 85, 92. See also festivals chamber music, 14 Chanina, 59, 60 Charming Hostess, 12, 14 Chatterjee, Samir, 20, 21 Chinese Americans, 10 choral music, 43, 44, 51, 52, 109, 117–18, 120 chosenness, 22 Christianity, 42, 43, 59, 98 Christmas, 98 “Chusen Kalah Mazel Tov,” 25, 27, 28 Cincinnati, 108, 109, 111, 123, 125 Cincinnati Conservatory, 111 civil religion, 31 Civil Rights Movement, 48 Cleveland, 112 Clifford, James, 16, 17, 34

Index

Cline, Patsy, 30 Cohen, Judah M., 50 Columbia University, 104 communitas, 64 composer-in-residence, 118–19 concentration camps, 45 congregational singing, 43, 51–52, 118, 121, 124 Congregation Beth Israel, San Diego, 102 Conservative Judaism, 2, 41, 46, 49, 105, 110, 128; and Jewish Law, 42; and musical change, 44; music in, 45, 52 contrafact, 85, 91–92 Conway, Martin, 78, 79 Costello, Elvis, 29 country music, 46 Cuba, 26, 32 Dangerfield, Rodney, 132 Danzig, 122 daven, 98, 99, 100, 107 David, 93 The Departed, 29 Diaspora Blues, 25, 26 Diaspora Hollywood, 25, 26, 27, 28 Diaspora Soul, 25, 28 Diaspora Suite, 25, 26 Dimont, Max I., 1–2 doo-wop, 14, 15 doughnuts, 101 Downtown Music, 31 Dylan, Bob, 47 East Coast, 118 Eastern Europe, vii, 27, 28, 45, 46, 49, 101 Edelman, Marsha Bryan, 44 Eighteen Takkanot for the Cantorate, 67, 68–69 Eisenberg, Jewlia, 10, 12–19, 21, 28, 30, 33



153

El Adon, 88 Elbogen, Ismar, 61 Ellis Island, 50 “El Paipero,” 88, 91 Elul, 93 Émigré, 33 Epstein, Yechiel Michel, 67 ethical monotheism, 42 ethnocentrism, 22 Et Sha’arei Ratzon, 93 Etz Hayim Hi, 114 Everything is Illuminated, 29 Exile, 32 Exodus, 65 experimental music, 11, 15 Eylu D’vareem, 120, 127 Fairpoint Convention, 48 fear and awe, 57, 62 Feldman, Mark, 20 The Female Brain, 80 festivals, 42, 44. See also Chagim film music, 27, 29 Fleetwood Mac, 48 folk music, 4, 11; in America, 46–47, 52 folk-rock, 47–48, 52 Franciscans, 14 Freed, Isadore, 44 French horn, 120 Friedlander, Eric, 20 Friedman, Debbie, 52 Frith, Simon, 21–22 Fromm, Herbert, 119 funeral, 101 funk, 30 Ga’al Israel, 85 Ganchoff, Moshe, 45, 107 gender roles, 77, 80 Generation in Motion, 47 Germany, 108, 121; Jews of, 43, vii. See also Reform Judaism get, 128

154



Index

ghetto, 122 Gilroy, Paul, 17 Glaser, Joe, 111 Glueck, Nelson, 111, 112 gospel music, 46 Gottschalk, Alfred, 120 gramophone, 68 Great Depression, 46, 101 Gregorian chant, 49 guitar, 30, 51, 52, 108, 110, 123 Gulf Coast sound, 26, 27 Guthrie, Woody, 46 Haftarah, 82, 87, 88, 89, 92, 125 Hagadah, 82 Haganah, 102, 113 Hagaz, 888 Hagiographa, 67 Haketía, 86, 87, 88, 89 halakhah, 42, 44, 85, 86, 134 Halevy, Fromental, 44 Hanukkah, 121 Harlem, 97, 99, 100 harp, 120 Harris, Jerome, 20, 21 Hashem Melech, 88 Hassidic Jews, vii, 133 hazzan, 43, 45, 49, 52, 66, 92, 122. See also cantor, hazzanut hazzanut, 44, 45, 52, 98, 107, 118; Golden Age of, 43, 44, 45 Hebrew, 33, 51, 98, 103, 106, 120, 121; as Lashon Kodesh, 131; as masculine language, 77, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 91, 94 Hebrew Congregation, Wash., D.C., 121–22 Hebrew Union College, 120; Cincinnati, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 125; Jerusalem, 115; Los Angeles, 113, 116, 122, 123; New York, 104, 105–6, 107 heichal, 88, 89, 90, 92

