Rabbi Robert Samuels, z"l

From the moment I picked up the phone, I always knew when Bob Samuels was calling. "Hello?" "SHALOM, JEFF," he would say, and it sounded like he was standing next to you. "BOB SAMUELS. MAH NISHMA?"

Bob's big Texas personality came through on the phone and everywhere he went. He spoke the same way to a Druze villager or a cabinet minister. He treated every person with dignity and respect.

Bob was my mentor and teacher. He brought me to Haifa in 1981 to work at the school he headed, the Leo Baeck Education Center. My actual position was advisor to North American exchange students, but when I arrived he made me cantor of the synagogue on campus, Ohel Avraham. Along with his invitation to work at Leo Baeck came a different kind of invitation — to compose new music for the synagogue and the young Israeli Reform movement. His relentless encouragement led to my writing a passel of new songs, including "Oseh Shalom," "Haporeis Sukkat Shalom," and "Yeish Kochavim."

Bob's life revolved around his family as much as it did around his work. He loved music and art, books and big ideas, the Land of Israel, and playing softball. Most of all he loved people, but he hated hypocrisy and insincerity. He could smell it a mile away and had no patience for it. He held himself and others to a high standard, a mantle he took upon himself as a Reform rabbi (and a student of Rabbi Abraham Cronbach) to emulate the prophets of Israel, to speak the truth, and to champion the cause of the powerless, a message he taught to thousands of students over the decades.

Bob made inclusion his mission. He made special efforts to bring the Druze community, living in villages near Haifa, into the school's orbit. He made regular trips to the villages to meet the families of his Druze students. He also reached out to Haifa's Arab community.

When Israel liberated the Jews of Ethiopia in the early '90s, Bob sought to acculturate the new immigrants into Israeli society. He and his students welcomed them with flowers, and, knowing that many of them were living nearby in poverty, Bob converted the school's bomb shelter into a free "grocery store" stocked with donated food, supplies and clothing.

Bob's struggles with Israel's governmental bureaucracy and entrenched religious institutions were never easy, but he never lost hope. He was always asking questions, always searching for a better way. His impact on Israel and Progressive Judaism was profound, but it was the sparkle in his eye, the way he loved you with that big Texas heart, that gave you strength and hope for the future.

Greetings from Israel!

Yaffo in the morning
Sunset at Ein Hod

What a wonderful time to be in Israel. The country is bustling and growing, the shekel is strong against the dollar (ok, not so great for Americans), and Barack Obama was just in Jerusalem today assuring Israelis that he is on our side.

Here's a brief travelog so far.

7/20 Sunday - Arrival 5 a.m. Stayed 'overnight' in Yaffo at the new, lovely (and inexpensive) Mishkenot Ruth Daniel. Took the train to Haifa and stayed at Ein Hod with Rabbi Bob and Annette Samuels. Bob is the former director of the Leo Baeck Education Center. He brought me to Haifa for a year in 1981, and encouraged me to compose music for the Leo Baeck Synagogue, 'Ohel Avraham'. On Sunday night I sang for some friends in their living room.

Ohel Avraham 1982

Ohel Avraham 2008

7/21 Monday - This was a day of walking around Ein Hod, formerly an Arab village, abandonded in 1948 and turned into an Artists Colony in 1956. Some of the worlds' most illustrious artists and musicians live there. I met an incredible gentleman named Nisan Cohen, who owns the world's largest collection of vintage music boxes. He repairs and demonstrates them in a lttle museum he set up. I'm not talking about little things, these are huge tabletop instruments. They were all the rage for about half a century, until Edison's phonograph put them out of business, instantly and permanently. They sound amazing. He also has player pianos and organs, and vintage wind-up phonographs. He played me a 1918 recording by Cantor David Roitman, who sounded like he was standing in front of me.

7/22 Tuesday - I visited the Or Chadash Congregation in Haifa, and met with their rabbi, Edgar Nof. He took me downstairs to the bomb shelter, which was the only place in Haifa where services could be held during the Hezbolla bombing during the summer of 2006. I sang for 150 of the cutest kids I've ever seen, at their day camp in the synagogue. We sang songs they knew and I taught them a few new ones. I hope they understood my pidgeon Hebrew. Afterwards they all came up to hug me... That evening, cantorial soloist and folksinger Orit Perlman had 25 people at her house for a party in her backyard. We sang for over 2 hours.

Singing at Or Chadash in Haifa

7/23 Wednesday - Jerusalem seems to be coping with Obama's visit. I'm at HUC now, but they say you have to walk completely around the King David Hotel, where he is staying, just down the block. I'm using my cell phone to call old friends, making connections and meeting plans.

7/24 Thursday - I spent the day with the class of entering cantorial, education and rabbinic students beginning their year of study in Jerusalem. I piggy-backed on their walking tour of Jerusalem - in the morning to Talpiyot and the "Tayelet", and in the evening to the Old City. In the late afternoon I talked to the class of first-year cantorial students, one of whom looked very familiar. She was one of my bat mitzvah students from about ten years ago.

