Echoes of song, fragments of emotion, wisps of memory. It’s a melody that still replays in your mind, years after its chorus first captured your heart.

What’s that tune that, when you hear it, brings you back to another place, time, and association? Or perhaps it’s an old, long-forgotten Jewish song, maybe one that never conquered the limelight but conquered your neshamah?

We asked readers and public figures to share some of those memories intertwined with old and forgotten songs — because when it comes to a niggun, past and present merge into a timeless inspiration

Yisroel Brown, Manchester, England

Song of My Heart: “Bobinyu”

Album: Brooklyn (8th Day)

My mother spent the last few years of her life in Heathlands, a nursing home in Manchester. My wife and I and children used to visit her quite often. Because of the title of the song, one of my children put the song onto a phone and we used to play it for her. She loved the song, and sang along to it, and knew nearly all the words. However, she always got two words wrong. Instead of singing “my shtetl’s calling,” she sang “my sheitel’s falling,” which had us all in hysterics. She passed away in Sivan, four years ago, at the age of 92. The song will always have special memories for me.

Yisroel Brown, Manchester, England

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 710)

Echoes of song, fragments of emotion, wisps of memory. It’s a melody that still replays in your mind, years after its chorus first captured your heart.

What’s that tune that, when you hear it, brings you back to another place, time, and association? Or perhaps it’s an old, long-forgotten Jewish song, maybe one that never conquered the limelight but conquered your neshamah?

We asked readers and public figures to share some of those memories intertwined with old and forgotten songs — because when it comes to a niggun, past and present merge into a timeless inspiration

S.G., Lakewood, NJ

Song of My Heart: “The Return”

Album: No Jew Will Be Left Behind (Avraham Fried)

There’s a beautiful Fried song that never seems to have gotten publicity. It has a haunting instrumental intro and emotional lyrics and melody, and I’ve loved it since I was a kid: “The Return” — featured on his first album. (“Open your heart, Hashem awaits to enter… His helping Hand will bring you ever higher, and lead you on the road to your return…”) I recently found out that the composer was a good friend of Avraham Fried, Shmuly Goldman. It’s baffling that people don’t know this song.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 710)

Echoes of song, fragments of emotion, wisps of memory. It’s a melody that still replays in your mind, years after its chorus first captured your heart.

What’s that tune that, when you hear it, brings you back to another place, time, and association? Or perhaps it’s an old, long-forgotten Jewish song, maybe one that never conquered the limelight but conquered your neshamah?

We asked readers and public figures to share some of those memories intertwined with old and forgotten songs — because when it comes to a niggun, past and present merge into a timeless inspiration

Boruch Leff, Baltimore

Song of My Heart: “Bonai”

Album: Bonai (Nochi Krohn Band)

I’d choose this amazing yet little-known song sung by the sweet and sincere voice of Reb Yosef Karduner, which describes Hashem Yisbarach’s reaction to our good deeds and His ongoing encouragement to us. It captivated me the first time I heard it. As I listened a few more times, I thought that the majestic and beautiful words must have been taken from one of the sifrei mussar or chassidus. However, my research has concluded that all the words were actually written by the composer, Reb Nochi Krohn himself, based on words found in Chazal.

Get a hold of the song, turn it on, close your eyes, and allow the words to penetrate to your essence. “Mi shehu oseh mitzvah achat, meivi geulah l’olam…”

Here is a loose translation: “My precious children! My important children! The entire world exists and continues to exist only for your actions. Never stop, always fortify and strengthen yourselves!”

Is that not one of the best and most meaningful lyrics ever written? The best part is that Hashem really feels that way about us.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 710)

Echoes of song, fragments of emotion, wisps of memory. It’s a melody that still replays in your mind, years after its chorus first captured your heart.

What’s that tune that, when you hear it, brings you back to another place, time, and association? Or perhaps it’s an old, long-forgotten Jewish song, maybe one that never conquered the limelight but conquered your neshamah?

We asked readers and public figures to share some of those memories intertwined with old and forgotten songs — because when it comes to a niggun, past and present merge into a timeless inspiration

Moshe Brog, Lakewood, NJ

Songs of My Heart: “My Dear Nicholai”; “Yakob”

Albums: JEP Volume II; Reb Yom Tov Ehrlich / Yiddish Gems Volume I

There are two deeply stirring songs that I’d like to hear played again today. Both seem emblematic of the longings and struggles that a Jew experiences. And both are displays of lyrical genius.

One is “How are you, my dear Nicholai” from JEP, the letter to a Russian child from a Brooklyn child who empathizes with the Russian child’s deep emotional pain and yearning for true connection to Hashem, and shares his own emotional high of a Torah-infused day. The sweet voice, the feel of a personal letter read aloud, make the song transcend the bounds and limitations of cool intellect into the heartfelt realm of deep feelings and yearnings of connection.

The other is Reb Yom Tov Ehrlich’s “Yakob” — a ballad that transports you to the depths of a bochur’s loneliness on the isolated fields at night to the emotional tsunami a local marriage proposal created within him. It lets you feel the battle of the forces of sweet temptation versus emes, and reaches a crescendo in the eventual triumph of what is right and what is good, ending with his dramatic escape.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 710)

Echoes of song, fragments of emotion, wisps of memory. It’s a melody that still replays in your mind, years after its chorus first captured your heart.

What’s that tune that, when you hear it, brings you back to another place, time, and association? Or perhaps it’s an old, long-forgotten Jewish song, maybe one that never conquered the limelight but conquered your neshamah?

We asked readers and public figures to share some of those memories intertwined with old and forgotten songs — because when it comes to a niggun, past and present merge into a timeless inspiration

Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz

Song of My Heart: “Shimru Shabsosai”

Composed by: Rav Yisroel Belsky ztz”l

Recorded by: A-Team, Levi Falkowitz and Shira Choir

A song that I wish the world knew? “Shimru Shabsosai.” My shver, Rav Chaim Yisroel HaLevi Belsky, composed several songs, and this is one of them. A flicker of his tremendous love and depth of avodah for Shabbos Kodesh can be felt in this zemer. It was one of his many compositions, which he sang every Shabbos. Fortunately, the niggun was made public after his passing in 2016, so those of us familiar with it could hold on to the memory.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 710)

Echoes of song, fragments of emotion, wisps of memory. It’s a melody that still replays in your mind, years after its chorus first captured your heart.

What’s that tune that, when you hear it, brings you back to another place, time, and association? Or perhaps it’s an old, long-forgotten Jewish song, maybe one that never conquered the limelight but conquered your neshamah?

We asked readers and public figures to share some of those memories intertwined with old and forgotten songs — because when it comes to a niggun, past and present merge into a timeless inspiration

Yisroel Besser

Song of My Heart: “Modeh Ani”

Album: London Boys Choir

T

his song from the early 1970s is personally meaningful to me, because it was composed by my uncle, Mr. Doody Rosenberg of London, but that’s not the only reason. Musically, it’s sophisticated, an emotional journey, and of course, like all London Boys’ songs, it’s blessed with Yigal Calek’s stamp of brilliance on the arrangements and presentation. Our minhag is not to say the Ribon Olamim tefillah between “Shalom Aleichem” and “Eishes Chayil” on Friday nights, so the words, which are taken from there, are even more precious since I don’t get to articulate them each week. It’s the idea of thanking Hashem for what He’s done and also for what He will do for us and our families. It’s the emotion of Friday night before Kiddush, gratitude at what was and hope at what will be. Ultimately, though, it probably comes down to what, I’ve discovered, lies at the heart of most favorite songs: nostalgia, a longing for people who are no longer with us, happy memories. Modeh ani lifanecha.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 710)