The classic version of “Ani Maamin,” written by Yitzy Weisberg and Mutti Parness a”h, which was performed on Pirchei Volume III back in 1968. The melody is slow and warm, with long notes, and some high notes at the end of each part. This is reminiscent of the long, slow, hot days of summer, which are punctuated by a thunderstorm here and there. Also, part of the summer is taken up with the Three Weeks, when we mourn the Churban Beis Hamikdash, but more importantly, focus on the coming Geulah as well. The words of “Ani Maamin” are exactly what this time is all about.
Ani Ma’amin,“Ani Ma’amin” has become a musical legend in its own right, absorbing some of the timeless quality of the prayer itself to become an immovable classic for nearly 50 years.
With music on again for the final leg of summer, we asked several prominent readers and music professionals for a song that conjures up memories of summers long past
A Niggun to Greet Mashiach
By Dovid Nachman Golding August 7, 2019
It wasn’t long before it became the classic “Ani Maamin”
Several weeks ago, ArtScroll released an uplifting and inspirational book called Faith Amid the Flames, written by my brother Yosef Chaim Golding. The book is the life story of his father-in-law, Reb Yosef Friedenson — and while this isn’t a book review or even a plug, it is a story about the larger-than-life Reb Yossel that is so appropriate for these days.
The year was 1978, and Suki and I were about to release our first album with MBD — the Yom Tov album V’chol Maaminim. Although the songs were all based on the niggunim of the Yamim Noraim, we felt it needed a Yiddish song to round it out. It was during the Three Weeks, and my brother Yosef Chaim told me he was going up to White Lake to visit his father-in-law. I decided to join the trip, as I always felt close to Reb Yossel and his Rebbetzin Gittel. To be honest, no one made a better stuffed cabbage than she did, and who doesn’t have room for some delicious chaluptches?
When I got there, Reb Yossel asked me what I was working on. I told him about the album, and he immediately said “I have the perfect song for you!” He then stopped, looked me straight in the eye and added, “This is a holy song.” He was talking about “Habeit MiShmayim U’re’ei.” The lyrics were written by Reb Chaskel Rottenberg Hy”d, and the tune was composed by Reb Yosef Mandlebaum a”h, the gabbai of the Bobover Rebbe ztz”l. The niggun was sung in the concentration camps, specifically on the way to the gas chambers. We only used two of the verses (the song actually has four), but when MBD sang the song in the studio, the entire studio staff was mesmerized by this special niggun.
Once he arrived in America, Reb Yossel spent most of his life in the Agudah office writing about the gedolim who did and didn’t survive the Holocaust. I believe it was he who suggested to Rabbi Moshe Sherer that at the Siyum HaShas they should sing the famous “Ani Maamin,” which they’ve been doing ever since. Some of you are surely familiar with the dramatic story about the salvation of that particular Ani Maamin. But in speaking to my friend Reb Shaul Shenker, a nephew of Ben Zion Shenker a”h, not only did he confirm the story, he added information most people don’t know.
The niggun was written by a Modzhitzer chassid and baal menagen named Reb Azriel Dovid Fastag Hy”d, who composed it on the train to Treblinka. While on the train, eyes closed, he began singing the song to himself, and soon, the entire train had joined in with him. Reb Azriel opened his eyes and couldn’t believe it. In a choked voice, he cried out that he’d give half his portion in Olam Haba to whoever would bring the tune to the Modzhitzer Rebbe, Rebbe Shaul Yedidya Elazar Taub ztz”l, who had escaped Europe and was living in New York. Two young boys took the notes and jumped off the train. One was killed instantly, while the other miraculously made it to New York. He arrived at the Modzhitzer shul on the day the Rebbe was making a bris for a grandson. The Rebbe was sitting next to the Kopishnitzer Rebbe and Rav Hutner, and although all three were musically inclined, none of them knew how to read music notes. Fortunately, Ben Zion Shenker was there and was able to sing them the niggun. Everyone at the bris sang the song together, and it wasn’t long before it became the classic “Ani Maamin.”
The end of the story, which I was not able to confirm, was the Rebbe’s statement that with this tune they went to the gas chambers and with this tune we will march to greet Mashiach. Whichever tune it will be, let’s hope it will be soon.
“I would have taken that job for literally any price he suggested”
What Will Become of All the Memories?
