4th September 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And Warsaw and its History of hazzanut at the Great Synagogue will guide us to a vanished time, through the voice of Gershon Yitzchok Sirota

Hello! How are you? Yes, I am a bit delayed today!!! But this is still before Shabbat! I have had very busy days and here I am again.

In this occasion, we follow the thread of Thomas La-Rue, the black cantor’s story, who performed in Warsaw at a time where the Great Synagogue at Tłomackie Street was the landmark of hazzanut. La-Rue didn’t perform there, but many other cantors did, like our protagonist of today, Gershon Sirota, whose life is connected, for better and for worse, with the city.

I won’t hide that I have a special love for Poland, that country in which, according to my dear Janusz Prusinowski, there is still the feeling of something that is lacking: it is the presence of Jews. He also considers that “Polish and Jewish cultures have quite much in common, so I can understand better Polish culture thank to Jewish music/culture knowledge.” Read more about these reflexions by Janusz, here.

I invite you to listen to a recording that takes us back in time to the Wielka Synagoga w Warszawie, with the voice of the hazzan who was its Obercantor from 1907 until 1926.

As usual, you have the video at the bottom. And if you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.

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The Great Synagogue in Warsaw

There isn’t any synagogue now in Tłomackie Street. According to Sztetl.org.pl “On 16 May 1943, explosives were set up around the site and the synagogue was blown up personally by General Stroop to mark the end of his mission to exterminate all Warsaw Jews”.

Nevertheless, f*** you, Stroop: the synagogue dissapeared but the headquarters of the Main Judaic Library and of the Institute for Judaic Studies, that are here in the picture on the left, are now the Jewish Historical Institute and the Jews were not erased from Polish land. This picture is from its website:

This is how it looks like today in Google Maps:

The cornerstone of the Great Synagogue was laid in a ceremony held on 14 May 1876. The architect was Leandro Marconi, who also built the Synagogue Nożyków, the only one that survived the World War II (more info, at the website of Jewish.org.pl). The grand opening and consecration of the synagogue took place on the day of Rosh Hashanah of the year 5639 (on 26 September 1878). Find much more information about the building and its history and the use by the community in Sztetl, a website by POLIN Museum.

Let’s visit the Great Synagogue

Arik Boas Animation made a few years ago this animation you have below, for The Museum of the Jewish People (Beit Hatfutsot).

Pay attention to the face of the chazzan! Doesn’t he look like Gershon Yitzchok Sirota? In fact he does, but note that the singer in this animation is accredited to be another superb cantor, also born in Ukraine, but about whom I haven’t found references of his presence in Warsaw at the Great Synagogue: Yossele Rosenblatt, who will be our star in a future MBS –>

Anyway, immerse yourself in the Great Synagogue!

The great chazzan at the most prestigious position in the cantorial world

Gershon Sirota became the Obercantor in the Great Synagogue in 1907. The World War II brought the end of the Synagogue and also of Sirota.

According to Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler, “Not without good reason was Gershon Sirota spoken of as the ‘Jewish Caruso.’ Even with the poor quality recordings that we have of him today, it’s quite clear that he had a most extraordinary voice and since he was a contemporary of Caruso (1873 – 1938), the comparison was bound to be made. An apocryphal story has it that Caruso would come to hear Sirota sing or conduct a service whenever they were in the same town at the same time.”

Gershon was born in Podolia in 1874. His father was a cantor in the local synagogue and, already as a child, Gershon helped his father in the services. The family moved to Odessa, where he would be cantor in Shalashner Shul. Later he gave service at the Shtat Synagogue of Vilna. His performances granted him more and more popularity and was called to make special concerts in many cities around, first in Russia and Poland, and later much further. He was the first cantor to record his voice on phonograph records and he became world famous thanks to this.

Between 1912 and 1927 he toured in many ocassions at the USA. It made him lose his position in the Great Synagogue, because he was absent too much time, specially in the High Holy Days. No problem. He was already a very demanded star.

He toured at the USA for his last time in 1938. It is sad that he didn’t decide to stay there. He had to return to Warsaw because his wife was very ill. The start of the war found him there. The family was imprisoned in the Guetto, where he would conduct the High Holy Day services in 1941.

In the first months of 1943, a strong resistence arised in the Guetto of Warsaw and an uprising started on April 19. The bombing of our Synagogue, that was out of the Guetto, was the symbol of the end of that uprising. Sirota was murdered with his family in the last day of Pessah, during the destruction of the Guetto.

The sources for this brief bio have been: Jewish Music Research Center, Music and the Holocaust.

The voice of the “Jewish Caruso”

I have chosen his rendition of Avinu Maikenu. Check also the version of İsak Maçoro in this previous edition of Music Before Shabbat.

Click the picture to listen to the recording:

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Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

17th July 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And our protagonist today sings to the secret of Shabbat, in Aramaic. He was born in Ukranian land at the time of the Russian Empire and became the favourite chazan in Chicago: he is Pierre Pinchik

Hello, how are you? I have goosebumps. It is almost impossible for me to write while listening to this recording. Some specific performances has such a power that makes you think “what did this man have inside to sing like that?“. Many cantors has sang Rozo D’Shabbos wonderfully. Pinchik develops unexpected melistama, plays with the phrasing accelerating and slowing down, chews some syllables and uses a soul-stirring vibrato, in this text in Aramaic, for which he created the music.

As usual, you have the video at the bottom. And if you like this, don’t be selfish: share it with your friends!

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A voice from the Golden Age of the Chazanim

Pierre Pinchik was born as Pinchas Segal in 1900 in the Ukranian village of Zhivitov, that was part of Russian Empire at that time. I think it must be now Zhyvotivka, in the oblast of Kiev, Ukraine.

So he grew up in the Czarist Russia, attending the Hassidic Skverer yeshiva, lead by a rabbi that was very fond of music and used to invite cantors. Later, Pinchas changed the yeshiva for the conservatory in Kiev, where he would study piano and voice.

And, after the revolution, he was hired by the new Red Army for touring the country singing folk songs. He served as chazan in Leningrad for 6 years, before moving to the USA in 1927. During that period, he realiced that the classic liturgyc repertoire from the XIX century was not the most suitable for his voice and style, so he rearranged some and also composed some new ones, like this Rozo D’Shabbos.

At the USA his career boosted almost inmediately, he became much appreciated as a cantor and he recorded several albums, signed by the RCA. His main synagogue was K’nesset Israel Nusaḥ S’fard in Chicago. He died in 1971 and is buried in Boston.

I found this portrait and some biographic facts at the website of Geoffrey Shisler and also in Milken Archive. In this last one there are further details of how he got to travel to the USA with documents provided by the poet Itzik Fefer, who would be murdered later in Stalin’s massacre of Jewish poets, also about the first years there, as well as about the Chemelnitzki massacre in XVII century at the birthland of Pinchas.

The song about the secret of Shabbat

The lyrics of the song are in Aramaic, from the Sephardic liturgy of Shabbat. You can find them and the translation into English, here at the blog A Nigun A Day.

You can get the general sense but I think you must be familiar with the Hassidic kabbala to really understand the meaning in all its deepness. If you are, and if you know also Hebrew alphabet, this seems a very interesting explanation at the website of the project It Is Shabbos, by the contemporary cantor Yaakov Lemmer, who has also recorded this song. You can listen him singing it live, here.

**Clic the picture to listen to Rozo D’Shabbos by Pierre Pinchik:**

Share this with a friend, right from here

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

MBS with the sanctum sanctorum of hazzanuz and the Jewish Caruso

4th September 2020 – Shabbat is almost here