Helfman, Max, 44, 119 Hendrix, Jimi, 30 hero, 63 The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 63 Hershmann, Mordecai, 44 Heschel, Abraham Joshua, 57, 66 Heskes, Irene, 43, 45 High Holy Days, 42, 44, 114, 115, 125 hijaz mode, 49 Hillel, 131 Hirschfield, Brad, 69 Hitler, Adolf, 3 Hodu Ladonai, 91 Hollywood, 27, 28, 113 Hollywood Bowl, 130 Holocaust, 3, 31 Holocaust and Redemption, 31, 32, 34 hootenannies, 46 hora, 26 Hudson River, 108 humanism, 20 The Idea of the Holy, 82 Idelsohn, Abraham Z., vii “I Fell to Pieces,” 30 “If I Were a Rich Man,” 126 Im Afes, 93 Imber, Naphtali Herz, 69 Inner Diaspora, 21, 22 intermarriage, 128 Iraqi Jews, 3 Iron Age, 111 Isaac Mayer Wise Temple, Cincinnati, 120 Israel, 2, 10, 31, 32, 33, 34; military of, 29 “I Will Overcome,” 47 Jabel el Tannur, 111 Jaffa Road, 101, 102 Janowski, Max, 119 jazz, 11, 21, 25 The Jazz Singer, 44

Index

Jefferson Airplane, 48 Jeremiah, Book of, 67 Jerusalem, 97, 101, 102, 115; Old City of, 101, 102; riots in, 101–2; Temple in, 3, 42 Jewish Alternative Movement, 32 Jewish identity, 2–4, 22–23, 25, 79 Jewish survival, 1–2 Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society, 50 Jolson, Al, 44 The Journeymen, 47 Judeo-Spanish, 79, 81, 86, 92, 93; as feminine language, 77, 84–85, 87, 89, 83, 94 Jungian psychology, 63 Kabbalah, 85, 87, 88, 92 Kaddish, 58, 60–65, 69 Kaelter, Wolli, 122–23 kahal, 86 kashrut, 82, 90. See also kosher Katchko, Adolph, 45, 107 Kave el Adonai, 85 kavvanot, 85 Kedusha, 88, 90, 91, 115 Kertész, André, 33 Kiddush, 82 King, Carole, 48 King, Martin Luther, 48 Kingston Trio, 46, 47 kippot, 128 Klepper, Jeff, 52 klezmer music, 11, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32 Kol Nidre, 44 Kook, Avraham Yitchak, 134–35 kosher, 103, 104. See also kashrut Koussevitsky, David and Moshe, 45 Krakowski, Wolf, 33 Kriat Shema, 88 Kun, Josh, 12 Kwartin, Zavel, 44



155

Lacis, Asja, 13, 14 La Juive, 44 La Ketubá de la Ley, 92 language and religion, 59–60, 61–62, 65, 114 Las canciones de las Antiguas, 87 Las canciones de las Señoras, 79, 90 Latin America, 2 Latin liturgy, 49 Latin music, 30 Law, William, 59 LeBrie, 104 Leo Baeck Temple, 113–14, 115, 116, 123, 128, 130; education at, 124–25; music of, 117–18, 127 liminality, 63–65 Lithuania, 112 London, 109 London, Frank, 12 Los Angeles, 113–14, 115, 116, 122, 123, 130 Los Angeles Philharmonic, 130 Lounge Lizards, 29 The Lovin’ Spoonful, 47 Lutheran chorale, 121 Luzzatto, Moshe Chaim, 62 Maçoro, Isaac, 92 Mahler, Gustav, 106, 122 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 62 Manhattan, 51 Manhattan School of Music, 103, 105, 106, 120, 130 Manne, Shelly, 27 “The Man with the Golden Feet,” 110 Maoz Tzur, 121 Masada, 33 Masada String Trio, 20 Meah Shearim, 101 Megilat Ruth, 92, 93 Mehmedinovic, Semezdin, 14 melachot, 82, 83 Melnick, Jeffrey, 28, 29

