We All Get Another Chance
| March 12, 2014
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.
After a few weeks, Avraham, his roommate, and some other young Jews from Denmark decided to take advantage of a day off to travel to Jerusalem. Of course, they made their way to the Old City, absorbing the unique atmosphere, history, and culture. Sitting in an Arab coffee shop inside Jaffa Gate, they began discussing Jerusalem and what ultimate purpose it might make in their lives as Jews.
“You want to learn more about Judaism?” one of the Danish boys asked, and offered to take Rosenblum to Mount Zion, where a small enclave of American guys had “found the truth.” They made the short walk to the Diaspora Yeshiva and met the young, charismatic rosh yeshivah.
“Rav Mordechai Goldstein,” recalls Rosenblum, “had me at hello. I felt more at home there than I had in years.”
He spent his first complete Shabbos at the yeshivah, and ventured back to Givat Oz once more to retrieve his passport and belongings, and to say goodbye to the less-than-pleased administration. “We don’t know about people like you,” was the administrators’ farewell.
Musical Bookends
Avraham Rosenblum reflects on the energetic, forward-thinking young man of that time. “You know, back then, a 20-year-old was a man. I was already on my own, moving ahead, making my own decisions.”
Two weeks after arriving at the yeshivah, Rosenblum wrote his first Jewish song. Its lyrics, although simple at first glance, were a statement about the ache and longing of a generation, and the experience of finally coming to a place of fulfillment.
A little peace/A day of rest and ease/No more the race/Each man’s a king, but in his humble place
Shabbat Shalom/It’s nice to be at home/Shabbat Shalom/It’s nice to be at home!
Shabbat Shalom/You’ll hear your children sing/Shabbat Shalom /It means so many things
Like “Ima”/”Abba”…/The Torah — to make my soul to sing
Using few words, the song gives a sense of simple joy, of family, home… of Shabbos.
“It’s interesting how “Shabbat Shalom” became one of the Shabbos table hymns of the baal teshuvah movement, a song for a generation finding the meaning of home,” admits its composer. “I always felt that this song was complementary to Moshe Yess’s “My Zaidy”. “My Zaidy” is a longing to restore to us what’s precious from our past, and “Shabbat Shalom” is about finding the basis of our future. They’re like musical bookends.”
Shortly after composing the song, Rosenblum picked up his guitar and made a trans-Atlantic phone call, paying a dollar a minute, to share it with his parents in Philadelphia.
“My parents’ own formal Yiddishkeit was interrupted by the Nazis, but I was raised in a Yiddish-speaking environment that gave me a very strong cultural identity as a Jew. In fact, this was actually the basis for my own return. And my parents now understood that I was trying to restore something fundamental to our family and were deeply moved.”
Waiting for King David
The Diaspora Yeshiva’s learning was roughly in the style of Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim; the rosh yeshivah, Rav Goldstein, was a prime talmid of Rav Henoch Leibowitz ztz”l, and the talmidim — including those who had just begun to learn Torah — were taught to plumb the depths of Rashi, Tosafos, Rishonim, and Achronim. But the musical influences came mostly from the emotive sounds and searching lyrics of bands and rock poets of the late ‘60s and early ’70s, those prophets of antiwar sentiment and the search for world peace. The yeshivah’s proximity to Kever David Hamelech, The Sweet Singer of Israel, was a sign to these students who arrived on Har Tzion bearing their musical instruments, that they would somehow find a way to channel the vibrations of that holy harp through their own music and promote a Torah revolution.
“Remember,” quips Rosenblum, “BT stands for ‘Been There.’ Our music told the story of our own paths and invited people to travel along.”
But there wasn’t just one band at the Diaspora Yeshiva. Everyone, it seemed, was jamming with their roommates, chavrusos, and friends. The yeshivah spawned a number of musical collaborations and groups, and people used to say you had to play an instrument if you wanted to learn in Diaspora.
