Cantor Bantor

A Reform Synagogue

"Let them make Me a Mishkan
that I may dwell among them"
Exodus 25:8

CANTOR BANTER by Cantor Bob Cohen – December, 2005

First of all a round of applause and thanks the Temple Singers:
Elizabeth Askue, Patricia Cohen, Cantor Devorah Gartner, Debbie Kalish, Joanne Miller, Lauren Rose, Lillie Singer, and Rochelle Stiverson and to all the folks that couldn’t make it but promised to make it next time! We worked hard, sometimes catching rehearsals on the fly, and everyone was full of song and laughter. If you would like to join Temple Singers contact me at 845 338-6180 or rcohen@hvc.rr.com.

We sang at the Rededication Service on November 11th. The Shehecheyanu was set to a stirring melody by Lori Corrsin whom I had the pleasure of hearing sing it at the Jewish Choral Festival some years back at the Neville. The “Sh’ma” and “Adon Olam” as well as the “Candlelighting Chant” and “Bar’chu” were set to music by Cantor John Park of beloved memory. “Jacob’s Dream – Surely God was in this place/But I knew it not!” is by yours truly. Every time I sing a prayer I think of the marriage of words & music and the authors of both, some known, and some unknown. Often it is a union truly made in heaven.

Are you curious about what books on Jewish music I have in my private library? Here is a peek. “Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs & Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood” by Jack Gottlieb. It is chock full of tunes and Gottlieb’s fine detective work tracing down the culprits – the borrowers, the re-workers, the sifters of Jewish song, who lifted here and there a few notes, here and there a phrase, and here and there the whole matzah ball. Gottlieb is a composer of synagogue and secular music and his large-sized opus is published by SUNY in Albany, and I was blessed to get it as a present when I sang at an Hadassah meeting up in Schenectady. It comes with a CD. Then there is: “The Lord’s Song in a Strange Land: Music & Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship” by Jeffrey A. Summit, the Rabbi and Director of the Hillel Foundation at Tufts University. It is a fascinating study of the local synagogues in the Boston area and how they use and sometimes (as in the case of the cantor who set a Hebrew Prayer to the Christmas Carol – “O Come All Ye Faithful”!!) abuse music. It also comes with a CD.

Also: “The Music of the Jews” by Aron Marko Rothmuller (with an umlaut over the “u”!) which examines Jewish Music from the earliest of Biblical days up until today (well, it was published in 1967), and “The Music of Israel, From the Biblical Era to Modern Times by Peter Gradenwitz, born in Europe and settled in Tel Aviv in 1936. This book was published here in 1996.

Then there are books that you probably can only get out of the library by the great composers and critics of synagogue music, namely, “Studies in Jewish Music: Collected Writings of A.W.Binder (pronounced closer to “dinner” than to “Dinah”!), and “Jewish Music In Its Historical Development” by A.Z.Idelsohn, who in 1948 was Professor of Jewish Music at Hebrew Union College. And one that just came in the mail: Journal of Synagogue Music which is published by the Conservative Cantors Assembly. The topic for this Fall is Congregational Singing – hey, that’s you folks! I’m gonna read all about it and give you a full report.

On an interfaith note: I’ve been reading “How Sweet the Sound: Music in the Spiritual Lives of Americans” by David W. Stowe (2004). He has all kinds of amazing stories about how hymns came to be written, and a great chapter: “Yossele, Yossele!” on Jewish sacred music and its journeys to and from the secular world. I will write more on this later. I will leave you on a provocative note (where else?) from the Israeli composer & critic, Eliyahu Schleifer, as quoted in this book: [speaking of the ongoing interchange between secular and sacred melodies.] “’The idea of tikkun also inspired European Jews to introduce baroque music into the synagogue [a la Sulzer, Levandowski], and the same idea inspired eastern European Hasidim to adopt foreign tunes and “Judaize” them.’ As in Tin Pan Alley, certain figures played key roles as mediators in this exchange process. ‘Cantors have done more than anyone else to introduce alien [!] tunes into music used in the synagogue—and outside as well.” I think I will take a musical field trip to Mars!!