By Riki Goldstein August 7, 2019
“That song always touched something deep inside me”
As the years go by and fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors remain to share their real-life testimonies, ensuring that their memories live on has become of paramount importance — especially during this time of mourning the Churban, with all its tragic historical ramifications.
That’s one reason Abie Rotenberg’s iconic Holocaust song, “Memories” — which speaks of the reality that although the memories of those who witnessed the destruction will eventually fade, G-d Himself will never forget His People’s suffering — is still so popular 30 years after it was released on Journeys II. In the song, an old man holds his grandson close as he reflects, “There once was another child, who smelled as sweet and felt as warm, but he was taken from before my eyes, and only I remained to mourn…. What will become of all the memories? Are they to scatter with the dust in the breeze? And who will stand before the world, knowing what to say, when the very last survivor fades away?”
Nine years after Abie’s original release, the song emerged again — this time as a duet sung by MBD and Avraham Fried at the second OHEL concert in 1998. That collaboration was the brainchild of the concert’s producer, Sheya Mendlowitz, and became a popular new rendition of “Memories.”
“That song always touched something deep inside me,” says Sheya, “and when I was planning the show, I felt that Mordche and Avremel’s voices would be perfectly suited to it. I invited them to my office and left them locked in for a few hours with the song. In the past, their duets had been spontaneous, but this time they worked out who would sing what and really learned their parts, practicing to perfection. On the original recording, the lines were divided up by Abie and Eli Kranzler, and Mordche and Avremel made the same divisions, based on the strengths of their respective voices. The result was very polished and very special.” But beyond polish, beyond the exquisite harmonies in the refrain, it’s the dual message of hope out of brokenness that continues to keep this a classic.
A great song - most people have no idea Abie was the composer
Story behind the Song: Rabi Akiva’s Eternal Words of Comfort
By Riki Goldstein August 7, 2019
"Comfort in generations to come, all the way to the Geulah sheleimah”
The assurance which Rabi Akiva offered his colleagues as they walked among the ruins of destruction, where foxes were roaming the holiest spot on earth — that just as the Churban predicted by the Neviim has come to pass, so will the restoration — continues to offer us reassurance so many centuries later. A powerful English song on Baruch Levine’s recent release, Peduscha, puts this message of hope into song.
While Rabbi Levine originally composed “Akiva Nichamtanu” using the Aramaic words of the Gemara, he realized that he could bring the comfort home to a wider audience in English, and Mrs. Ruchie Togrow has provided lyrics which are both moving and relatable.
“A number of years ago when one of my closest friends lost his father suddenly, he told me that this Gemara at the very end of Maseches Makkos was one of the only things that was able to bring him some level of comfort,” says Rabbi Levine. “That inspired me to publicize these words in song.
“We’re living at a time where Torah study is strong and vibrant, but there is so much suffering, sorrow, challenge, and despair lurking in the background,” he continues. “Surely Rabi Akiva’s colleagues were the greatest scholars and believers, and yet they allowed themselves to feel raw emotion and pain. The Gemara speaks of their crying and the way they tore their clothing. The great Rabi Akiva was able to comfort them, not by offering platitudes, but by showing them, through the words of our Prophets, that precisely the pain itself is the prelude to the Geulah. If Ravina and Rav Ashi decided to place the story in Shas, that means the message of seeing the comfort and hope through the pain itself is here for us today as well.”
After the song came out, Levine received a call from a listener, a talmid chacham who remarked that this song also answers why the Gemara repeats the words “Akiva nichamtanu” at its end. “The first ‘Akiva nichamtanu’ refers to the story itself, the reply of the Tannaim to Rabi Akiva,” he posited. “The second one is Ravina and Rav Ashi (many generations later) saying that Rabi Akiva’s words will bring us comfort in generations to come, all the way to the Geulah sheleimah.”
“A person can’t shteig with an all-or-nothing attitude”
Mood Mix with Rabbi Yehoshua Ottensoser
By Riki Goldstein July 31, 2019
Some of his camp’s favorite musical choices, and some of his own
M
usic is an integral part of the camp experience, the backdrop of summers both past and present. As Rabbi Yehoshua Ottensoser is spending his 13th summer as head staff at Camp Munk, he shares some of his camp’s favorite musical choices, and some of his own.
A song that always works to get everyone up and singing
On Friday night, the Carlebach classic “Yibaneh, Yibaneh, Yibaneh Hamikdash” used to be like a wake-up call. The last couple of years it’s been “Niggun Bobov” — composed by the Kedushas Tzion of Bobov ztz”l and recently re-released by Arele Samet — which today has become an instant stand-up-on-the- benches song.