In the summer of 1972, Gracie, the sister of Avraham’s musical collaborator Yosil Rosenzweig, came to Israel from America with a New York salami for her brother’s friend. [Rosenzweig cowrote Diaspora’s Chassidic Song Festival classics “Hu Yiftach” (1977) and “Pitchu Li” (1980), but by the time Diaspora Band performed them, he was long back in Canada working as a kiruv rabbi.]
“We talked, and we talked some more. And soon we got married.”
In 1973, the young Rosenblum couple settled into a small Absorption Ministry apartment in Sanhedria Murchevet. One evening later that year, as the trissim were pulled down in the pitch-dark apartment due to an imposed blackout during the Yom Kippur War, Avraham reassured his wife with a new song (which, within the next decade, was to become another Diaspora classic):
“Lulei he’emanti… lir’os b’tuv Hashem… b’ertez chayim/Kavei el Hashem… chazak v’ameitz libecha… v’kavei el Hashem.”
Avraham continued to learn at the yeshivah’s kollel. As time went on, the growing number of spirit-seeking backpackers (plus newly-minted baalei teshuvah and even some yeshivah students) would make their way to Har Tzion outside the gates of the Old City for the fledgling band’s Motzaei Shabbos jam sessions in the courtyard of Kever David adjacent to the yeshivah. Many were intrigued by what they heard and felt, and subsequently were attracted to the yeshivah’s learning programs.
The Rosh Yeshivah welcomed them all, but his refrain was, “A ben-Torah first, a musician second.” He didn’t want the yeshivah to become a hotbed of musical achievement without the basics.
“I guess he was somewhat successful,” Rosenblum jokes. “Seriously though, what he did for us was tremendous. But as we grew in our learning and spiritual development, some of us were drawn in different directions; some to chassidus, some to Carlebach, some to more classic yeshivishe lomdus.”
At the HASC concert, one of the musicians overhears me discussing Diaspora, and the fellow stops me. He tells me about meeting up with a childhood friend in Israel about 35 years ago — a young man who was no longer religious. This musician correctly diagnosed his friend’s issues and understood that this was someone who could use a fix of the music on the mountain.
He schlepped his friend to one of the Motzaei Shabbos concerts and the visitor was captivated; this was a style of religious expression that suited him, actually moved him deeply. “I went home alone that Motzaei Shabbos,” the musician said. “My friend decided to stay overnight — and for the next 20 years — becoming one of the yeshivah’s serious lamdanim.”
On Stage
The official Diaspora Yeshiva Band was launched in a 1975 Chanukah concert at Beit Ha’am, the central Jerusalem auditorium where, ironically, the Adolf Eichmann trial had taken place 14 years before.
There was some discussion about what to name the group. “Some wanted to call it the Mount Zion Boys, but I felt that the Diaspora Yeshiva Band was right and true,” says Rosenblum.
Gracie Rosenblum coordinated the event and sold every last ticket. That early version of the band included Avraham Rosenblum, Shimmie Green, Ben Zion Solomon, Simcha Abramson, Yochanan Lederman, Moshe Shur, Chaim Dovid Saracik, Zvi Miller, Avraham Goodfriend, Beryl Glaser, Amram Hakohen, and more, but it was eventually cut down to a handful of players.
The late 1970s through the mid 1980s were the band’s glory days. Word had spread about “King David’s Melave Malka” concerts in NCSY circles and other Jewish youth movements, and busloads of American, British, and French teenagers would converge on Har Tzion every Saturday night — especially during the summers. The more conventional American yeshivah bochurim and seminary girls also reveled in the opportunity to tap into the joyous feelings that emanated from that stone courtyard. But it wasn’t only Americans. Every concert would find a group of Israeli soldiers in uniform, sitting on the cobblestones up front until they’d get up to dance in a circle of other-world energy.
Decades later, when Nachum Segal would welcome the Diaspora Reunion Band to the 2014 HASC concert stage, he’d admit, “It wasn’t just the baalei teshuvah to whom they gave their music; it was even to yeshivah kids like me.”
