{"id":5618,"date":"2011-07-20T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-20T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=5618"},"modified":"2012-03-31T18:14:05","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T22:14:05","slug":"old-shul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/20\/old-shul\/","title":{"rendered":"OLD SHUL"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Zemach Zedek,<\/strong><\/span> on Lee Road by the old Cleveland Heights post office, is the only storefront shul left in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

I was in Zemach Zedek (Z.Z.) a few months ago with my cousin\u2019s teenage son Aaron, who was visiting from Kansas City.\u00a0 Aaron is Orthodox and wanted to go to morning minyan <\/em>(quorum).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Zemach Zedek, aka Z.Z.<\/p><\/div>\n

Because I\u2019m a lefty, I needed left-handed tefillin <\/em>(tefillin).\u00a0 The nine other guys in the minyan<\/em> had to scramble for lefty tefillin<\/em>.\u00a0 (Lefty tefillin <\/em>are wrapped different than righty.\u00a0 Fact: Lefty tefillin<\/em> go on the right arm.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Z.Z. in Hebrew<\/p><\/div>\n

Afterward,<\/strong><\/span> I asked Aaron if he wanted to go back the next day to daven<\/em> (pray). \u00a0He said, \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody there speaks English.\u00a0 It was like Europe or something.\u201d\u00a0 So we went to Green Road, to a Modern Orthodox shul.<\/p>\n

I knew the rabbi at Z.Z.\u00a0 Rabbi Kazen.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t there. \u00a0He was living with family in New York, I heard.<\/p>\n

Chabad-Lubavitch \u2013- headquartered in New York \u2013- had sent Rabbi Kazen out to Cleveland in 1953.\u00a0\u00a0 Rabbi Kazen was a shochet<\/em> (ritual slaughterer) at Coventry Poultry while running the shul.\u00a0 Coventry was the last live kosher poultry market in Cleveland.\u00a0 (Rabbi Kazen was involved in a few\u00a0 “lasts.”) \u00a0 Coventry Poultry closed in 1995 to make way for a parking garage.\u00a0 My wife, Alice, did a photo project on Rabbi Kazen in 1980:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Zalman Kazen, shechita knife and chicken<\/p><\/div>\n

I admired <\/strong><\/span>Rabbi Kazen.\u00a0 He drove a school bus — often filled with Russian immigrants — and lived on Glenmont Road in the student area.\u00a0 He appeared to be the emes<\/em>: the real thing.\u00a0 He fed the poor and was usually in a good mood.\u00a0\u00a0 Rabbi Kazen looked like\u00a0Menachem Schneerson, the late head rabbi of Chabad.\u00a0 (No biggie. Half of Chabad looks like Rabbi Schneerson.)<\/p>\n

I first heard the word freylekh<\/em> at Rabbi Kazen\u2019s in 1978.\u00a0 A davener<\/em> (worshipper)\u00a0 said to Rabbi Kazen, \u201cYour daughter\u2019s khasene<\/em>, rabbi, it should be freylekh<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

What?<\/em> I didn’t understand the Yiddish \u201cpunch line.\u201d<\/p>\n

I guessed <\/strong><\/span>the first part correctly (chasene<\/em>) <\/em>from the context. <\/em>Wedding<\/em>.\u00a0 [Years later, an Orthodox woman said to me, \u201cDoes Yiddishe Cup play chasenes<\/em>?\u201d I said, \u201cYes, we\u2019ve played for Hadassah.\u201d <\/em> She said, “Chasenes<\/em>!”]<\/p>\n

I asked the davener<\/em> at Rabbi Kazen’s what freylekh<\/em> meant.<\/p>\n

Freylekh<\/em> is \u201ccheerful, lively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freylekhs <\/em>is also a klezmer term for a lively fast dance.\u00a0 I say \u201cfreylekhs\u201d a lot now. \u00a0I announce: \u00a0\u201cThe band is going to play a freylekhs<\/em>, hora, \u2018Hava Nagilah\u2019 medley . . . whatever.\u201d\u00a0 And we hit the downbeat.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Kazen <\/strong><\/span>died last week at 92\u00a0 in New York.<\/p>\n

Strike up a freylekhs<\/em> — and a “Chicken Dance” lick — for Rabbi Kazen and Z.Z.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zemach Zedek, on Lee Road by the old Cleveland Heights post office, is the only storefront shul left in Cleveland. I was in Zemach Zedek (Z.Z.) a few months ago with my cousin\u2019s teenage son Aaron, who was visiting from Kansas City.\u00a0 Aaron is Orthodox and wanted to go to morning minyan (quorum). Because I\u2019m […]<\/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-5618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shul-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618","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=5618"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9020,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions\/9020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}