The best camp kumzitz song
The classic “VeliYerushalayim” from Dveykus, and another “VeliYerushalayim” niggun composed in Camp Munk and not yet on any official album. (We’ve had a lot of beautiful music composed at Munk over the years, as both Shalsheles and Lev Tahor are groups of Munk guys. And Yisroel Lamm himself started off here. I think it’s our circus that gives everyone a chance to develop talent.)
What’s your all-time favorite album and why?
Miami Boys’ Choir’s Besiyata Dishmaya, a classic from the 1980s. First of all, at the time I knew some of the boys who sang on it. Second, the lead track is unforgettable and so uplifting. I think this was one of the key albums that raised the bar in Jewish music and set the tone for a lot of inspiring songs that followed.
A song that takes me back to yeshivah days
I was in Camp Na’arim (now called Bonim) for many years, and there we sang Shir Hamaalos to Rabbi Shmuel Kunda’s “Here Comes the Trolley.” That’s a tune we used in yeshivah too.
The song that takes me back to my own years as a camper
One summer in Camp Kol Reena, I think it was in 1980, there was a camp theme song to the tune of Kah Ribon. Thirty-nine years later, I can tell you every word of the lyrics of those five stanzas. Just start singing Kah Ribon…
A song that can calm any camper down
I wish I had one that really worked! But if you need to calm the campers, generally you can start a slow song, such as “Acheinu” or “Tov Lehodos,” and soon you’ll have the mood you want.
A song I consider under-rated
“Yisrael,” an English-language ballad sung by Dov Levine, a cry from Hashem to Am Yisrael not to get tempted away by the nations. It’s on the Kumzitz Classics album and is one of my favorite songs. [The tune is also used for “Shomer Yisrael.”]
What is Camp Munk’s musical highlight?
In the Camp Munk mesorah, Shabbos Chazon ends with a kumzitz of eight slow songs of yearning. We sing certain songs about Yerushalayim, and always include the Skulener Rebbe’s song “Zechor Davar Le’avdecha.” It’s a very beautiful time. Everyone joins in, even the most hardened campers.
Also, the whole concept of the Grand Sing was introduced in Camp Munk many decades ago, by Rabbi Yerucham Shapiro. The other Jewish camps took it from there.
A song with a funny camp story connected to it
During one color war, the song leaders from the two teams were Simcha Sussman and Yitzchok Rosenthal, later of Shalsheles fame. They both wanted to use a certain niggun for their song, and so it was decided that they’d flip a coin to see who would have the right to use it. Sussman won, leaving Yitzchok stuck, so instead he used a tune he had composed during the year. He didn’t think it was that good, but he’d lost the toss-up… and that tune became the Shalsheles classic, “Esa Einai.”
The perfect tune to borrow for a camp song or color war
I always tell the guys to keep it simple, then you can add harmonies and do shtick. If a song is too complex it’ll be hard to teach. Also, to use a more contemporary song, so you won’t have to teach it from scratch.
If only we could recapture that incredible feeling today
Back in the 1990s, there were some incredible songs about Mashiach, and one of them was “Baruch Haba Melech HaMashiach,” composed by Gershon Fraenkel and sung so memorably by Avraham Fried. I remember when it came out. I was a counselor in camp Gan Israel in Miami, and the air was simply electric every time that song was played. What Avraham Fried captured in that song, the lead track of his Shtar Hatnoim album, is that Am Yisrael is actually welcoming Mashiach. The song was on nonstop that summer. If only we could recapture that incredible feeling today.
We asked both veteran and younger singers and musicians which songs they personally never tire of playing and singing
Better Together
By Riki Goldstein July 24, 2019
It’s actually pretty rare for the Daskal brothers to collaborate professionally
T
he new single “B’yad Hayotzer,” sung by brothers Yanky and Shloime Daskal, is a song of pure trust in the One Who carries us in His arms through life’s often painful and convoluted pathways — “Ribbono shel Olam, ich bin in Deiner hent [I am in Your hands].”
While the song was released this past Lag B’Omer, Vizhnitz chassid and singer Yanky Daskal composed it last summer, during the week of parshas Masei, based on a vort he found in a parshah pamphlet.
