Work of Art

Raised in London, it was provincial Gateshead in England’s northeast that counterintuitively gave Reb Gershon a global platform. Having attended the Manchester Yeshiva under the famed tzaddik, Rav Yehuda Zeev Segal — known as the Manchester Rosh Yeshivah — he then moved to Gateshead where, at the age of 19, he found employment at the Gateshead Jewish Boarding School. The Gateshead Jewish Boarding School of yore was a unique institution. With chinuch options for frum boys in the 1950s and 1960s quite limited, the school — founded in 1944 — drew pupils from across the European continent and further afield.

Young Gershon served as a housemaster — responsible for the overall welfare of the students boarding at the school, much like an av bayit — in tandem with a job at Gateshead’s iconic local bakery. “I apprenticed at Stenhouse bakery through the night, and in morning went to school, woke up the boys and did Shacharis with them.” In the evening, after seeing his young charges into bed, he was back at the bakery.

The boys stayed at the school for the Yamim Noraim, and that became a training ground for Reb Gershon to begin honing his talents as a baal tefillah, putting into practice the chinuch he’d absorbed growing up in the Adass. He didn’t have to look far to find a Yamim Noraim nusach: while he was a bochur in Manchester Yeshiva, a man by the name of Reb Herschel Goldstein had served as the shaliach tzibbur for Mussaf, Neilah and Kol Nidrei.

“He was my rebbi in nusach,” says Reb Gershon emphatically. “Reb Herschel was a very chashuve Yid who created a new way of davening. I learned from him how to involve the tzibbur, how to make it an interactive experience.”

The style practiced by Reb Herschel has since become much more in vogue, as it provides a more interactive and interesting davening. People looked forward to joining in with all the set pieces. Legend has it that Rav Sholom Schwadron, the famed Maggid of Yerushalayim, visited Manchester and took parts of Reb Herschel’s davening back to his amud at Chevron Yeshivah.

Reb Gershon watched and listened to Reb Herschel, a master craftsman at work, as he guided the crowd through the davening.

“He didn’t waffle his way through Malchuyos,” says Reb Gershon. “Every part had a tune and the tzibbur learned it and was part of it. They anticipated the kneitsches in each section and joined in. It really was a very meaningful day. You didn’t notice the time.”

After his marriage to Resi Wosner, Reb Gershon started leading Yamim Noraim at the Boarding School. At that time Rav Matisyahu Salomon ztz”l would come over from storied Gateshead Kollel to daven Neilah, followed later by Rav  Chaim Kaufman ztz”l, a rosh yeshivah at Gateshead Yeshiva Ketana, when the school’s minyan boosted the numbers at the nascent yeshivah.

With the departure of Rav Matisyahu from Gateshead to Lakewood in 1999, the next prestigious stage beckoned for the now-experienced chazzan. Incorporating his existing nusach with the well-established set pieces that the Mashgiach performed, Reb Gershon’s davening became legendary among Gateshead Yeshivah alumni, and his style is now replicated by a cadre of young baalei tefillah.

Miraculous Mussaf

But one year, it was not to be. “With my heavy teaching schedule and aware that Yamim Noraim were approaching, I was always under a lot of pressure during Elul,” recounts Reb Gershon. “There was one year that I came into Rosh Hashanah completely hoarse.”

He managed to eke out a Shacharis on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, but by the time he came to Sim Shalom he was utterly spent and he didn’t lead the davening on the second day. Realizing that he would not be able to lead the Yom Kippur tefillos in Gateshead, he figured he might as well make arrangements to go back to his alma mater for Yom Kippur to spend the day with the Manchester Rosh Yeshivah while listening to Reb Herschel davening — a winning combination for Reb Gershon.

But upon arrival in Manchester on Erev Yom Kippur, he discovered a crisis unfolding. Reb Herschel was unwell and had been advised not to daven.

“I felt something cooking inside me,” he remembers. “By then my voice was a little better and I made my way round to the Rosh Yeshivah.”