156



Index

“Memory and the Self,” 78 Memory, Music and Religion, 79 Merel, Sheldon, 104, 106 Metropolitan Opera, 44, 107 Mezgueldi, Zohra, 90 mezuzah, 82, 83, 84 Miami, 26 Middle Ages, 87 “Mi Dimandas,” 74 midrash, 85 Midwest, 118 Miller, Benzion, 65 minhag, 42, 122 Minkowski, Pinchas, 68–69 “Minutia,” 23–24 minyan, 94, 109 Mitchell, Joni, 48 mitzvot, 123 Mizmor, 90 Moabite, 93 Morocco, 77, 79, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 92, 94 Moscow, 13 Moses, Yekutiel B., 66 Mount of Olives, 102 MRI scan, 80 muezzin, 3 Munich Art Projekt, 29 Musaf, 88, 93 music education, 110, 124–25, 128–29 music and memory, 78–80 musicologists, 106 Nabatean Temple, 111 Nahon, Zarita, 91 Nashafti, 88 National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, 110 National Federation of Temple Youth, 52, 110 Nazis, 3, 16, 45, 109 Ndembu, 64 Negev, 111

Nehemiah, Book of, 60 Neusner, Jacob, 3, 31 New Jersey, 107 New Left, 47 Newman, Alfred, 27 New Orleans, 25–26, 27 Newport Folk Festival, 47 New York, 46, 97, 99, 102, 103, 108, 119; Jewish camps in, 50, 51; secular Jewish music in, 11, 17, 27, 28, 32, 34; synagogues of, 106, 107 New York University, 104 Nishmat, 88, 91 North Africa, 2 nuba, 86, 87, 88 numinous, 82, 83 nusach ha-tefillah, 43, 44, 49, 116 nussah, 86 Oconomowoc, 110 Olam HaAssiyah, 85, 88, 89 Olam HaAtzilut, 85, 88, 89 Olam HaBeriyah, 85, 88 Olam HaYetzirah, 85, 88 opera, 45, 122 Orange County, Calif., 127 Orenstein, Walter, 57 organ, 44, 51, 108, 117, 120 Orthodox Jews, 2, 20, 22, 24, 33, 42, 78, 98, 101, 105; traditionalism and, 99–100 Otto, Rudolf, 62, 82 Ottoman Empire, 84, 102 Oysher, Moyshe, 45 Palestine, vii, 97, 101, 103 Parker, Charlie, 19 Passover, 45, 82, 87, 88, 91, 92 paytan, 88 Peerce, Jan, 45 Pennsylvania, 119 Pentagon, 104 Persian Jews, vii

Index

Pesukei D’Zimrah, 63, 85 Peter, Paul, and Mary, 47 phrygian church mode, 49 piano, 100–101, 103–4, 105, 116 Pichaske, David, 47, 48 Pirkei Avot, 132 Pitesky, Shirl Lee, 117 piyyut, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94, 115 polyphony, 14 pop music, 46 Port Jarvis, 51 Powerlines, 20 Presley, Elvis, 41, 46 Priesland, Sally, 120 Prophets, 42, 67, 123 Protestant 49, 52; hymns of, 43 Psalms, 59, 63, 82 Puerto Ricans, 99 pulpit, 112–13. See also bimah punk, 15, 29 Pygmy music, 14 Queen’s Dominion, 32 Rabbinical School Dropouts, 11 “Rachel Lastimoza,” 88, 90, 91 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 62 Radical Jewish Culture, 4, 10, 11–12, 13, 16, 20, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 Ragins, Sanford, 129 Rashi script, 86 Raskin, David, 27 Rawidowicz, Simon, 1–2 Rebbe, 133 Reform Judaism, 2, 41, 44, 45, 48, 49, 52, 108, 111, 110; Classical Reform, 105; in Germany, 42, 43, 45, 49 Reichman, Ted, 33 Renewal Judaism, 2 Rhodes, 77, 92, 93, 94 rhythm and blues (R&B), 25–26, 46 Ribot, Marc, 10, 29–32, 33 ritual, 81–85