7/25 Friday - Barack Obama has left the building. All that remains is his photo on just about every magazine and newspaper here. The bustle of the work-week is replaced by the bustle of preparing for Shabbat. Tonight I will lead services at Kehilat Mevaseret Tzion, just outside of Jerusalem, and Shabbat morning at HUC.

7/26 Saturday - Spent a delightful Shabbat morning at HUC services and sang with Cantor Tamar Havilio. Lunch with Michael and Sally Klein-Katz at their flat in Abu Tor. Had a rowdy and totally fun song session with the Bronfman Fellows, high school seniors, at the Goldshtein Youth Villiage.

7/27 Sunday - Just arrived at Kibbutz Lotan in the Arava for a community concert and "shira b'tzibur" (singalong)...some friends from Kibbutz Yahel will be there too. BOY IS IT HOT! Shabbat in Jerusalem was heavenly. More on that when I have more computer time.

7/30 Wednesday - Arrived in Tel Aviv for my last leg in Israel. Kabbalat Shabbat at Beit Daniel Friday. I'll fill in the blanks when I can. More photos coming.

...Next week it's on to LONDON!

See you in Israel...

My last visit to Israel was five years ago. I can stay away no longer! So, I recently cleared some time on my calendar and traded in my last batch of United miles for a ticket. I'm bringing my guitar and some clothes. My hope is to sing in as many places as possible, and to stay in homes wherever I travel. I want to reconnect, see old friends and make new ones. I am not charging a fee for my singing. Any earnings that happen to come my way will be used for tzedakah in Israel. With a few things already scheduled, I'll be leading t'filot, doing workshops, singing at house parties, summer camps, maybe tour groups, at cafes, I'll see what opportunities come up. Here's my travel schedule, subject to change.  I'll post specifics when I can. If you're nearby please come and say hi. To contact me, just click here.

July 20 - 23, Haifa area

July 23 - 26, Jerusalem area

• Kabbalat Shabbat July 25 at:

Kehilat M'vaseret Tzion

July 27 - 28, Kibbutz Lotan (Arava)

July 29 - August 1, Tel Aviv area

• Kabbalat Shabbat August 1 at:

Beit Daniel, Tel Aviv

Yes, that's Elvis. I have no idea where this photo is from.  Did I take it myself?  Does anyone recognize this restaurant? Stay tuned...see you in Israel!

The Songs of Israel (Part 2)

Anyone who knows anything about Israeli music probably knows the name Naomi Shemer. By every measure she towered over other Israeli songwriters. For half a century her songs were, literally, the voice of a nation and a people. After her death in 2004 it was revealed that she had appropriated the melody of a Basque folksong for Yerushalayim Shel Zahav. The Jewish people held no grudge.

But there was another great female Israeli composer who lived in her shadow for decades, Nurit Hirsh. Her name is less well known in North America, even though her music was (commercially) more successful.

Having a hit song is one thing, but composing a mega-hit, a song that by definition alters the musical landscape, is quite another. By that yardstick, Nurit Hirsh’s Oseh Shalom became the equal of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, and more. Where did this seemingly “traditional” song come from? Oseh Shalom was one of two hit songs from the first Hassidic Song Festival, held in Tel Aviv during Sukkot of 1969. This is what it sounded like on the very night of its premiere. (The other was V’haeir Eineinu by Shlomo Carlebach, whose wildly popular Hasidic-pop songs had inspired the Festival. In the years following, a dozen or more Hasidic flavored worship standards would emerge from this Festival to become part of the permanent American synagogue repertoire.)

Nurit Hirsh’s new Oseh Shalom arrived on these shores like every other Israeli song in those days – via sh’lichim (emissaries) who came here from Israel in search of olim chadashim (new immigrants). During the spring of 1970 it spread through a network of Hebrew teachers and young rabbis, helped along by high school students returning from their Israeli exchange programs. For those of us strumming our guitars at Jewish camps in 1970 (I was 16) and learning it for the first time, it hit like a bolt of summer lightning.

Yes, during that summer we were gifted with one of the most recognizable Jewish songs in history. Through the summer and into the fall it was on everyone’s lips, and by the following year it felt like an old friend. In Jewish venues across the USA, from synagogues, camps and Hebrew schools to Federations, nursing homes and nightclubs, it became an anthem. Here is NFTY’s recording from 1972. 

Before long, teenagers, emboldened by the power of this new song (and others that would follow) urged their rabbis and cantors to include it in worship services, and many did. But some questioned the appropriateness of such a “simple” tune becoming part of the regular synagogue repertoire. Youth group and camp was one thing, they said, but the bima was another. In 1975 I attended an academic conference on Jewish music, at which I heard a well-known musicologist complain that the repetition of melodic sequences in Oseh Shalom’s B and C sections made it a poor choice for inclusion in synagogue services.

