{"id":2322,"date":"2020-08-28T14:53:03","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T12:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/?p=2322"},"modified":"2020-08-28T15:02:51","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T13:02:51","slug":"english-mbs-with-the-black-cantor-thomas-la-rue-through-henry-sapoznik","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/musicbeforeshabbat\/english-mbs-with-the-black-cantor-thomas-la-rue-through-henry-sapoznik\/","title":{"rendered":"MBS with the black cantor Thomas La-Rue, through Henry Sapoznik"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>21th August 2020 \u2013 Shabbat is almost here<\/strong><\/h4>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">And today we travel with our imagination to the USA of one century ago with Henry Sapoznik to answer this question: How does a non-Jewish African-American boy born at the beginning of the 20th century end up making a living singing liturgical music in Yiddish?<\/span><\/h3>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b\/images\/29924501-ffe1-4efb-acc3-3f2172681f33.png\" width=\"100\" height=\"97\" align=\"none\" data-file-id=\"1668184\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">Hello, h<\/span><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">ow are you? I hope well. This week I have had two reasons to celebrate:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f; font-size: 12pt;\">my birthday, that is on August 26th<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f; font-size: 12pt;\">and to discover the amazing blog by Henry Sapoznik and his series of posts about the black cantors in the 1920s and 1930s at the USA.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f; font-size: 12pt;\">I invite you to listen to a recording that tells us so many things! It wouldn&#8217;t be available without Henry&#8217;s work.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">As usual, you have the video at the bottom.\u00a0<\/span>And if you like this, as usual, please<span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<table style=\"width: 100%;\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"left\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"mcnShareIconContent\" style=\"width: 9.44723%;\" align=\"center\" valign=\"middle\" width=\"24\"><a href=\"http:\/\/us17.forward-to-friend.com\/forward?u=bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b&amp;id=556c3272a0&amp;e=[UNIQID]\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-images.mailchimp.com\/icons\/social-block-v2\/outline-dark-forwardtofriend-48.png\" alt=\"Share this with a friend, right from here\" width=\"81\" height=\"82\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td class=\"mcnShareTextContent\" style=\"width: 90.4522%;\" align=\"left\" valign=\"middle\"><a href=\"http:\/\/us17.forward-to-friend.com\/forward?u=bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b&amp;id=556c3272a0&amp;e=[UNIQID]\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Share this with a friend, right from here<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Who is Henry Sapoznik<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"color: #2f4f4f; letter-spacing: 0.5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b\/images\/9c148eb0-39e6-4579-835f-029968ae15d7.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" align=\"left\" data-file-id=\"1830968\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">I have the feeling that at the USA, any person interested in Jewish culture knows <a href=\"https:\/\/www.henrysapoznik.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Henry<\/a>. Despite the globalization, there is still a big gap between North America and Europe in the field of not mainstream culture, so let me introduce him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I took this picture from his\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/henry.sapoznik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook profile<\/a>. It is meaningful: he is a Jew who plays banjo. But he is much more. According with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.henrysapoznik.com\/biography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his website<\/a>, he\u00a0is a native Yiddish speaker and child of Holocaust survivors, award-winning producer, musicologist and performer, and writer in the fields of traditional and popular Yiddish and American music and culture.<\/p>\n<p>He explained to me that he started his blog as an answer to the situation produced by the pandemic. We are experiencing much suffering because of it but at least some little jewels are being born in this dramatic conditions. He also told me that he has the idea of starting a podcast. I will be checking to update you.<\/p>\n<p>Sapoznik was the founding director of the sound archives of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yivo.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YIVO Institute for Jewish Research<\/a>\u00a0in New York from 1982 to 1995, as well as founder and director of KlezKamp, beginning in 1985 for the next 30 years.<\/p>\n<p>Henry&#8217;s parents were both from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.es\/maps\/place\/Rivne,+Rovno,+Ucrania\/@50.6110475,21.7621594,6z\/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x472f6caa2d7c89d7:0x27481abdbc4e484!8m2!3d50.6199!4d26.251617\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rovno<\/a>, between Lvov and Kiev. It is the region of\u00a0Volhynia, also known as\u00a0Volinskaya, Wolin, Wolyn, Wolina, Wolinsk, Volinski, Wolinski, Volenskii, Wolenskj, Wolenskja, Volin and\u00a0Volyn, according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/Ukraine\/OTW_PRV_Volhynia_Famous.