157

Rock ‘n’ roll, 30, 41, 46, 47, 52 Rodriguez, Roberto Juan, 32 Rogers, Shorty, 27 Romances, 89, 90, 91 Romans, 42 Romberg and Hammerstein, 30 “Rosablanca,” 89 Rosenblatt, Yosele, 44–45, 97–98 Rosh Hashanah, 82, 84, 92, 93, 94 Rothenberg, Ned, 10, 19–25, 30, 33 Royce Hall, UCLA, 130 Rubin, Ruth, 4 Ruth, 93, 94 Sacred Music Press, 107 sanctification, 136 Sanders, Saul, 106–7 San Francisco, 46, 122, 123 San Vicente Boulevard, Los Angeles, 114 Sarajevo, 14, 16 Sarajevo Blues, 13, 14, 15 Saratoga, Calif., 122 Schalit, Heinrich, 44 Schechter, Basya, 32 Schleifer, Eliyahu, 115 Schmidt, Josef, 44 Schmitz, E. Robert, 116 Schoenberg, Arnold, 130 Scholem, Gershom, 13 Secular Humanist Judaism, 2 seder, 92 Selichot, 93 Sepulveda Boulevard, Los Angeles, 114 Serbians, 14, 15, 16 The Service of Inauguration of Alfred Gottschalk, 120 Shabbat, 97, 98, 100, 123; dinner on, 99, 112; liturgy of, 85, 90, 92, 114; music of, 106–7, 109; musical instruments on, 42, 44, 86; work on, 50–51, 82, 83 shakuhachi, 19, 24

158



Index

Sharlin, Chaya, 97, 99, 100, 101–2 Sharlin, Edward, 97, 99, 101 Sharlin, Hillel, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103 Sharlin, Ilana, 127, 128 Sharlin, Isaac, 97, 98–99, 100, 101, 102 Sharlin, Jacqueline, 116, 123, 127 Sharlin, Lisa, 127 Sharlin, Rachel, 97, 100, 101, 103 Sharlin, William, 2–3, 65, 67 Shavuot, 87, 88, 92, 93, 94 sheliach tzibbur, 65, 67, 68, 84, 86, 107 Shema, 63, 82, 85 Shirat HaYam, 88 “Shiru Shir VaShevaj,” 88 Shneer, David, 33–34 Shokhayn Ad, 107 shtetl, 43, 112 shul, 100, 117, 126, 134 siddur, 85 silence, 59 Silver, Abba Hillel, 112 Silver, Daniel, 112 Simchat Torah, 88 Sim Shalom, 122 Sinai, 3, 65, 92, 111 Sirota, Gershon, 44, 45 Skirball, Jack, 112 Skirball Cultural Center, 112 Slavic-minor mode, 121 Slobin, Mark, 10, 51 Smith, Jonathan Z., 3 socialism, 51 Soferim, 61 Sondheim, Stephen, 134 Song of Songs, 94 South Africa, 128 Spanish, 79, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92 Spanish Protectorate, 79 Steinberg, Milton, 59 Steiner, Max, 27 Stephen S. Wise Temple, Los Angeles, 115, 126