“I was suddenly inspired by something I read there,” he recalls. “The Torah tells us the Jewish People stopped at many places on the journey through the desert, but emphasizes that they traveled at Hashem’s command — ‘al pi Hashem yachanu v’al pi Hashem yisa’u.’
“Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz ztz”l explains this with a mashal. There’s a person traveling, let’s say from Jerusalem to Ashdod. If you phone him and ask him where he is, he’ll tell you, ‘I’m leaving the city.’ Phone ten minutes later and he’ll say, ‘I’m at Shaar Hagai.’ Another ten minutes, and he’ll be somewhere else. But imagine he’s traveling with his wife and baby, and that the baby could speak on the phone. You call and ask him where he is, he’ll reply, ‘I’m in Ima’s arms.’ Ten minutes later, again ‘I’m in Ima’s arms.’ His geographical location is irrelevant — nothing else interests him as long as he’s in the secure embrace of his mother’s arms.
“The Yidden in the desert had that same feeling of security. They were completely surrounded by the Ananei Kavod. No matter where they were, they were in Hashem’s hands. I wanted to write a song about that absolute serenity which a person feels if he allows himself to feel that he is in HaKadosh Baruch Hu’s embrace.”
The tune came to him while he was visiting patients in Tel Hashomer hospital, and Yanky decided to add the words from the piyut sung on Kol Nidrei night — “Ki hinei kachomer b’yad hayotzer [We are in Your hands like clay in the hands of the potter]” to the Yiddish lyrics “Ribbono shel Olam, ich bin in Deiner hent… es brengt mir menuchah, veil ich bin in Deiner hent.” Because really, what better place than a hospital to realize how powerless we all really are, that our very life is in His hands?
The song went into hibernation until the following Kislev, when Yanky, who lives in Ashdod, came to Monsey for a wedding, and he attended a seudah made by his brother Shloime in honor of the yahrtzeit of the Bas Ayin. (Rav Elimelech Biderman had told Shloime to make this seudah in honor of the tzaddik Rav Avrohom Dov of Avritch, author of Bas Ayin, who died in Tzfas in the 1800s.) At the seudah, Yanky sang his new composition — and both Shloime and his guest, pianist and arranger Mendy Hershkowitz, were blown away.
“I was on the way to the wedding when my brother picked me up and said we were going to the studio to work on arrangements for the new song. We did do a little work on it, but then I flew back to Eretz Yisrael. The next week he called me to say he had sung the song at the bedside of a sick bochur, and it had offered real chizuk. Another musician who was present had offered to sponsor the recording and release of the song as a zechus for all Klal Yisrael’s cholim. We finished it the next time I was in the States.”
The brothers’ vocals are warm and synchronized, and Mendy Hershkowitz’s arrangements, with his signature piano playing, complete the track.
It’s actually pretty rare for the Daskal brothers to collaborate professionally, Yanky admits. “We both sing a lot, but as he’s in Monsey and I’m in Ashdod, we don’t get together too often.”
But twice is often enough. The other recent collaboration was on the hugely popular “V’hinei Hashem Nitzav Alav.” This contemplative and profound niggun, with words from the Baal HaTanya (Tanya, Chapter 41), was composed by the new Zutchka Rebbe of Bnei Brak, Rav Asher Yeshaya Rosenbaum, and originally released by Yanky Daskal.
“While his father was still alive, the current Rebbe once had to travel abroad. He was sitting in Ben-Gurion Airport —not the most modest environment — and learning from the sefer of the Baal HaTanya. And when he came to this line, ‘Behold Hashem, Whose glory fills the entire Earth is standing over him, testing his innermost heart if he is serving Him correctly,’ he composed the song on the spot. I heard it from the Rebbe — and he invited me to sing it.”
Yanky first recorded it in 2016, but the most popular rendition of the niggun is a clip from a wedding in the US that November, with Yanky and Shloime singing together, backed up by the Freilach Band. For two brothers who don’t get a chance to sing much together, with these two songs they still have a pretty good track record.
Every artist wants his album to be as perfect as can be, but sometimes he has to take a gamble. Is the song he’s deliberating over going to soar or flop? Is that last-minute replacement going to be dynamic or a sleeper? How do these entertainers know they made the right choice?
I Finally Got It
My song “Ani Yosef” from the Hearts Mind album was rewritten about five times. Each time, I left the song, and when I revisited it, it needed changes. The fifth time, we were almost up to recording when I rewrote the song again. I showed it to Yossi Green, but really I already knew myself that this was it — I had gotten it right.
