{"id":2508,"date":"2020-10-30T11:04:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T10:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/?p=2508"},"modified":"2020-10-30T11:28:19","modified_gmt":"2020-10-30T10:28:19","slug":"from-the-shtetl-to-the-films-mbs-with-yossele-rosenblatt-the-jazz-singer-and-a-yiddishe-momme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/musicbeforeshabbat\/from-the-shtetl-to-the-films-mbs-with-yossele-rosenblatt-the-jazz-singer-and-a-yiddishe-momme\/","title":{"rendered":"From the shtetl to the films: MBS with Yossele Rosenblatt, “The Jazz Singer” and A Yiddishe Momme"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

October 30th, 2020. Shabbat is almost here<\/strong><\/h4>\n

And our star today is Yossele Rosenblatt, cantor born in Ukraine in 1882 and settled in the USA from 1912, where he achieved great success and even participated in the film that would begin the definitive decline of silent films.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n

Hello!\u00a0<\/strong>How are you? I hope well! I have many things to share today. This edition follows the thread of the one about the\u00a0Great Synagogue at T\u0142omackie Street (the one of 4th of September,\u00a0find it here<\/a>). Over there I mentioned that the singer in the animation video was Yossele Rosenblatt and that I would feature him in a future. That future is today. Learn about him and his fascinating life, here below.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

And yesterday I learn about the radio show Polin<\/a>, done by the renowed Polish translator settled in Madrid El\u017cbieta Bortkiewicz Morawska<\/a> (in the picture) for Radio Sefarad, a project by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain. It is in Spanish. I think it can be interesting even for the not Spanish speakers because you can check the topics and translate automatically the introductions in text for each of the chapters. She dedicated one of her editions<\/a> to the Great Synagogue at T\u0142omackie Street too!<\/p>\n

The song we’ll listen today is “A Yiddishe Mame”.\u00a0El\u017cbieta is not\u00a0Yiddishe<\/em>, but she is a mother as well as an enthusiast of Jewish culture. So I think she will feel specially moved by this recording. I hope you too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

– And, as usual, find the music piece at the bottom –<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
Little by little this bunch of friends is growing. If you like this, share it with your friends, they are more than welcome.<\/span>\u00a0Thank you in advance.<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Share<\/a><\/td>\nShare this with a friend, right from here<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Yossele Rosenblatt, a story of\u00a0success and commitment to one’s beliefs and values<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
\n
How much money would $100,000 from 1927 be now? That is the amount of money that Rosenblatt was offered by Warner Brothers to co-star with Al Jolson in ‘The Jazz Singer’.<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n

<\/span>They wanted him to have a relevant role as and to sing in the film Kol Nidrei. It is\u00a0the prayer that is sang on the eve of Yom Kippur. He felt that it was much too sacred to be used as entertainment and refused the offer.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, he participated in the film, with the payment for a star, even when he only appeared to sing one song. And it was\u00a0in a not religious frame. The protagonist is in\u00a0the dilemma of continuing his father’s steps as a chazzan or pursuing stardom in jazz. He attends Rosenblatt’s concert in Chicago. He sings a Yiddish song, not religious,\u00a0Yahrtzeit Licht<\/em>, acredited to himself in\u00a0Jyrics.com<\/a>. Rosenblatt represents the roots.<\/p>\n

Curious about that\u00a0scene of the film?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Watch it\u00a0here<\/a>. If you like it, check also\u00a0this other recording<\/a>\u00a0of the same piece.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the film, the protagonist, who is the son of a cantor, pursues a career as a jazz singer. Rosenblatt encarnates the roots, the traditions. The attendance to that concert\u00a0produces many emotions in the protagonist. Could he be making a big mistake by abandoning his roots and following the path of modernity? Rosenblatt might had said yes to that question.<\/p>\n

Was Rosenblatt’s\u00a0Kol Nidrei<\/em>\u00a0worth of it?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

For sure it was. He was very popular at the time and Warner Brothers were wise business people. And fortunately we can now hear him singing that prayer,\u00a0here<\/a>. Decide yourself!<\/span><\/p>\n

In\u00a0Jews, Cinema and Public Life in Interwar Britain<\/em>, Gil Toffell explains that “Yet whatever actual Jewish audiences made of the representation of the conflict of assimilation that formed the core of the\u00a0film, the complexity of the drama was not foregrounded in the discourse or events promoting the title to British Jews. In the advertisements for the screening of the film at the Piccadilly Theatre the performance by Rosenblatt was advanced as a key attraction for Jewish audiences.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>No mention was made to the challenge to tradition by modernity, rather the promotion was positioned to appeal to identifiably conservative Jewish cultural tastes.<\/em>” How was that…?\u00a0Money makes the world go round? Even if not for Rosenblatt!<\/p>\n

The multiple layers of The Jazz Singer\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