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">JewishGen website<\/a>. It is a land that has changed from the hands of Poland, Ukraine and Soviets. Nowadays it is part of Ukraine. Apart from the\u00a0extermination of the Jews of Volhynia, that began in the first days after the outbreak of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/volhynia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jewish Virtual Library<\/a>, in 1943\u201344 the region was the scene of ethnic massacres in which some 100,000 Poles died and some 20,000 Ukrainians were killed in revenge. The Polish film of 2016\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wolynfilm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wo\u0142y\u0144<\/a>, in which my colaborator\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/jewishmemory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Janusz Prusinowski<\/a>\u00a0played, shows this situation.<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/jguideeurope.org\/en\/region\/ukraine\/eastern-galicia-podolia-and-bukovina\/rovno-rivne\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">JGuideEurope<\/a>,\u00a0<em>on 6 November 1941, the 17500 inhabitants of Rovno\u2019s ghetto were executed in a single day and left to rot in a huge, circular mass grave<\/em>. The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.centropa.org\/cs\/photo\/monument-holocaust-sosyonki-forest-outside-rovno\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sosonki memorial<\/a>, on the road to Kiev, around two miles from Rovno, reminds this massacre.<\/p>\n<p>Rovno has a synagogue very near the former (and bigger and newer) synagogue and Google Maps is very nice to show them to us:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b\/images\/737a23c0-f807-43b5-8de4-ed7cec3cd4d1.png\" width=\"805\" height=\"242\" data-file-id=\"1831148\" \/><\/p>\n<p>You know this Music Before Shabbat uses music for the joy in itself and as the thead to learn more about history and I feel this very close to Henry&#8217;s vision. I can&#8217;t hide what a big joy it has been for me to meet this man and talk with him at the Facebook.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Toyve Ha&#8217;Cohen<\/em>\u00a0or the black cantor Thomas La-Rue<\/h3>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">This amazing story is widely told by Henry in his blog\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.henrysapoznik.com\/post\/thomas-la-rue-jones-the-black-cantor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in this post about Larue<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.henrysapoznik.com\/post\/how-european-jews-saw-the-african-american-cantor-the-1930-toyve-ha-cohen-tour\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in this\u00a0one<\/a>\u00a0about the tour he made in 1930. I strongly recommend you to check those links. Here I will just make a brief summary of Henry&#8217;s work. This poster is from his website too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b\/images\/5dd4c0e3-e16a-4493-a9a3-d01d81d96505.png\" width=\"280\" height=\"366\" align=\"left\" data-file-id=\"1830980\" \/><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">Thomas was born in 1902,\u00a0son of a single mother. They lived in Newark (New Yersey) and she faced much racism. She could make friends only in the Jewish women. With the time, she started to become into their religious believings. Her son and her daughter received a traditional Jewish primary school education. It is not clear if she converted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\"><strong>How did he start to become a professional singer in Yiddish?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">According to Henry&#8217;s blog:\u00a0\u00ab<em>One anecdote about LaRue which was repeated so often it has the burnished patina of a creation myth, concerns a Sabbath service he attended as a young boy. During the service, the cantor was taken ill so LaRue quickly put on a prayer shawl and, before the congregation could orient itself, took to the lectern and in his soprano voice began to intone the prayers.\u00a0The congregation was ready to storm the podium to take him down but he sang with such great feeling that they remained standing and began praying.\u00bb\u00a0<\/em><\/span>True or false, who knows. Thomas was hired by a manager and his career started in 1921 and soon he became usual at the stage in shows of Yiddish theatre. And the recording below is from June 1923.<\/p>\n<p>In 1930 he made a tour in Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Germany and Poland. He was welcome in Warsaw with big scepticism. It was at the time the landmark for cantorial art, specially by the role of the\u00a0Great T\u0142omackie\u00a0synagogue, that will be our focus in a future edition of MBS. This wonderful picture below is from the website of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jhi.pl\/en\/blog\/2013-03-04-the-history-of-the-great-synagogue\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jewish Historical Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b\/images\/1f85607d-1fba-422c-a702-d22034840e76.jpg\" width=\"688\" height=\"440\" align=\"center\" data-file-id=\"1831112\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>For that tour, the productor, Edvin Relkin,\u00a0invented a totally fake story in which his mother died when he was young and his father was a high official in the local Abyssinian government, they were descendents of the Ten Lost Tribes.