{"id":2555,"date":"2010-11-19T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=2555"},"modified":"2023-12-28T13:41:44","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T18:41:44","slug":"the-esther-isenstadt-orchestras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/19\/the-esther-isenstadt-orchestras\/","title":{"rendered":"THE ESTHER ISENSTADT ORCHESTRAS"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nBass player Esther Isenstadt<\/strong><\/span> ran classified ads in the back of the Cleveland Jewish News<\/em> in the 1970s and 1980s: “Sophisticated music for discriminating people” . . . “Leave your records at home and bring LIFE to your party” . . . “From ‘The Hora’ to ‘Beat It.'”<\/p>\n

Esther was gigging regularly when Yiddishe Cup started in 1988.\u00a0\u00a0 I didn’t run into her.\u00a0 She was working the senior-adult circuit, while Yiddishe Cup was doing the glam jobs: bar mitzvahs and weddings.\u00a0 Esther was not a klezmer musician.\u00a0 She played mostly classical and pop — and some Jewish.<\/p>\n

When I eventually met Esther, she was in The Weils assisted living facility. She was 86 (2003).\u00a0 She approached me after a Yiddishe Cup senior-adult program to say hello.\u00a0 I told her I knew of her.\u00a0 She smiled. I had one of her songbooks; I said I bought it used at the Cleveland Music School Settlement.\u00a0 She smiled again.\u00a0 Then she didn’t smile. She said, “I never thought I’d end up here!”<\/p>\n

\"\"Ed Preisler —<\/strong><\/span> another Weils resident — chimed in, “I came out here to die.” (Ed died six months later.)\u00a0 Ed was the 1946 Ohio Amateur Golf Champion.<\/p>\n

Ted Bonda, the former owner of the Cleveland Indians, was also there. \u00a0I switched gears; I asked Ted, Ed and Esther — and the other people schmoozing after the program — if they knew Mickey Katz.\u00a0 One resident knew Mickey from Yale Avenue, Cleveland; another, from Berkshire Road, Cleveland Heights.<\/p>\n

I asked the group<\/strong><\/span> if they were familiar with the word kile <\/em>(hernia).\u00a0 Nobody knew it.\u00a0 That was surprising.\u00a0\u00a0 Kile <\/em>is the punch line in Mickey Katz’s song “16 Tons [of Hard Salami]” . . .\u00a0 “The balebus <\/em>(boss) promised me a real gedile<\/em> (glory), instead of geldile<\/em> I catched me a kile <\/em>(hernia).”\u00a0 The Weils was apparently not heavy-duty Yiddishists.<\/p>\n

\"Esther<\/a>

Esther Isenstadt teaching ESL, 2000<\/p><\/div>\n

Esther Isendstadt had played in four suburban orchestras, raised a family, taught elementary school, led party bands and taught ESL in “retirement.” She was a Glenville High graduate, as were Bonda and Preisler. Glenville High was where Jewish overachievers went to high school in the 1930s. [John Adams High students — like my parents — would have disagreed with that. John Adams, in the Kinsman neighborhood, was more proste<\/em> (working-class) than Glenville, but equally proud.]<\/p>\n

I learned “Shir Lashalom” (A Song of Peace) from Esther’s book.\u00a0 That tune was a must-play in 1995 — the year Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.\u00a0 The lyrics were in Rabin’s pocket when he got shot.<\/p>\n

Esther had rubber-stamped<\/strong><\/span> Esther Isenstadt Orchestras <\/em>on every other page of the used song book. \u00a0A Jewish bandleader with a rubber stamp.<\/p>\n

I got a rubber stamp.<\/p>\n

Esther died last month at 93.<\/p>\n

There weren’t many bands with names like the Esther Isenstadt Orchestra in the 1970s.\u00a0 There still aren’t.<\/p>\n

\"CJN<\/a>

CJN 1984<\/p><\/div>\n

—-<\/span>
\nIllustration by Ralph Solonitz<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Bass player Esther Isenstadt ran classified ads in the back of the Cleveland Jewish News in the 1970s and 1980s: “Sophisticated music for discriminating people” . . . “Leave your records at home and bring LIFE to your party” . . . “From ‘The Hora’ to ‘Beat It.’” Esther was gigging regularly when Yiddishe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleveland-full","category-klezmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2555"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31279,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions\/31279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}