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Shlomo Carlebach
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Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (???? ??????) (known as Reb Shlomo to his followers) (January 14, 1925, Berlin—October 20, 1994, Canada) was a Jewish religious teacher, composer, and singer who was known as "The Singing Rabbi" during his lifetime. Although his roots lay in traditional Orthodox yeshivot, he branched out to create his own movement combining Hasidic-style warmth and personal interaction, public concerts, and song-filled synagogue services.
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Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (???? ??????) (known as Reb Shlomo to his followers) (January 14, 1925, Berlin—October 20, 1994, Canada) was a Jewish religious teacher, composer, and singer who was known as "The Singing Rabbi" during his lifetime. Although his roots lay in traditional Orthodox yeshivot, he branched out to create his own movement combining Hasidic-style warmth and personal interaction, public concerts, and song-filled synagogue services. At various times he lived in Manhattan, New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Moshav Mevo Modi'im, Israel.
Carlebach is considered by many to be the foremost Jewish religious songwriter in the second half of the 20th century. In a career that spanned 40 years, he recorded more than 25 albums that continue to have wide popularity and appeal. His influence also continues to this day in so-called "Carlebach minyanim" located in many cities around the globe.
Many of the bands today within the genre of Jewish Rock And Soul are greatly influenced by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's melodies and songs.
Carlebach was also considered a pioneer of the Baal teshuva movement ("returnees to Judaism"), encouraging Jewish youth who had become hippies to re-embrace their Jewish heritage.
Biography
Shlomo Carlebach's ancestors comprised one of the oldest rabbinical dynasties in pre-Holocaust Germany. He was born in 1925 in Berlin, where his father, Rabbi Hartwig Naftali Carlebach (1889-1967), was an Orthodox rabbi. The family fled the Nazis in 1931 and lived in Baden bei Wien, Austria and by 1933 in Switzerland before coming to New York City. Carlebach emigrated to Lithuania in 1938 where he studied at a yeshiva. In 1938 his father became the rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jacob, a small synagogue on West 79th Street in New York's Upper West Side. Carlebach came to New York in 1939 via Great Britain. He and his twin brother Eli Chaim took over the rabbinate of the synagogue after their father's death in 1967.
Carlebach studied at several high-level Orthodox yeshivos, including Yeshiva Torah Vodaas and Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, New York, and Bais Medrash Gevoha in Lakewood, New Jersey. His genius in Torah study was recognized by great Torah scholars and teachers, among whom were Rabbi Shlomo Heiman, and the Rosh Yeshiva of Bais Medrash Gevoha, Rabbi Aharon Kotler, himself considered a Gadol in the United States. Rabbi Hutner, who gave Rabbi Carlebach his Semicha, was also among the Gedolim of the time. Rabbi Kotler considered it a great loss to the Torah world that Shlomo chose a career in musical Jewish outreach over one as a scholar and teacher, and reprimanded him for doing so. Like his intellectual and scholarly gifts, so were his voice and musical talents recognized quite early during his days in yeshiva, when he was often chosen to lead the services as a Hazzan ("cantor") for Jewish holidays.
As is engraved on his tombstone, he became a devoted hasid ("disciple") of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth Rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch. From 1951-1954, he subsequently worked as one of the first emissaries (shluchim) of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, until he departed to form his successful model for outreach, reaching hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide.
In 1972 he married Elaine Neila Glick, a teacher. They had two daughters, Nedara (Dari) and Neshama. Neshama Carlebach is a songwriter and singer with a substantial following who has written and sung many songs in her father's style.
Carlebach died suddenly, of a heart attack, while traveling on an airplane to visit relatives in Canada. A popular myth had him seated next to the Skverer Rebbe or his gabbai, with the duo singing the Rebbe's favorite melody, Chasdei Hashem ki lo Samnu ["G-d's lovingkindness does not end"]. In truth, Carlebach was seated next to another observant Jew who recognized him. Prior to takeoff, but after the two had chatted for a few minutes, Carlebach suffered his fatal heart attack. His seatmate immediately informed the flight crew. Carlebach was evacuated to hospital, where he was declared dead.
Carlebach was very close with many famous hasidic rebbes, including the Amshinover Rebbe and Bobover Rebbe.
Musicology
Carlebach began writing songs at the end of the 1950s, primarily based on verses from Tanakh set to his own music. Although he composed thousands of songs, he couldn't read musical notes. Many of his soulful renderings of Torah verses became standards in the wider Jewish community, including Am Yisrael Chai ("[The] Nation [of] Israel Lives"—composed on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the mid-1960s), Pischu Li ("Open For Me [The Gates of Righteousness]") and Barchi Nafshi ("May My Soul Bless God").
His public singing career began in Greenwich Village, where he met Bob Dylan and other folk singers. He sought out and used the same producers as used by famous folk artists.
He moved to Berkeley for the 1966 Folk Festival. After his appearance, he decided to remain in the San Francisco Bay Area to reach out to what he called "lost Jewish souls"—runaways and drug-addicted youth. He opened a center called the House of Love and Prayer in Haight-Ashbury, where he reached out to disaffected youth with song and communal gatherings. He became known as "The Singing Rabbi." Through his music and his innate caring, many Jews feel that he "saved" thousands of Jewish youngsters and adults.
