Suggested alternative playlist for the next 100 days: A musical guide for the voter

December 27, 2018   

 1. I'm not a political commentator, but I'll try to be one for a few minutes. What do I care? Even if everything I say now turns out to be complete nonsense, no one will remember it in a few months (or will they, because only political commentators are allowed to talk about speculation that never was and never will be, as a matter of necessity and getting paid?) Well, my political assessment is that nothing is going to be really dramatic in the next elections. How it will end in the end, everyone knows, the only question is how many seats Netanyahu will lead. So okay, there's the very intriguing story of Benny Gantz - much more intriguing anthropologically than politically - because of the question of how many people will vote for the party of a man about whom all they know is that he was Chief of Staff and that he is tall and good-looking (it's a shame Eisenkot isn't running as well. It would have been interesting to see how many votes a tall Chief of Staff with beautiful eyes gets and how many votes a short Chief of Staff with normal eyes gets). But other than that, it's pretty boring. So why has all the talk since Monday afternoon been about elections? And why is it pretty clear that this will be the case for the next three months? Is it really that exciting and fascinating? And that's why the following musical list is coming up. A suggestion for an alternative playlist to the politicians' singing. Are you tired of the voice of Eitan Cabel or Dodi Amsalem? With the click of a button, you can move into a completely different world of content, which will do so much better for you and everyone in the car, in the kitchen, and in general. I'm not calling on you to be escapists and not be interested in public life. In the State of Israel, God forbid. Listen, vote, influence. This is very important. But if you happen to feel after a few minutes of listening to the news that things are, alas, a bit repetitive, you are welcome to switch. Not from one station to another, because on all of them it sounds exactly the same (except on the Haredi stations, where it is even lower), but simply switch from the radio to a media player. 2. Let's start with the discovery of the year, even the discovery of the decade: Naftali Kempe. I've been following Hasidic music for years. There are very beautiful songs that see the light of day, there are less beautiful songs, but it's rare that you hear something new and feel that there's something really good here. Something we haven't heard before. I can give you a few landmarks that come to mind now from such musical productions in the history of Hasidic music: Dedi Graucher's wonderful albums in the early 1990s with the voices of Yossi Green. Until then, Green was just a composer, and suddenly Graucher gave him the stage to sing. I remember the first time I heard the voices in the doubling that Green did. It was wow. Something new is beginning. Or for example, a few years later, the songs of Yoel Tzalik, the brilliant son of the legendary composer Yigal Tzalik from the London Flowers. Remember "In a Fury I Hiding My Face for a Moment from You"? Or "Shake Off the Comely Dust"? These were materials we hadn't heard before. It's a shame that Tzlik abandoned music for the sake of business. Or another recent example: Moshe Laufer's opening to the song "Shiro Lemelech" on Yiddel Werdiger's album. Until then, all Hasidic albums opened with trumpets, drums, and dances, everything sounded more or less the same, and suddenly - a completely different style. All this detailed introduction is just to say that even now I'm hearing something new. Something that doesn't remind me of anything else: Naftali Kempa's first album, "Lichada Shema." Kempa (28) grew up in the mega-Haredi Moshav Tifrah, studied at the Kol Torah yeshiva, and in recent years has managed to perform with his guitar in hundreds of komzits, mainly with songs by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, but on this album he comes out with ten of his own tunes (and two by Carlebach). Each of the ten, literally each one - a shell. Oh, and Carlebach's two aren't bad at all either. The new album is real and simple, and at the same time original and refreshing. This is expressed both in the melodies and in the arrangements (by Eli Klein and Itzi Berry, both graduates of the same yeshiva where Kempe studied. Oh, I wish I were a fly on the wall in their room at boarding school, when they began to discover their great talents). And it is noticeable even in the choice of unconventional words. Take, for example, the verse from the first day of Rosh Hashanah's Hatha: "And Hannah speaks from her heart, only her lips move and her voice is not heard. And I pour out my soul before the Lord." Let's say you are a composer, would you consider composing it? And let's say you are, what would the melody be like? Probably melancholy. After all, these are words that are all a prayer that pours out from the soul, aren't they? So, Kempe composed them with a rhythmic and sweeping melody, pop even, and yet very, very moving. Another biblical text that is given its own rhythmic and captivating melody is the promise of the prophet Isaiah: "For Zion's sake I will not be silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be silent, until righteousness goes forth like a moon, and her salvation like a burning lamp." And of course there are also quiet songs, such as the charming melody of eight words in total: "For the purpose of the one is to be sanctified in your presence and to dwell in your presence," from the desire to be willing that precedes the taking of the lulav. Or Kempe's musical interpretation, a truly new and original interpretation, of "When Israel came out of Egypt." I can no longer remember what I felt about this psalm in Hallel before I heard this song. Well, well, how many melodies can be described in words, just listen to Kempe's CD. He is the next thing, not Benny Gantz. 