Arriving at the Rosh Yeshivah’s house, he was told that due to an emergency meeting underway about the “Mussaf crisis,” no visitors were being allowed in. But he persisted. As soon as he walked into the Rosh Yeshivah’s room, the offer was made. “Would you please daven?” the hanhalah pleaded.  “If the Rosh Yeshivah will agree to give me a brachah, I’ll do it,” he replied.

The Rosh Yeshivah obliged, everyone answered Amen, and the congregant-turned-baal–tefillah had the job that year. Although he felt weak during Shacharis, he rested a little and managed to lead the tzibbur for Mussaf — by which time he felt thoroughly spent and unable to do anything more. But the Rosh Yeshivah wanted his talmid to continue with Neilah — so he summoned him and gave him another warm brachah. Reb Gershon managed Neilah as well.

Moshe Yosef Fordsham, then a bochur in the yeshivah, remembers the incident well, and could not have been prouder of his father. “It was a performance like I’ve never heard,” he tells his self-effacing father, who waves the compliment away. “They called it the moifess of the Rosh Yeshivah,” says Reb Gershon.

Mood for Music

For many who have never visited England’s shores, Gershon Fordsham’s voice came to mean something else: the uplifting melodies of a choir that was another big gift that little Gateshead bequeathed to the world. People became familiar with a jaunty version of Shalom Aleichem, the upbeat Mizmor Lesodah, a soaring V’yeida Kol Po’ul which borrows from the standard tune for Bircas Kohanim, and also Ein Kol Etzev, taken from the writings of the Chazon Ish.

That all began with a Boarding School colleague, Reb Eliezer (Michael) Chrysler, a talented composer who ran the school choir. Once he left, around 1964, Reb Gershon took over, and thus began the young housemaster-turned-rebbi’s multi-decade career.

“I was into singing first as a school boy at Avigdor School in London,” says Reb Gershon, “and then under Reb Sender Dominitz, who ran choirs in Pirchim. Being in those choirs gave me the cheishek and the experience.”

The Boarding School choir’s first appearance was at the 15th Pirchim Siyum in Gateshead in 1964, and the appeal of the well-structured songs and entertaining grammen quickly caught on. The school choir was soon brought in to sing at weddings, sheva brachos and other communal events. In line with the yekkish Fordsham upbringing, there was nothing casual about the performances. The boys understood that every choir appearance was to be treated as an event; — nothing less than a note-perfect musical production would do.

People became enchanted with his selection of melodious songs, which were firmly on the traditional end of the spectrum, and whose harmonies were conservative yet creative and enjoyable. In time, the choir leader was encouraged to produce a record. This was 1968, when every Jewish record was a monumental undertaking. But produce a record they did.

Heading to a studio named Morton Sounds in neighboring Newcastle, they recorded the whole thing in one day, with only a piano for musical accompaniment. “There were no chairs in the studio and by the end of the day we were so weary,” laughs Reb Gershon.

The album, Odeh LaKel, was an instant success, and people were thirsty to take things to the next level. Someone reached out to Eli Teitelbaum in America, the famed founder of the American Pirchei choir. Before long, the vinyl recording from Morton Sounds was wending its way “across the pond.” Eli worked his magic and arranged for additional tracks to be added to the record. He also upgraded it to a proper album with full musical accompaniment. The guitars and bass were played by another Pirchei legend, Motty Parnes.

“You have to understand how groundbreaking this was,” says Reb Gershon’s son Moshe Yosef. “For little Gateshead, England, with its couple of hundred families, to reach out to the USA and do this — it was massive.”

Curiously, another name appeared on the album cover, but surprisingly, not in a musical capacity: “Cover Design: Yisroel Lamm.” The future legend of Jewish music was then into graphic design. He would eventually collaborate on a project with the Gateshead choir, but that only happened a full 23 years later, when their next commercial offering was released.