Legendary composer and songwriter Abie Rotenberg is backstage at HASC and he smiles wistfully when he learns who I’m covering. “I know people,” he says thoughtfully, “who live beautiful Torah lives, with children that are genuine talmidei chachamim, whose first steps in that direction were the result of the contemporary, but deeply sincere music that shook the walls in that ancient courtyard.”
In 1977, The Diaspora Yeshiva Band (Lehakat Yeshivat Hatfutzot) caught the attention of the wider public when they were invited to participate in the Israeli Chassidic Song Festival. The friendly competition between well-known, mostly secular Israeli vocal groups and performers — which ran from 1969 to 1984 — was a fixture of Israeli culture that crossed religious-secular barriers, spawning such classics as Adon Olam and Shma Yisrael. The competition was nationally televised; Diaspora was the first yeshivishe baal teshuvah band ever invited to perform.
Seizing the opportunity to make a good impression on Israeli audiences, the troupe of six kollel guys prepared for one of the country’s biggest annual musical events. The song they entered, “Hu Yiftach Libeinu” (emphasis on Hu) was selected because of the words, the beat, and the positive message it sent about learning Torah. The song had originally been cowritten by Avraham and his brother-in-law Yosil Rosensweig, but was reworked by Rosenblum to fit more contemporary Israeli musical tastes.
With their full beards, swinging tzitzis, tight vocal harmonies, and choreographed “chassidic” moves, they proved they were more than just a novelty act, energizing the crowds in Jerusalem, in Tel Aviv, and in Haifa — winning first place across the board.
The group from Har Tzion — which at that time included Avraham Rosenblum on guitar, Ben Zion Solomon on fiddle and banjo, Simcha Abramson on saxophone and clarinet, Ruby Harris on violin, mandolin, and guitar, Adam Wexler on bass, and Gedalia Goldstein on drums — was widely profiled in the general media, which invited additional interest in their Motzaei Shabbos sessions and drew even more traffic to the yeshivah.
“The image we presented,” says Rosenblum, “defied the stereotype of insulated yeshivah students. The Israeli public saw that we were happy with our lifestyle and had creative vitality. We weren’t depersonalized, cult-like zombies.”
The next year, 1978, the band (with the addition of Ted Glaser on guitar) was invited back to the festival. This time they chose to enter “Malchutcha,” written by outside composer Reuven Sirotkin, and won first place yet again.
The prize?
“A check. Enough for us to have some great shawarma and beer at a roadside stop near Bnei Brak.”
Doing the Diaspora
The year 1979 brought new frontiers. The Anglo community in Jerusalem was bursting, and word of the innovative group had spread back home to the States.
There would be a North American concert tour that year, the first of five, nine weeks in a motor home crisscrossing America and reaching Jewish souls in 26 cities. It didn’t yield much money for the group, but they picked up many other treasures.
Like Menachem Herman.
The musically gifted Canadian youngster from Winnipeg, Manitoba, heard the Diaspora Yeshiva Band play, and more than any kiruv session, the music exploded within him, shaking up his insides.
Two years later, as he was traveling with his friends through the back roads of Pennsylvania, he would once again encounter the religious musicians from Jerusalem. He recognized their faces, their sound, their message — and followed them back to Har Tzion, where he took his place, playing bass at their side.
It was at the beginning of one such tour in 1981, that tragedy struck. Just after the band settled in for the night at the New York City apartment of saxophonist Simcha Abramson’s parents, there was a call from Israel — it was Simcha’s friend and neighbor Reb Daniel Schultz. There had been a horrific gas explosion in Simcha’s family’s Old City apartment, which nearly claimed five lives — those of Malka, her visiting grandmother, and her three children. Malka ran back and forth through the flames three times, heroically saving them all — but at a terrible personal cost. She suffered third-degree burns over almost her entire body, and her chance of survival was given at just 10 percent.
With the perspective of hindsight — and a happy, courageous ending — Simcha recently reflected on that day. His wife was hospitalized for months and endured years of grueling and painful treatment. Ultimately, Chaya Malka’s faith and will to survive won out, and she and Simcha continued to build their family. Chaya Malka Abramson’s book, Who By Fire (Feldheim) is a diary of incredible Divine favor. Today, through her CM Burn Foundation, she teaches about fire safety and brings hope and inspiration to other burn victims.