The more I read about this film, the more meaningful it seems to be.\u00a0Irv Saposnik made an amazing work in\u00a0Jolson, The Jazz Singer, and the Jewish Mother: or How my Yiddishe Momme Became my Mammy<\/em><\/a>, that I have to recommend with all my heart. Why? Because it uses the film to explain broader issues related to the creation of cultural identities. This analysis is useful for Jews and for anybody.<\/p>\n

Saposnik explains the role of music, including the piece sang by Rosenblatt, in the film, with their symbolic use related to the roots and the modernity. He explains very nicely about the song we are listening to today. Below you’ll find more about this.<\/p>\n

Briefly about his biography<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

As the star he was, it is easy to find the biography of Yossele Rosenblatt. For a long one,\u00a0check this<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0this<\/a>.\u00a0For a shorter one,\u00a0this<\/a>. But this part will let us enjoy some wonderful pictures and to travel from our chair!<\/p>\n

He was born in 1882 in\u00a0Biela Tserkov. At that time, it seems there was a shtetl there. Nowadays is a little city, less than 90 kms to the South from Kiev. The presence of Jews is still noticeable. There is the great synagogue, used nowadays as a school, and there\u00a0seem to be\u00a0more buildings that have had use as synagogues. They are findable in\u00a0google maps<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The great synagogue in\u00a0Biela Tserkov looked like this. This picture is dated from some moment between 1895 and 1910. It is in wikipedia and is of public domain. See below its current look:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

And this is nowadays, from the street view of google maps. It took me some time to accept that it is the same building. It is. You can learn more about the building, at\u00a0The Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Very brieftly: Yossele came for a long line of chazzanim. His father was a cantor in Kiev and Yossele became part of his choir. He worked as a cantor in Munkacs (part of Hungary until 1920, currently Ukraine), Pressburg (currently, Bratislava) and Hamburg, from where he tried to escape to the USA without completing his contract of 5 years. He was caught. He would arrive to the USA only in 1912. He was hired inmediately as a cantor in New York and started to record for several record companies. This increased his popularity much. He was offered to be a opera singer but he rejected in order not to abandon the Jewish way of life. He composed many pieces too.<\/p>\n

He died in 1933 in Palestine. He was there recording for a film. There, he and his wife had\u00a0decided to settled definitively over there. One Shabbat, after\u00a0was recording by the Dead Sea, he had a heart-attack and died at his 51 years old. His\u00a0funeral was attended by more than 5.000 people (other sources say 20.000). He was buried at the Mount of Olives and his remains continue there.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\n\n\n
\"Share<\/a><\/td>\nShare this with a friend, right from here<\/a><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Listen to Rossenblat’s rendition of the much popular Yiddish song\u00a0A Yiddishe Mame<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

I will quote some paragraphs of the outstanding work by\u00a0Irv Saposnik mentioned above (read it complete,\u00a0here<\/a>), as I wouldn’t ever transmit this deepness about the piece. The other piece mentioned,\u00a0A Brivele der Mamen<\/em>, “a little letter for mom”, is\u00a0this<\/a>. Find the lyrics of\u00a0“My Yiddishe Mamma” under the video.<\/p>\n

“A Brivele der Mamen” (1907) is only one of many Yiddish songs in which the Jewish mother was used as a reminder of the separation that emigration enforced. Its three stanzas, sung to a plaintive tune, foreshadow what was later to become commingled with nostalgia for the old home. The sadness of separation, the son’s lack of responsibility, the mother’s complaint that in eight years he hadn’t written her one letter, much of which later became comic shtick, was in 1907 no matter for laughter. The experience was too fresh, the pain too acute. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but the head forgets too soon. […]<\/em><\/p>\n

“My Yiddishe Mamma” is as expressive of twenties’ sentiment as “A Brivele der Mamen” had been of turn-of-the-century attitudes. Written by Jack Yellen and Lew Pollack in 1925, it became particularly identified with Sophie Tucker, especially after she recorded it in both English and Yiddish versions on two sides of a single record. Two languages for a mixed generation. Side by side, Yiddish and English establish a balance between old and new, between parents and children, between past and future. Parents and children are in transit, and the Yiddishe Momme, while no longer abandoned, is put in her place.<\/em><\/p>\n

Or perhaps, more accurately places, for the Yiddish and English versions offer different mothers for different audiences. The English Yiddishe Momme is placed in “a humble East Side tenement,” and the singer reaches across “the trails of Time” to recollect the “three flights up in the rear … where my childhood days were spent.” Separation has set in; the singer has grown up, and grown away. The past is remembered with affection, but it remains irretrievable. The Jewish mother, like the old shtetl, lies buried in time.<\/p>\n

“My Yiddishe Momme” in Yiddish seems to be a different song. Past and present are intermingled. While the Jewish mother has grown old along with her surroundings, she is still an active presence, still capable of nurturing the world around her. She belongs in her world, and in ours.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

Click the picture to listen to the recording:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n