Until then, the choir continued doing its thing, making a name for itself traveling around England to sing at events, including in outlying Jewish communities like Glasgow and Liverpool. They often performed at the annual national Pirchim siyum, where the choir was a highlight.

For the school’s 30th anniversary in 1974, the philanthropic Hubert family donated a sefer Torah. In the spirit of the day, the choir boys performed dressed up as sifrei Torah, singing a grammen in tribute to the family. Grammen were another string in the choir leader’s bow, his literary talent set to clever rhymes that delighted audiences.

The choir was also the catalyst for a famous English boys’ choir that would go on to wow audiences around the world, the London School of Jewish Song. “Yigal Calek once told me that we were his inspiration,” says Reb Gershon.

A high point for the choir was at the gala Gateshead Centenary Celebration in 1987. Attended by the Novominsker Rebbe from America, the Manchester Rosh Yeshivah, philanthropist Yankel Shine and a host of other dignitaries, it was a moment of immense pride for the kehillah. Reb Gershon put on a production that went down as one of their most memorable ever, starting with his own stentorian rendition of “Shehecheyanu.”

That event also debuted one of Reb Gershon’s own compositions, “Mizmor Lesodah,” chosen for its position as the 100th mizmor in Tehillim.

For Rabbi Yitzchok Meir (Itcha) Katz, now principal of Gateshead’s Ateres High School, it was a turning point. He was 12 years old at the time, and Rabbi Fordsham assigned him a lengthy grammen solo in front of the large crowd. The prestige of the event is still marked indelibly on his mind.

“Being in the choir was the ultimate privilege,” he says. “It built you as a person, it gave you confidence. You were part of something proper, something special.”

“Even going to choir practice made us feel so special,” says Rabbi Katz. “Plus we got to perform at what we saw as high-end ticket events. We felt so chashuv.”

Ever the mechanech, Rabbi Fordsham also used the choir to imbue the boys with values and middos. Rabbi Benjy Morgan, CEO of the Jewish Learning Exchange in London, was a soloist in the choir in the 90s. At one event, there were over a thousand people in the audience, but Rabbi Fordsham had a rule: Soloists were not to hold the microphone like a music star. Just lean into it and sing your solo, he told them. “There was a balance there,” says Rabbi Morgan. “He taught us the importance of utilizing our gifts, but in a refined way.”

Teacher by Trade

Choirs and glamour notwithstanding, it was all really a side show to Reb Gershon’s day job as a teacher at Gateshead Jewish Boarding School, a position he held for sixty years. In the classroom — as in the choir — his originality and creativity left its mark on generations of talmidim.  He was interesting, using his trusty tape recorder to play story tapes, surprising the boys with prizes and even playing soccer with them when they deserved it.

“You know the teacher training courses where they ask you to name your most memorable teacher?” asks Rabbi Katz. “For me it was Rabbi Fordsham, hands down. He was the best teacher I had. His approach was completely ahead of his time.”

As an example of how beloved this rebbi was to his talmidim, Rabbi Katz remembers how he and his classmates would wait at the school gates to see Rabbi Fordsham leave his house (just down the block) to make his way to school for class, at which point they would race toward him, vying for the honor of carrying his briefcase.

Once, after returning from a visit to Toronto, Rabbi Fordsham brought a load of miniature shiny tools — piles of tiny wrenches, screwdrivers, and hammers were spread out across his desk. Rabbi Fordsham rewarded his talmidim one tool at a time, until they earned the whole set, teaching them the value of hard work and the satisfying reward that accompanies it.

“That was such an original idea,” says Rabbi Katz. “The fact that he was even thinking of us while on an overseas trip only made us admire him even more. But that’s how he was — he showed a genuine interest in us, and he was always genial, warm, kind and cheerful.”

Until today, Rabbi Katz remembers the Gemara rule that Rabbi Fordsham taught them: “Rava with an alef, Rabbah with a hei.”