Marsha Bryan Edelman wrote:
"Some of the other Carlebach melodies that became regular parts of worship services were written for entry into Israel's annual Hasidic Song Festival. In 1968 a small-budget Israeli play called Ish Hasid Haya (Once There Was a Hasid) brought traditional Hasidic songs and stories to the generally nonobservant masses who filled its audiences. The success of this material inspired enthusiasts to revitalize Hasidic music by soliciting songs--in an ostensibly Hasidic style--to be presented in an annual Israeli festival, starting in 1969. The fascination with most things Israeli on the part of many American Jews after the 1967 Six-Day War led Israeli promoters to bring a version of the Hasidic Song Festival to North American
audiences."
Carlebach appeared as part of the Hasidic Song Festival in 1969, along with the Duo Reim, Zvika Pick, Nurit Hirsch, and others. This became a yearly event until 1979 with an album produced each year. These albums brought his music into mainstream Israeli and religious Zionist circles. During this time, his albums were produced in Israel with a more liturgical and less folk music sound. Some of the musicians that he worked with during this period gave his music a more psychedelic tinge and a wider range of backup instrumentation. During this period, while Carlebach spent much of his time in Israel, his students founded Moshav Me'or Modi'im.
Edelman continues:
"The only things "hasidic" about most of these songs were their relatively short melodies and traditional lyrics. Still, the presence of catchy new tunes for brief liturgical texts encouraged the use of many of these songs in the prayers of American Jews looking for easy-to-learn melodies and more congregational singing--even by congregants who were not fluent in Hebrew. Carlebach's ve-Ha'er Einenu quickly jumped back into the morning services from which its lyrics were taken."
On his return to New York City as his base, he increasingly was known for his stories and hasidic teachings. As part of his performances he spoke of inspirational subjects, rooted in hasidism and Kabbalah. Some of his teachings have been published by his students and many appear alongside his recorded songs. Carlebach spread the teachings of Chabad, Breslov, and popularized the writings of, among others, the Rebbe Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Ishbitz, and Rebbe Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Piasetzno. For many of his listeners, Carlebach's neohasidism was regarded as authentic hasidism and became a bridge back into traditional hasidism.
Legacy and Influence
Before he died, a book called The Singing Rabbi, by Martin Avery, a Canadian author, was published by Oberon Press. The title story, written in the style of magical realism, describes Carlebach.
In the years since his death, Carlebach music has been embraced by many faiths as universally accepted spiritual music. Carlebach songs and niggunim (tunes) can be heard today in synagogues, churches, gospel choirs, and temples worldwide. Carlebach has also inspired many musical groups who followed him, including Moshav Band, Soulfarm, Reva L'Sheva, Naftali Abramson, Kol Yaakov and others.
His life has been written into a musical by Daniel Wise that was performed at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Spring 2008. It is scheduled to run in August 2008 as well.
In 2008 a documentary film about Carlebach's life and influence directed by Boaz Shahak entitled You Never Know (film) was released at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
Controversy
Carlebach's approach towards kiruv, or Jewish outreach, was often tinged with controversy:
- "He operated outside traditional Jewish structures in style and substance, and spoke about God and His love in a way that could make other rabbis uncomfortable."
At times, he would encourage mixed (men and women) dancing at his concerts and would often kiss women upon greeting them:
- "He was known for literally embracing his female followers—a forbidden practice among Orthodox Jews."
His standards of comportment were viewed as being too lax by Orthodox colleagues, distancing him from the haredi establishment which (like the centrist/modern Orthodox) adheres to the laws of negiah whereby physical contact with a member of the opposite sex is only permitted with one's spouse, immediate family members and grandparents.
After Carlebach's death, Lilith Magazine, a Jewish feminist publication, catalogued allegations of sexual impropriety against him. Specific, named accusers are quoted in this article, as well as unnamed sources and Jewish communal leaders with knowledge of the allegations. The publication of these allegations has proven controversial, lodged, as they were, at a time Carlebach was not in a position to respond to his accusers.
Discography
- Haneshama Lach [Songs of My Soul] - 1959
- Barchi Nafshi [Sing My Heart] - 1960
- Shlomo Carlebach Live - 1961
- Wake Up World (Rare) - 1962
- At The Village Gate - 1963
- In The Palace Of The King - 1965
- I Heard the Wall Singing [2 vol.] - 1968
- Days Are Coming - 1973
- Uvnei Yerushalayim - 1970s
- Am Yisrael Chai - 1973
- V'Ha'eir Eineinu - 1970s
- Yisrael B'tach BaShem - 1973-4
- Hisoriri - 1970s
- Live in Tel-Aviv [Heichal HaTarbut] - 1976
- Nachamu Ami - 1983
- Shvochin Asader - 1988
- Carlebach in Jerusalem [Al Eileh] - 1980s
- Live in Concert for the Jews of Russia - 1980s
- Even Ma'asu HaBonim - 1990s
- Shlomo Sings with the Children Of Israel - 1990
- Shabbos with Shlomo - 1992
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