“And I have perpetual hakaras hatov to Avraham Rosenblum,” Simcha says. “He was with me in New York during that difficult period when I got the news of my wife’s injuries until I boarded the plane home. He knew how difficult it was to be across the world while this was happening and how overwrought I was. Our friendship was forged in those moments, and until today he’s there for me.”
How Do You Know These Songs?
The beginning of the 1980s was marked with another reworked Rozensweig-Rosenblum hit: “Pischu Li Shaarei Tzedek” (“Open, open up the gates of righteousness. Let me in, to worship Hashem”).
Menachem Herman, recording artist, bandleader, and master of the guitar, recalls the era.
“Those were the years of plenty; we had everything. Not money — no one had any, but we were happy. The teshuvah movement was in full swing and those were times of peace. Musically, crowds felt our love for them and showed up faithfully, winter or summer.”
But families grew, interests developed and changed, paths spread out, and by 1983, the Diaspora Yeshiva Band had scattered.
They had recorded six albums together, but over the next 30 years, they would pursue separate paths, staying in touch as friends, but playing together infrequently.
The leader, Avraham Rosenblum, pursued semichah and rabbanus, eventually moving to Baltimore, Maryland in 1988 to serve as director of the Jewish Collegiate Network, a college campus kiruv organization. After a few brief Diaspora Yeshiva Band reunion tours in the 1990s, and two subsequent solo albums of his own, Avraham’s daily business became life insurance and financial services. He still does concert performances to delighted audiences and loves to “jam” with today’s greatest fans — his grandchildren.
Other former band members and associates, such as fiddler Ben Zion Solomon and songwriter Rabbi Moshe Shur, have achieved musical acclaim on their own. Violinist and multi-instrumentalist Ruby Harris is a legend on the Chicago Klezmer and Blues scene. Gedalia Goldstein is a Lubavitcher chassid living in Bnei Brak, father of several shluchim, and does drum therapy sessions with special-needs children. Rabbi Simcha Abramson is still living the dream as a rebbi at the Diaspora Yeshiva. Music isn’t a formal part of his life anymore, but sometimes he’ll join with the younger men when they sing one of the Diaspora classics as they look at their white-bearded rebbi in surprise. “How do you know these songs?”
We’re All Part of It
This appearance at HASC 27 is special. It’s been over 20 years since the band performed its last sell-out reunion concert in Carnegie Hall, and tonight, the Har Tzion sound will once again be heard. Diaspora excitement fills the air. Standing in the empty hall preconcert and watching the entire concert lineup practice the finale — a medley of songs featuring the hits of each of the evening’s performers — is nice. It includes the usual suspects — “Yesh Tikva,” “Yalili,” and the like — but when it swings into “Malchutch” it’s impossible not to feel the surge. The performers themselves are dancing and even the very imperturbable Ding (aka David Golding), the show’s producer, does a little spin.
Nachum Segal, watching along with me, is visibly energized.
The popular radio host is an unabashed fan. “Diaspora,” he rhapsodizes, “is greater than the sum of its parts. Each one is an exceptional talent, but together? They are the first real Jewish group to complement each other in order to create something unique.” Tonight’s band members are all original, except for one — bassist Shmiel Ramras — filling the shoes of a number of predecessors.
Watching the band members circulate before the show, I am amazed at how unguarded they are, as if they truly don’t realize what they represent. Gedalia Goldstein, a tall, distinguished chassid with a white beard, resplendent in his chassidic kapote, introduces himself to Benny Friedman, likely 40 years his junior and very much a singer of today. “I’m a huge fan,” says the drummer.
Back to the dressing room for a final session. Rosenblum runs through some last-minute instructions. Simcha Abramson sits on the side, lost in thought. Tonight’s concert is personal for him — he and his wife have a special-needs daughter, 21-year-old Chassya — and playing for an organization such as HASC is especially meaningful. “They’re going to flash a picture of Chassya on the screen when we play. I’ll probably cry.”
