He resurfaced stateside in Jacksonville, Florida.<\/p>\n
This was in 1926.\u00a0 Rabbi Benjamin fought the great Conservative-Orthodox civil war at the Cleveland Jewish Center, East 105th<\/sup> Street, in the early 1920s.<\/p>\n Rabbi Benjamin<\/strong><\/span> oversaw the construction of a huge new sanctuary, complete with a swimming pool, and was supposed to keep the shul<\/em> Orthodox.\u00a0<\/strong> He tried.\u00a0 But the Conservatives wanted him out.\u00a0 Punches were thrown.\u00a0 One of the punchers was a certain Philip Rocker.\u00a0 Check it out.*\u00a0 The rabbi left town.<\/p>\n The Cleveland Jewish Center, aka the \u201cPolish synagogue,\u201d aka Anshe Emeth Beth Tefilo, stayed at East 105th<\/sup> Street for a couple decades, then moved to a park-like setting in Cleveland Heights.<\/p>\n I belong<\/strong><\/span> to the Heights shul<\/em> — Park Synagogue.\u00a0 I do not see any signs of civil war.\u00a0 Very few congregants know about Rabbi Benjamin.<\/p>\n My rabbi doesn\u2019t fight — my guess.\u00a0 If he does, he\u2019s a welterweight.\u00a0 He’s not big.<\/p>\n Some rabbis<\/strong><\/span> play basketball.\u00a0 Several Cleveland rabbis played an exhibition basketball game at the Cleveland Cavaliers pre-game this month.\u00a0 There was no score in ten minutes.<\/p>\n Next year for the pre-game, the rabbis should reenact the Conservative-Orthodox civil war of 1921. * “Near [Rabbi Benjamin’s] house was Philip Rocker, son of Samuel Rocker of The Jewish World<\/em>. He waited for the rabbi and when he saw him he attacked him and beat him up quite severely.”\u00a0 From Jewish Life in Cleveland in the 1920s and 1930s<\/em> by Leon Wiesenfeld, 1965.\u00a0<\/small> THE JEWISH WEDDING BAND WARS, 2009 The Orthodox Jewish<\/strong><\/span> (OJ) music scene is centered in New York City, where most of the OJ gigs are.<\/p>\n An OJ band not based in New York is called an \u201cout of town\u201d band, even if the band plays its own hometown.\u00a0 There are a couple home-grown \u201cout of town\u201d OJ bands in Cleveland.<\/p>\n The Barry Cik Orchestra dominated the Orthodox Jewish Cleveland music scene in the 1980s.\u00a0 Cik had yikhes<\/em> (lineage), coming from a long line of distinguished Hungarian musicians.\u00a0 I played a couple gigs with him.\u00a0 His talented son Yehuda became an Ortho pop star.<\/p>\n Cik placed an ad in the Cleveland Jewish Times<\/em> (no longer in existence) in 1991 that read in part: \u201cI am as scrupulous in shimras Shabbos<\/em> [guarding the Sabbath] as I can be, and I don\u2019t believe that I\u2019m any less Shomer Shabbos<\/em> [Sabbath-observant] than most anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n Cik sometimes played for non-Orthodox Jewish simchas <\/em>(celebrations) with mixed dancing — men and women dancing together.\u00a0 Kol Simcha — the new band– typically didn\u2019t play for mixed dancing. \u00a0Kol Simcha picked up a chunk of Cik\u2019s frummer <\/em>gigs.<\/p>\n Several years later Simcha Mann\u2019s expert keyboard player, Yosef Greenberger, put together a one-man band, which cut into Kol Simcha\u2019s full-band wedding business.<\/p>\n Simcha Mann and Yosef Greenberger took their dispute to an unofficial beis din<\/em> (house of judgment), where three rabbis decided Greenberger could keep his one-band and Rabbi Mann could have the full-band scene. \u00a0The two musicians agreed not to cut into each other\u2019s turf.<\/p>\n This ruling<\/strong><\/span> held for 13 years, 1996 to 2009.<\/p>\n In 2009 Greenberger and Mann remembered the ruling differently.\u00a0 Greenberger recalled the rabbis saying the ruling was void if new competition came to town.\u00a0 Greenberger\u2019s Jewish-law counsel, his toyan<\/em>, backed him up in writing.\u00a0 Mann disagreed.<\/p>\n New bands were playing Cleveland.\u00a0 Yosef expanded to a full band.\u00a0 Orthodox bands from Columbus, Ohio, and Detroit came through.\u00a0 A young Orthodox musician started a new Cleveland Ortho band.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/home\/yiddis6\/public_html\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/civl-war-conservative-orthodox.jpg\" "\\"civl")
<\/a><\/p>\nRabbis don\u2019t get in fights like they used to, either.\u00a0 Does any rabbi don boxing trunks with the Jewish star?\u00a0 I think there is a Russian rabbi in New York who does. \u00a0[Yes, Yuri Foreman<\/a>. Photo: Foreman taking a punch from Miguel Cotto.]<\/p>\n
\n—<\/p>\n
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\nSIDE B<\/big><\/span><\/strong>
\n Jumping ahead about 90 years . . .<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>Barry Cik<\/strong><\/span> was superseded in Cleveland by the Kol Simcha Orchestra in the 1990s.\u00a0 Some bridal couples perceived Cik as not being frum <\/em>(religiously observant) <\/em>enough.\u00a0 The Orthodox world, in general, was becoming increasingly more ritually observant.<\/p>\n<\/a>Kol Simcha\u2019s<\/strong><\/span> drummer got in trouble for using treyf<\/em> (non-kosher) meat at his kosher Chinese restaurant, so he left town.\u00a0 Still, Kol Simcha — the band — stayed in business.\u00a0 The lead singer, Rabbi Simcha Mann, was a very good singer.<\/p>\n