3. And here are some other great and new talents that will warm your winter: Uncle Frishman, a completely unknown guy, who, based on listening to one of his songs, "Old Memory," can be determined with certainty that he is destined for greatness. It's a song inspired by the famous story about the holy hunchback, who was one of the children of Rabbi Klonymus Kalman of Piassen in the Warsaw ghetto, went through the horrors of the Holocaust and became a street cleaner in Tel Aviv. A taste: "How I sat alone in Greater Tel Aviv with / Memories still float as the holy hands cleanse the earth / Sinking again into dreams from the past and almost breaking / And then inside my head the holy Rebbe calls out with love / Kinder Kinder, Teire Kinder (Pure children) / The greatest thing is to do good to someone else." Emotional lyrics? Wait until you hear him sing them. Harel Tal, who has already crossed genres with the song "Ta'iti Kashe Obad Bekash Avdach" and with the piyyut "Titon Acharit Le'amk" in the form that his father, Rabbi Shmuel Tal, prays during the High Holy Days prayers. Tal is on his way to a second album, with another sweeping and convincing hit and Harel-Tali: "Tov Ha-Had Le'kol V'Rachamiu Al Koll Mas'a'yo." And if you like your Hasidic music in a Hasidic style, then here are two more albums that you must know: The first is "Metzfim" by Shlomo Cohen. The Hasidic with the pure voice who first sang "Mechnisei Rachamim" to the mythological melody of Rabbi Chaim Bennett has released a new and impressive album, centered around two particularly strong works: a new melody to the lyrics "Lech El-Li Teshukati." Yes, it's pretentious to re-compose them, but listen to the performance and you'll see that sometimes pretensions come true, and also a song to the words of the prayer of longing for the Holy Light of Life: "Our souls have been consumed by the redemption of Your Shekinah... Remember our love and affection, and return Your Shekinah to our holy house, for it is difficult to part with it." And the second album: "Jungerlich." A new Hasidic children's choir from the United States. Personally, I'm not a big fan of children's singing. Often it sounds a bit garish, kitschy. The feeling is that behind every Hasidic child who sings too movingly, there is a producer who hits him on the head and tells him to "Scream!" But every rule has an exception, and this album is truly an exception. Literally. It brings together talented creators from all courts, from the renowned composer R. Pinky Weber ("Tefila Le'ani," "Rachem") to the (for now) unknown composer R. Hershey Weinberger. The producer of this album is Naftali Schnitzler, a Satmar Hasidic musician from Williamsburg. When I looked for some background on him for this column, I didn't find much, except for a Yiddish Wikipedia entry. The only sentence I understood there was "Boothet in 1986," meaning born in 1986. Pretty impressive resume for a 32-year-old. He's already worked with all the great artists (his best-known arrangement is of Fried's song "Hanni Bidach"). He has a combination of great talent and good taste, and that's not obvious. They don't always come together. 4. And in a sharp transition to someone who, unfortunately, will no longer make music: Dr. Mordechai Sobol, the late, revives cantorship. On the eve of last Yom Kippur, precisely on the day when the entire Jewish world becomes one big cantorship concert, we said goodbye to the man who, for the entire year, all the years, was engaged in raising our supplications from evening to evening and will watch our recitations until evening. Last week, exactly three months after his surprising passing, the new season of the cantorship ensemble he founded, 'Yuval', opened. The one who prepared this entire season was the late Dr. Sobol. And "prepared" as usual with him means everything: from choosing the concert themes, through building the line-up, choosing the cantors, and of course the musical part. The one who conducted the choir and the huge symphony orchestra in his place was his son and successor, Ofir. I had the privilege of hosting this evening. When I saw the thousands flocking to the Hall of Culture, the diverse audience, from ultra-Orthodox Gur Hasidim, through a large national-religious audience to secular Ashkenazim who are not seen at any other "religious" event except for these concerts, I thought about Sobol's life's work. He dedicated his life to reviving the world of cantorship. An entire world that died, that was murdered in Europe, came back to life against all odds. Sobol is no longer here, but cantorship is alive and breathing. Even during his lifetime, there was talk of the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Unfortunately, that will no longer happen, because the prize's regulations do not allow it. Awarding it to someone who has passed away. But it is certainly possible and necessary to award the Israel Prize to the 'Yuval' ensemble. This would be a recognition not only of the late Sobol, but of the life poetry of generations of Jews. • The column is published in the newspaper 'Besheva'"