The following summer brought her second mega-hit, Bashanah Haba’ah, to an American Jewish audience now hungry for tuneful, inspiring and spirited new Israeli songs. Hirsh’s bouncy and playful melody, wedded to the late Ehud Manor’s elegant and simple lyrics was a huge hit at camp - we couldn’t stop singing it. By the early ‘70s El Al was using it in TV commercials, so kids would start dancing around the dining hall with arms outstretched like airplane wings whenever it was sung, and before long everyone was doing it.

Bashanah is an enduring song and I love singing it. But it has taken on more than a hint of Catskill kitsh, especially when done in swing time. This may be a legacy of the song’s English language version, “Anytime of the Year” sung by (Brooklyn cantor’s son) Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Broadway lyricist Robert Brittan’s “translation” has little to do with the Hebrew, (maybe that’s for the best) and while Steve and Eydie’s swinging 45 rpm version is rarer than rare, this excerpt, sung by Holly Lipton gives you the general idea.

Interpreting Bashanah is a risky affair. Where do you go with it – swing? samba? The song has started to show up in December school “Holiday” concerts as the token Jewish song, which, sadly, can only hasten its decent into dreidle-ization. I’ll give some credit to the San Diego Men’s Chorus for trying a different tack in this YouTube video, and then finish up with two of my personal favorites.

First, from the mid-70s, is the proto-Jewish-rock-group, Tayku, five superb musicians who met while studying Torah at JTS. Bassist David Burger is a highly respected composer and performer, while pianist Matthew (Mati) Lazar has become one of the leading conductors of Jewish choral music on the planet. It's an inventive arrangement. The Latin treatment is, trust me, (as I have said before) cutting edge for its time. I only wish I had a better sounding LP version, but sadly, a CD transfer was never released. Listen here.

Two decades later we have a very refreshing straight ahead rock treatment by the Boston based (and quite Beatlesque) Yom Hadash, one of our great contemporary Jewish bands, from their first album, When We Were Young. Listen here.

How can I end a tribute to Nurit Hirsh without taking note of her third big hit, Abanibi? Here’s the video. The cute disco hit (I actually kind of like it) gave Israel its first ever 1st Prize at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1978, paving the way for Halleluyah, video here, which also won 1st Prize for Israel the following year (and probably earned more money than anything either Shemer or Hirsh ever composed.) Eurovision songs have never been accused of heft - let’s just say the bubblier and bouncier your song is, the better your chance of taking home a prize.

The Songs of Israel (Part 1)

Happy Birthday Israel! What a proud and momentous celebration - six decades of statehood. I still treasure the memories of my first trip to Israel in 1978. I lost count of how many times I’ve visited since then, each trip unique and wonderful.

No aspect of Israel means more to me than her songs. They are her heartbeat and pulse, her very spirit. They live within me and I take them everywhere I go. They bathe my brain in beauty and memory. They conjure up the sand, the shuk, the Sea, the Golan, the Kotel, the sky, the heat, the air, the bitter and the sweet. Israel's songs are medicine for the soul, three-minute doses of strength and hope.

So what better way for me to celebrate these 60 years than to offer some reflections on The Songs of Israel as I know them and sing them, filtered through my ears and my heart. They are the musical signposts of my own journey through Israel’s recent past.

I grew up singing the old songs, the classics: Artza Alinu, Zum Gali Gali, Eretz Zavat Chalav... Hinei Ma Tov (in waltz time) is the first Hebrew song I remember learning. These were songs of yearning with few words and simple melodies. Sweaty and heroic, they serenaded the draining of swamps by day, then fueled a night of horas at week’s end. In those early years, schmaltzy old tunes from Russia were brilliantly retrofitted to accompany the exquisite poetry of Yonatan, Rachel, Bialik and Chefer. Later came the love songs, soft and plaintive, evocations of the Good Land, songs like Dodi Li and Iti Milvanon (both from Shir Ha-shirim, composed by Nira Chen).

The Six Day War in 1967 was the catalyst for a new and contemporary outpouring of song, now influenced by the American folk revival, and by tunes brought from around the world with each wave of immigrants to the young country. The most famous of this period is the late Naomi Shemer’s Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, a song so beloved it serves as a secondary national anthem and appears in many siddurim (prayerbooks).

As we count these days of the omer, I will be counting the songs of Israel that have meant so much to me, and blogging about them here.

Let’s begin with a spectacular moment from 30 years ago: Barbara Streisand talks to former Prime Minister Golda Meir on national TV, then sings Hatikva to celebrate Israel’s 30th birthday. Raised in Brooklyn, Streisand learned early on how to shed her accent, a talent that served her well on Broadway and in Hollywood. Listen to her perfect elocution as she introduces the humble Golda, slipping into comfy Brooklyneese for the chit-chat, then effortlessly back again, before singing a stunning Hatikva!