When the iconic Diaspora Yeshiva Band regrouped for a reunion concert at Lincoln Center this winter, it was more than just a nostalgic trip down the musical memory lane of the ‘70s and ‘80s. It was a fusion of a force that was the background music to the early teshuvah movement. Saturday nights on Mount Zion don’t rock like they used to, but those chords are still vibrating a generation later

The camaraderie in the second-floor dressing room at Lincoln Center is straight out of a yeshivah dorm: two white-bearded rabbis are stretched out on the couches, and a bouncy chassid is twirling in the middle of the room. Group leader Avraham Rosenblum is sprawled out on a chair, directing a flow of teasing about middle-aged weight gain, trading light-hearted barbs with beloved old friends — saxophonist Rabbi Simcha Abramson, drummer Gedalia Goldstein, violinist Ruby Harris, and guitarist Menachem Herman.

There is a knock on the door with a reminder that it’s time for the sound check and final practice run. The energy coursing through the concert hall with just minutes remaining until the curtain will rise on this year’s HASC 27 concert has seeped in through the open doorway, and the tempo in the room is upped by several notches. A few more stretches and yawns and the men rise to their feet, ready to rock.

It sounds like a joke: What do you get when you put a Breslover, a Lubavitcher, a Litvishe maggid shiur, a Baltimore businessman, and a Chicago blues violinist in a room? But the answer is utterly serious — in its own way, the Diaspora Yeshiva Band really is a microcosm of the Diaspora itself.

Song of the Courtyard

The baal teshuvah movement, as it would become known, was predicated on several historical factors, including the Holocaust, a rise in national pride following the Six-Day War, and general anti-establishment sentiment on campuses across America. Dedicated, visionary men and women established institutions and forums that would attempt to satiate the spiritual hunger of that first postwar generation, both in Israel and abroad. Looking back over four decades, the movement had its heroes, its iconic places, its great moments — and its music. Part of that soundtrack is the rhythm and harmony that reverberated off the stone courtyard adjoining King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion every Saturday night for a decade, from the mid-’70s through the mid-’80s. The songs were clearly influenced by the prevailing musical trends in a musical world the young men were leaving behind. These were the tools they had — the electric guitars, saxophones, and drums pounding out a prayer from an open heart.

There was no place more central to this ever-growing movement than holy Jerusalem, which drew young men and women seeking spirituality like a magnet — just as it has since the beginning of time. They came from all four directions to taste her sweet truths, and on Motzaei Shabbos, they would ascend Har Tzion to find their innermost dreams expressed by the shaggy-bearded, American-accented, dark-suited young men on stage.

But where had these singers heard the song?

Music and Comfort

Avraham Rosenblum’s parents brought a fractured family history into postwar Philadelphia. Both came from the cradle of European Torah scholarship — Vilna. They’d endured the Vilna ghetto, lost family members, survived as teenage partisans, and got married after the Holocaust in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. They eventually made it to America and settled in Philadelphia. Allen, the first Rosenblum born and raised in America, became bar mitzvah in a Conservative congregation in 1963.

The experience, although connecting him to tradition, didn’t impact him emotionally. Yet later that year when President Kennedy was shot — a defining moment for the young people of that era — the teenage Rosenblum was numb with grief, and he searched for solace… in a synagogue. For a few days following the assassination, he wore a yarmulke as an expression of his sorrow and felt profound spiritual relief.

He also found some degree of serenity in music — listening to it and creating it. He was drawn to all sorts of musical styles, but like so many others coming of age in the ‘60s, it was those groups whose songs echoed a spiritual message that occupied his mind and ignited his soul. He would immerse himself in the message, try to live it, and end up disillusioned and disappointed, perceiving that the words were just, well, words.

In 1969 he attended the Woodstock Music Festival with 400,000 other seekers, and in 1970, when Rosenblum was just 20, he started his own band, “Freehand,” which performed original songs and debuted at the famous Village Gate in New York’s Greenwich Village. The band did enjoy a successful five-day run, but then the promising young musician said goodbye to his astounded band mates and followed an inner sense that what he looking for was not going to be found in the Village or anywhere else on that scene. It wasn’t long afterward that his mother Edith and aunt Helene invited him to join them on a trip to visit cousins in Israel.

Rosenblum was hooked from the first moment. “The 1970s in Israel were the most glorious times. The country was less than 25 years old and that youthfulness filled the streets. It seemed like everyone was searching for something and discovering something new. I spent some time hitchhiking here and there, and I knew very soon that I wanted to stick around.”

He followed the traditional path and headed to the kibbutz registration office, eager to do his part by working the land and learning modern Hebrew. As he made his way down Tel Aviv’s Allenby Street, he passed by a small kiosk selling religious articles. A dark blue velvet yarmulke with silver trim caught his eye, and Rosenblum wore the head-covering as he continued to his destination.

After questioning Rosenblum’s lack of particular interest in going to a religious kibbutz, the bureaucrat handling the registration process sent the young American to Kibbutz Givat Oz, an agricultural settlement not far from Afula in the Jezreel Valley, an old-school left-wing Communist stronghold. He was greeted at the front gate by the kibbutz ulpan supervisor. The older man stood on his tiptoes, and peering through his half-glasses at Rosenblum’s head covering, said with a certain disdain, “You won’t need that here.” Not wanting to offend his hosts, Avraham Rosenblum slipped the yarmulke into his pocket, walked up the hill, and went to work.