Child star Bentzy Kletzkin finds advice for life and the upheaval just waiting to happen when his voice changes

Photos: Itzik Belinsky, Yehushua Fruchter, Mendy Hachtman, Gilad Tidhar

Can the wonder remain once the kid is gone? If you’ve ever visited a frum community in Israel, chances are the familiar song “Shreit’shet Yiddelach Gutt Shabbos” ushered in Shabbos over the neighborhood loudspeakers, featuring the timeless voice of wunderkind Aharon Halevi. But “Aharon Halevi” recorded that song on the first L’Chaim Tisch album over 20 years ago, and he’s no longer the mysterious child whose rich voice resonated on airwaves and in so many Jewish homes.

His real name is Motty Vizel, and after his voice changed and he left the music studio for the beis medrash, he eventually reemerged as a popular adult vocalist. Today he’s even a bit of a mentor to a younger version of himself, 13-year-old Bentzy Kletzkin — the self-taught pianist and guitarist with the golden voice who was catapulted to the stage when he was just ten. The two have made several recordings together (including “Vehoser Mimeni” and Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter’s “Maoz Tzur”), and we couldn’t resist bringing them together for our own personal concert, with Benzty bent over the piano as he sings harmony to Motty’s “Gutt Shabbos” classic.

By the time you read this, Bentzy will actually no longer be a “wunderkind,” but a “wunderteen,” as he dons the chassidishe levush of a bar mitzvah bochur. But he still has those star qualities discovered a little over two years ago: an impressively wide range, absolute control over his vocal chords, and a confident stage presence coupled with a youthful innocence that wins the hearts of any audience.

“My first performance was when I was ten and a half,” Bentzy says. “It was about two weeks before Chanukah, and I’d joined the Chassidimlach boys choir, directed by Yanky Levinger. He wanted to test my range, so he asked me to sing a solo, and I guess he realized there was something there. We were scheduled to perform at a private event together with Malchus Choir, and Yanky Levinger called Pinchas Bichler, the director, and told him to give me a solo. It was a section of Avraham Fried’s Aderaba, and it was the first time that I stepped away from the choir to sing alone.”

It didn’t take long before the phones began to ring. That very night, people had seen the concert clip and reached out to Bichler and Levinger to book the child soloist who’d hit the high notes so effortlessly. Soon Bentzy Kletzkin was in the spotlight.

After all these years, the songs Motty Vizel/Aharon Halevi made popular are still being sung — “Gut Shabbos” and “Kah Echsof” from L’Chaim Tisch, “Aneinu Borei Olam” and “Anavim” from Mona Rosenblum’s Philharmona series are just a few. But unlike Bentzy, who’s up on stage, front and center, as a child Motty was a hidden celebrity. He never performed in public — his singing was limited to studio recordings for which he used an assumed name — and even his close friends didn’t know that their classmate from cheder was the famous soloist Aharon Halevi.

“People don’t associate any of these songs with me,” Motty says. “They’ve been sung for so many years, all over, but most people don’t have any idea that it was me singing back then.”

After his voice changed, Motty — a Dushinsky chassid from Bnei Brak whose full name is Mordechai Aharon HaLevi Vizel — exited the professional music world for a long stretch. He started singing again after his wedding. His first foray in his round two was as a vocalist for the Malchus Choir. Then he began to take some jobs as a wedding singer. It was a way to make a little parnassah, but, he says, it was grueling. “In a sense, my success as a kid was working against me. People hired me expecting to see the talents and intensity of Aharon Halevi, but instead they got a rookie singer. My wunderkind voice was gone, and I hadn’t fully grown into my new capabilities. I was pretty raw.”

As far as he is concerned, Aharon and Motty are two separate personas. “Aharon Halevi was its own brand,” says Motty, who is 33 today and lives with his family in Elad. “When I re-entered the music world, that brand was gone. It wasn’t a success I could ride on.”