“St. James Infirmary,” 27 St. Louis, 19 Stokes, Martin, 2 Stravinsky, Igor, 14 Strimple, Nick, 48 Sufis, 14, 15, 16 Sundays at the Park with George, 134 Switzerland, 97 Sync, 23 tahor, 90 tallit, 68 Talmud, 57, 59, 61 Tangier, 85, 91, 92 Tauler, John, 59 Taylor, James, 48 te’amim, 86, 87, 88. See also cantillation, trope techno, 30 tefillah, 108, 114, 133 Tefillat LeDavid, 85 Temple Israel, Brooklyn, 107 Temple Israel, Long Beach, 122 Terezin, 109 Tetuan, 86 Texas, 26 Thesaurus of Cantorial Liturgy, 107 Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies, vii Tifereth Israel, Cleveland, 112–13 Tisha B’Av, 92 Torah, 1, 24, 61, 67, 82, 84, 85, 89, 92, 93, 98, 111, 128 Torah Service, 85, 107, 125 Toussaint, Alan, 29 treyf, 103 tribalism, 20 Trilectic, 13–14, 15, 17 trombone, 120 Trope, 82, 88. See also cantillation, te’amim trumpet, 120 tsuris, 125

Index

Tucker, Richard, 45, 106–7 Turkey, 77, 92, 93, 94, 97 Turner, Victor, 64 tzaddik, 91, 133 Tzadik Records, 10, 11 Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 113, 115, 122, 134 Union Hymnal, 44 United States Army, 104–5; Department of Personal Affairs, 105 University of Judaism, 119 Valdés, Felipe, 30 Van Gennep, Arnold, 64 Vietnam War, 46, 48 Vilna, 68 violin, 129 Waits, Tom, 29 Warsaw, 68; ghetto of, 45 Waugh, Earle, 79 Waxman, Franz, 27 Weiner, Lazar, 44 Weissman, Dick, 47 Werner, Eric, 2, 4, 105–6, 108, 115 West African kora, 30 West Coast, 132



159

West Coast Jazz, 27 Western music, 3, 14 “Why Did You Come to Ohio,” 111 Williams, Raymond, 10 world music, 21 worldview, 57 World War I, 43 World War II, 43, 45, 104 Wuthnow, Robert, 78–79 Yehi Ratzon, 82, 84 Yeminite Jews, vii, 3 Yeshiva D’Harlem, 98 Yeshiva University High School, 98, 103 Yiddish, 33, 46, 51, 108, 125 Yiddish theater, 46 Yishtabach, 63 Yo! I Killed Your God, 29–30 Yom Kippur, 127 Yotzer Or, 85, 88 Zeldin, Isaiah, 115–16, 126 Zemel, Carol, 10 Zheng, Su, 10, 29, 34 Zionism, 9, 32, 51, 101, 112, 117 Zohar, 87, 92 Zorn, John, 4, 11, 17–18, 19, 20, 24, 29



About the Contributors

Jonathan L. Friedmann is cantor of Bet Knesset Bamidbar in Las Vegas, Nevada, and cofounder of the Rabbinical School Dropouts, an “esoteric space klezmer” ensemble. He is the editor of three other books: Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity, The Value of Sacred Music, and Music in Jewish Thought. Mark S. Goodman is rabbi and cantor of Valley Beth Israel in North Hollywood, California. He is also professor of Jewish history and religion at Los Angeles Valley College, and an accomplished vocal coach. As of this printing, Goodman is pursuing a doctorate in Jewish studies at Spertus College. Jeff Janeczko holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles. His dissertation, “Beyond Klezmer: Redefining Jewish Music for the 21st Century,” looks at the relationship between music and identity through the Tzadik label’s Radical Jewish Culture recording series. Vanessa Paloma is a performer and research scholar of Judeo-Spanish repertoire. She is cofounder and director of the Judeo-Spanish ensemble Flor de Serena, and was a Senior Fulbright research scholar in Northern Morocco and a scholar-in-residence at Brandeis University’s Hadassah Brandeis Institute at the Women’s Studies Research Center. Paloma is the author of the book Mystic Siren: Woman’s Voice in the Balance of Creation.

161

162



About the Contributors

William Sharlin is a prominent cantor, composer, and scholar of Jewish music. He is cantor emeritus of Leo Baeck Temple and served as chairman of the sacred music department at Hebrew Union College, both in Los Angeles. Sharlin’s many compositions for the synagogue include Sabbath Suite and The Inaugural Service of President Alfred Gottschalk. His collected essays are published in the book Jewish Sacred Music and Jewish Identity.