Boys at the school were also coached in how to be a baal tefillah and how to lein. But it wasn’t just about learning the right tunes, it was more about the correct approach to davening: the kavod hatefillah, the clear and correct pronunciation of the words — these were lessons that he drummed into his young talmidim that would continue to serve them in life.

British Export

A new era in the choir’s development began when Reb Gershon’s son, Moshe Yosef, became of age, leading to the release of their second commercial album in 1991, 23 years after their debut record was released. Listeners had become used to seeing the Fordsham boys sing solos and duets at events, but Moshe Yosef in particular was bitten by the choir bug.

“The choir was a big thing in our lives, and since I was bar mitzvah it was my dream to produce an album,” says Moshe Yosef. Interestingly enough, although he was very at home in the contemporary Jewish music scene — having even put out a solo album of his own — his musical taste was firmly on the same page as his father’s.

“Whereas in most homes they were listening to Mordechai ben David, Avraham Fried, and Miami Boys Choir, in our house it was more like Belz with Reb Yirmiya Damen, Modzhitz, and Regesh. They were the influences in our home,” he says.

Traditional approach notwithstanding, Moshe Yosef aimed high as he planned the album.  “There were three arrangers in those days — Mona Rosenblum, Moshe Laufer, and Yisroel Lamm. I wanted to go with Mona but my father’s inclination was more toward Yisroel Lamm’s classical bent.”

Muscling into a Jewish boys’ choir scene then populated by the likes of Miami Boys Choir and Tzlil v’Zemer, the Fordshams prepared fifteen songs and sent them across the ocean to Yisroel Lamm, director of the Neginah Orchestra. Yisroel selected ten songs and arranged the musical scores, filling up almost all the tracks on the new 24-track multi-tape, the cutting edge of music production at the time.

Those were heady times for the nineteen-year-old British bochur, who spent two consecutive Pesach bein hazmanims with Yisroel Lamm, traveling with him daily from Flatbush to GB studios in Queens.

“We did the recording one year and the mixing a year later,” remembers Reb Moshe Yosef. “The funny thing was that Yisroel Lamm had almost no recollection of having designed our album cover back in 1968.”

Faxes were sent back and forth over the Atlantic as the maestro sent his instructions for the choir arrangements and harmonies. For Yisroel Lamm, a man whose client list at the time read like a who’s-who of the 90s Jewish music scene, this was a different kind of project — but he loved it.

“The compositions were very melodic. When I call the album ‘British,’ I mean that in a good way. The British had a taam, not only in the pretty European-sounding melodies, but also in the way they sang,” he says. “The Americans also like the accent, they find that charming, too.”

The final product became known as the “airplane album” on account of the cover artwork.

“Photoshop had just come out,” remembers Moshe Yosef, “and very few graphic artists were familiar with it.” But the ambitious producer found a design studio in nearby Newcastle that had the new technology. “By today’s standards the design was rudimentary, but back then it was exciting and new. It did the trick.” There was even a different cover designed for the American market, bearing the title “The British Are Coming.”

Providentially, the studio they used was located in the very same building as Morton Sounds, the studio that had recorded their debut album all those years earlier.

Dignity through the Decades

Although the choir is no longer a player on the world scene, Rabbi Fordsham hasn’t stopped. He releases small, cottage productions every year that are distributed locally, teaches boys to lein, runs the school minyan, and oversees the occasional performance by the school choir.

But among all his accomplishments, his legacy of imparting the dignity of tefillah remains paramount for him.

As he once told someone who asked if a chazzan of his experience prepares for Yamim Noriam. “I look it over,” he said.

“But you know it so well,” wondered the questioner. “Why do you need to prepare?”

“I do it for kavod hatzibbur,” Reb Gershon responded.

Sixty years after the last time his young voice rang out over the aisles of the Adass with all the pomp and pageantry of a British shul to dignify tefillah, Reb Gershon Fordsham is still singing from the very same song book.