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas&#8217; last performance documented is in 1953 in Newark. It is not known his date of death nor where is he buried.<\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 100%;\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" align=\"left\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"mcnShareIconContent\" style=\"width: 8.45105%;\" align=\"center\" valign=\"middle\" width=\"24\"><a href=\"http:\/\/us17.forward-to-friend.com\/forward?u=bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b&amp;id=556c3272a0&amp;e=[UNIQID]\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-images.mailchimp.com\/icons\/social-block-v2\/outline-dark-forwardtofriend-48.png\" alt=\"Share this with a friend, right from here\" width=\"82\" height=\"82\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td class=\"mcnShareTextContent\" style=\"width: 91.4157%;\" align=\"left\" valign=\"middle\"><a href=\"http:\/\/us17.forward-to-friend.com\/forward?u=bc493816d894ee14ba9103e7b&amp;id=556c3272a0&amp;e=[UNIQID]\" target=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Share this with a friend, right from here<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 style=\"letter-spacing: 0.5px; text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f; font-family: playfair display, georgia, times new roman, serif;\"><strong>The song encouraging the Polish\u00a0Jews to keep the hope<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<div><span style=\"color: #2f4f4f;\">From the available recordings by Thomas La-Rue in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCqK9UyDphfVBK6fQarW_6qg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Henry&#8217;s Youtube channel<\/a>, I have chossen the one that I prefer the least in terms of melody but that has very\u00a0meaningful lyrics, specially taking into consideration the story of Henry&#8217;s parents. The whole lyrics are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.henrysapoznik.com\/post\/okeh-14079-the-1923-thomas-larue-recording\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in this post<\/a>\u00a0by Henry and I will just copy a little part. You&#8217;ll understand what I mean:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<p id=\"viewer-eldt4\" style=\"letter-spacing: 0.5px; text-align: center;\"><em>Don\u2019t give up hope yet, Mr. Jew<br \/>\nOne day it will all work out for you<br \/>\nPharaoh, Haman and Amolek taught a bitter lesson<br \/>\nBut those days are through<br \/>\nCzar Nikolai, has met his destiny<br \/>\nAnd from Poland, you\u2019ll be free<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"letter-spacing: 0.5px; text-align: center;\"><strong>Click the picture to listen to the recording of Thomas La-Rue:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2h9nTmHs1Oc\" width=\"640\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>I hope you\u2019ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.<br \/>\nIt is as symple as sending<a class=\"mcnButton \" title=\".... this button to sign up\" href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/22b3401a1a17\/mbs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u00a0\u2026 this link to sign up<\/a><\/strong><\/h6>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Shabbat Shalom.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Araceli Tzigane |\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mapamundi M\u00fasica<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>And we share with you one hour of music for joy\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-287446268\/sets\/jewish-music-fro-xxi-century\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in this playlist<\/a>.<br \/>\nTo know more about our artists,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/jewishmusic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<hr \/>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>May you always find the light in your path.<\/strong><\/h1>\n<hr \/>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: center;\">These is our artistic offer for live show:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/jewishmusic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jako el Muzikante<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/jewishmusic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gulaza\u00a0<\/a>\u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/jewishmusic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory<\/a><\/h5>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>21th August 2020 \u2013 Shabbat is almost here And today we travel with our imagination to the USA of one century ago with Henry Sapoznik to answer this question: How does a non-Jewish African-American boy born at the beginning of the 20th century end up making a living singing liturgical music in Yiddish? Hello, how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[270,21,23,269,54,251],"class_list":["post-2322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musicbeforeshabbat","tag-black-cantor-thomas-larue","tag-cantor","tag-chazzanut","tag-henry-sapoznik","tag-what-is-jewish-music","tag-yiddish-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2322"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2337,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions\/2337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}