I ask which songs they’ll be performing and the answer surprises me. “Pischu Li” and “Hafachta” (composed by Rabbi Moshe Shur) are known hits but the third selection, “Lo Es Avoseinu” (by Yosil Rozensweig) isn’t generally considered one of the must-plays.
Menachem Herman, a Breslover chassid, has a fire in his eyes. “Our music ushered in the baal teshuvah movement, it’s true, but something huge has changed since then. When we started, the parents weren’t religious and the kids wanted in, they were burning with zeal for Yiddishkeit. Today,” his voice drops, “we have the opposite situation, the parents are committed and the children struggle. The words of this song, from the Haggadah, tell us that the Geulah wasn’t just for the generation redeemed but for their children. To look out at and tell the crowd that ‘af osanu ga’al,’ we’re also part of this, the children… not just the parents, is the call of the hour. The children have become so cold. We need to warm them up.”
Simcha Abramson appears elevated, as if in another realm. I wonder if he’s reflecting on the passage in his wife’s gripping book, where she describes the first Pesach Seder following the incident:
On Pesach night, as we sat around the table reunited as a family, I read from the Haggadah: Not only our forefathers did Hashem redeem, but he redeemed us too.
Although what I experienced was an insignificant moment in world history, nevertheless, the festival of Pesach had great personal significance for me; it marks the beginning of my personal redemption. (Who By Fire, p. 129)
Before the men step out to face the bright lights, I ask one final question, deeply moved by all the flow of interpersonal warmth in the room. “Can you make music together with people you don’t like?”
It’s Reb Simcha who answers. After a few moments of silence, his blue eyes gleam. “It depends for how much!”
And they are off.
You Made Me Dance
Predictably, the crowd cannot get enough of the group. Backstage, Diaspora is being accompanied by stamping feet, dancing, singing, and clapping. They have electrified Lincoln Center.
You brought me up when I was down/Oh yes You did
And filled me up with a brand new sound/Oh yes You did
You let the sun shine on my mind/And You made me dance
You taught me joy so I could find/That we all get another chance…
(Na na na na na na na na…)
Hafachta mispedi l’machol li…
As I watch this river flow/Out into the sea
I think about where I’ve been/And where I’m gonna be.
I listen to the river’s sound/As the water moves along
I’ve been by this river so many times/I just never heard her song.
Hashem Elokai l’olam odecha…
Rosenblum leads the audience in a chant of the refrain, “We all get another chance. Yes, we all get another chance…”
But later on in the show, after they have come off the stage, something magical happens. An anonymous audience member, moved by a video of HASC’s accomplishments, has pledged a substantial amount of money — $300,000 — to build a bunkhouse, and along with it comes a request. He wants Diaspora to come back out and play “Ivdu es Hashem b’Simchah.” Ding conducts a quick huddle and it’s decided. Rosenblum is clearly excited by the challenge. They will go out there and do it without benefit of rehearsal, joined by Avraham Fried, Benny Friedman, and 8th Day!
The good men from Diaspora Yeshiva Band are doing it all over again, jumping, singing, clapping and somehow, caressing instruments and making magnificent music. Nachum Segal stands in the stage doorway and watches the violinist wide-eyed. “Ruby is on fire!” he exclaims.
Ding nudges the radio host toward the stage. “Get out there Nachum, you deserve it.”
Like a child prodded into a candy store, Nachum doesn’t hesitate and hurries out to join the festivities on stage. It is, as they say in yeshivish, a “matzav” out there.
Rabbi Moshe Shur’s classic song winds down, the audience is still applauding, and the breathless Diaspora members exit the stage, their faces aglow. It’s as if the decades since their last performances never happened, as if they never went in different directions, as if they still do this together every week.
Simcha Abramson meets my gaze and says softly, “This is who we are. This is who we always were. Now you know.”
Like all of us, like the song they sing, Diaspora has, thankfully, had another chance.
(Originally featured in Mishapacha, Issue 501)
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