In Good Hands

AS a true talmid of Reb Herschel Goldstein, Reb Gershon absorbed his rebbi’s lessons well, creating a movement in the world of Yamim Noraim baalei tefillah that is heavy on structure, form, and predictability and light on long chazzanish pieces.

It’s clearly a winning formula that continues to attract interest from all over the world. “My father’s recordings of his nusach have been sent to baalei tefillah as far away as Australia and South Africa and lots of other people in between,” says Reb Moshe Yosef.

So what’s the secret of his success? “Chazaras hashatz of Rosh Hashanah is very long, with extensive sections where the chazzan is all on his own, working his way through the pesukim,” says Reb Chaim Boruch Katz. “Some chazzanim will fly through it to get to the end. Or, like my father-in-law, you can create an experience that fully engages the crowd. And he achieves that because every single word has its precise place. From Hineni at the beginning to Hayom Te’amtzeinu, there is absolutely nothing left to chance. There are no surprises, no sudden change of tune — it’s beautifully laid out and utterly regimented with no change, year after year.”

That predictability lies at the heart of why the tzibbur engages so well. “The tzibbur want to feel secure, like they belong. When they know what’s coming next and anticipate that, it makes them engaged. They stop looking at the clock and get involved.”

Indeed, ask a Gateshead Yeshiva alumnus to describe Yom Kippur night and they might mention the way Reb Gershon executes his note-perfect Venislach. The same pasuk, repeated three times, but each time climbing slightly — almost imperceptibly — higher, eventually reaching its climax.

Another secret that helps draw in the tzibbur lies in the way his nusach naturally lends itself to the text and fits the words. For example, he’ll elongate the word “bechatzotzros” to denote its meaning, or give a little shake on the “vayanu’u.” “It’s not about complicated pieces that turn it into a show,” says Reb Chaim Boruch. “Rather it’s the warm, heartfelt and user-friendly nature of it, from which he never deviates.”

The effect this has on the tzibbur is that Reb Herschel’s age-old nusach continues to work wonders. “None of the other baalei tefillah I have heard over the years had the same effect on me,” he says. “Hearing the same nusach year after year, you get the feeling that it’s a work of art — that you’re in the hands of an expert.”

Recording the Rebbe

ITwas a Motzaei Shabbos during the late 1960s on Rechov Dizengoff in Tel Aviv. Reb Gershon’s grandfather, Reb Efraim Rosenfeld, lived across from the Modzhitzer shul, a veritable factory of Jewish composition. “I’d heard that that the Rebbe, the Imrei Aish, would compose twelve new songs each year, and I wanted to record all these wonderful tunes,” Reb Gershon recounts. “So I took my tape recorder (a big clunky machine) and set myself up under the window to record.”

The tish was still going strong as throngs of chassidim joined in the singing. Sitting under an open window outside, Reb Gershon’s machine whirred, drinking in the tunes wafting out of the building. But then a chassid stepped out and spotted him — and he was mighty displeased.

“The Rebbe would never agree to this,” he asserted to the young visitor. “All I want to do is to record the tunes!” protested the Englishman with the tape recorder. Sensing the sincerity of his desire to learn the Modzhitzer’s musical gems, the chassid’s face brightened. “You want to learn the tunes? Come to me tonight at nine.”

Reb Gershon couldn’t have asked for more. One song he learned that night was a haunting tune that he eventually put to the words Ani Maamim, released on his debut 1968 record, and rerecorded decades later on the Chaim Shel Tovah album.

To Reb Gershon’s delight, his rebbe, the Manchester Rosh Yeshivah, took a liking to the poignant tune. How did he discover this? “We once sang at a chasunah and while the choir was performing, the mic at the top table for the derashos was still on,” he remembers. The mic picked up the Rosh Yeshivah tapping the table to the rhythm, joining along with the choir as they sang. “People told me that he would sing it as he learned, too,” says Reb Gershon with a satisfied smile.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1031)