{"id":31054,"date":"2023-10-10T15:24:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T19:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=31054"},"modified":"2023-12-07T16:54:42","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T21:54:42","slug":"who-by-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/10\/who-by-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO BY FIRE"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nRabbi Abba<\/span> <\/strong>Hillel Silver, pictured below, was the biggest Zionist to come out of Cleveland. If you know anything about American Jewish history, you know this guy. He and Rabbi Stephen Wise were the big Jews in the pre-WWII American rabbinate. Silver was the rabbi at The Temple –Tifereth Israel, a k a Silver\u2019s Temple. He lobbied for the state of Israel back when many American Jews were not too sure that was a good idea.<\/p>\n

My family belonged to Silver\u2019s Temple. The temple\u2019s official name was The Temple.
\n\u201cWhich temple do you belong to?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cThe.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cThe what?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cThe Temple. It\u2019s The Temple.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Temple\u201d morphed into The Temple-Tifereth Israel after the rabbi and his son (also a rabbi) died. My family didn\u2019t really fit in there in the 1960s, because many of the members were a lot richer, many from Shaker Heights. One Shaker kid arrived in a station wagon driven by a chauffeur with a shiny-visor cap.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Silver was a chochem<\/em> (wise man). He knew his stuff. And he hung with the guys from Telshe Yeshiva, too. The black-hat Orthos. He covered all the bases. What do I know? I was 13 when Rabbi Silver died.<\/p>\n

My younger<\/span><\/strong> son went through religious high school at The Temple. The place had mellowed by then. It wasn’t as snobbish. Nobody cared anymore if you were Deutsche Yehudim<\/em> \u2014 one of Cleveland\u2019s original German Jewish settlers. When my parents left Silver\u2019s, they went to Temple Emanu El, a middle-class temple in the \u2018burbs. My mom taught macram\u00e9 there and volunteered in the sisterhood gift shop. She collected \u201cdonor points\u201d for volunteering \u2014 points that reduced her admission costs to the annual temple dance.<\/p>\n

Yiddishe Cup has played some of these temple dances. Not so many lately because few people want to dance at temples. They\u2019d rather stay home and watch people dance on TV. We played a \u201cdance,\u201d sort of, last Saturday night. Simchat Torah. That was very low key because of the war. The rabbi and I decided the band would play a few Israeli tunes and dances. Nothing too wild.<\/p>\n

My parents joined the heymish<\/em> synagogue, Emanu El, after I was confirmed. (Heymish<\/em> \u2014 the word \u2014 should be banned, by the way. Too heymish<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

On the High Holidays, I went with my parents to Emanu El, or else with my friends to Hillel at Case Western Reserve. After Rosh Hashanah services, we\u2019d eat at Tommy\u2019s restaurant. I tried that again this year \u2013 the Tommy\u2019s part. You couldn\u2019t get into Tommy\u2019s this year after Rosh; it was jammed with yidn.<\/p>\n

Years ago an older woman told me, \u201cI joined Fairmount Temple because I like the music there.\u201d She had other reasons too: Brith Emeth didn\u2019t have enough money to spend on carpet, she said, and she liked Fairmount Temple\u2019s classic Reform music. That stuck with me: joining a temple for the music.<\/p>\n

Nowadays Fairmount is contemporary guitar-centric Jewish music, and I like the cantor, Vlad Lapin. My band played there last Friday night. That was lively. That was pre-war. (And don’t worry, we’re going to kick out the jams the next time we play.)<\/p>\n

I belong<\/span><\/strong> to Park Synagogue because, among other things, I like the music and the rabbi, who likes my band, which is scheduled to play Park Synagogue\u2019s holiday celebrations until 5800. I once played a holiday gig at another shul, where the rabbi left early to attend a rock concert. He said he was seeing a famous band downtown. I wasn\u2019t impressed. Hey, the rabbi was walking out on Yiddishe Cup! It\u2019s impossible to be a rabbi.<\/p>\n

Park Synagogue uses a choir once in a while. Some Jews think a choir is super-goyish. Not true. In Europe there were synagogue choirs as far back as the 1500s.<\/p>\n

Some temples have rock bands. (I have subbed in several rockin\u2019 shabbat bands.) Some congregants really enjoy that groove. My son the drummer got his start playing in a rockin\u2019 shabbat band at The Temple. Rock on.<\/p>\n

By the way, read Matti Friedman\u2019s book about Leonard Cohen playing for the troops in the Sinai in 1973. Who By Fire.<\/em><\/p>\n

I can<\/span><\/strong> see picking a shul for the music. Why not. I enjoy hearing my cantor, Misha Pisman, and I like the cantors my shul imports for the Rosh Hashanah overflow. Either way I\u2019m OK \u2014 main sanctuary (with the regular cantor) or overflow with the sub.<\/p>\n

I feel like playing music right now for the troops and the people of Israel. Am Yisrael Chai<\/em>, for starters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, pictured below, was the biggest Zionist to come out of Cleveland. If you know anything about American Jewish history, you know this guy. He and Rabbi Stephen Wise were the big Jews in the pre-WWII American rabbinate. Silver was the rabbi at The Temple –Tifereth Israel, a k a Silver\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shul-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31054"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31057,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31054\/revisions\/31057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}