A Culturally Important Ukraine Jewish Music Connection

VIDEO REVIEW

Imake a point of listening to archived Livestream or YouTube Festival services from some of my favorite congregations around the country. Particularly moving and relevant to world affairs is the recording of the Eighth Day of Passover Hallel (the Psalms 113-118 recited on festivals) from Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield. With impeccable taste and winsome vocal talent, Hazzan David Propis, accompanied by a fine pianist and impressive octet choir, seamlessly offers traditional, longtime popular, classical and contemporary renditions of these psalms and the liturgical blessings that introduce and conclude them.

Besides the wonderful musical settings, this video offers an impressive glimpse into Shaarey Zedek’s soaring and arresting bimah (1962), adorned by strikingly crafted marble, wood and glass, designed by masterful synagogue architect Percival Goodman.

It highlights the triangular motifs throughout the sanctuary and the large halls that open into it. The expansive interior is most conducive to social distancing for everyone, including the choir. I would be remiss if I did not mention the fine sermons available by the rabbis of the congregation, especially a Pesach Yizkor service by Senior Rabbi Rabbi Elliot Aaron Starr, who discusses memory

B. Gertel and blessing, the themes of a particular psalm that is our focus here. Particularly stunning is Hazzan

Propis’s introduction, at the 3:08 point in the Hallel video, to Hashem Zechoronu (“God has been mindful of us and will bless us,” Psalm 115:12-18), is a rousing 19th-century composition with a deep Ukraine connection. That composition, which ends with a stirring “Hallelujah,” was the work of David Nowakowsky (1848-1921).

Born in Kiev, Nowakowsky became choir director of the Brody Synagogue in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1869, at the age of 21, and remained there until his death in 1921. The story of the Brody (Brodsky) Synagogue is itself fascinating. On the shore of the Black Sea, Brody was a center of shipping and culture. Its merchants frequently traveled to Berlin and experienced Jewish enlightenment in cultural tastes and religious thought. When Brody merchants moved to nearby Odessa because of its vast harbor, they established their own synagogue in Odessa and named it after Brody. The Brody synagogue was led by a prominent German rabbi and by the legendary cantor Nissim Blumenthal.

After Nowakowsky became choir director, the combination of magnificent music, the cantor’s voice and the modern sermons of the rabbi attracted visitors from all over the world, Jews and gentiles alike.

Cantor David Lefkowitz has written: “More than any other synagogue composer before him, Nowakowsky was able to enhance the ancient melodies in a modern European harmonic and contrapuntal framework without obscuring the traditional character of these chants … The whole atmosphere, which created a cultural Zionism, is vividly alive in the music of Nowakowsky; and that skillful blending of two worlds to build and enhance Jewish tradition is representative of what we consider the modern ideal today.”

In his introduction, Hazzan Propis points out this is “one of the few Jewish choral settings that has a prelude and a fugue.”

For many decades, Soviet and Ukrainian governments let the Brody Synagogue deteriorate into ruins before it was turned back to the Jewish community. For too long, the cultural achievements of the Ukrainian Jewish community were ignored, as were efforts to memorialize that community, whose neighbors all too willingly aided and abetted the Nazis in their murderous plans.

But as Ukraine began its journey to truth and democracy, still a relatively new enterprise, and even elected a Jewish president, there have been remarkable efforts to right old wrongs and to build a unified and just and cosmopolitan nation. These efforts have, of course, been threatened by vicious Russian bombings and invasions, and prayers and psalms are being recited for Ukraine throughout the world, including, of course, in every Jewish community.

Jews in Israel and all over the globe have joined Christians and others in efforts to aid Ukrainians in their noble struggle. Recalling Jewry’s cultural ties to Ukraine is particularly important at this time, and Hazzan Propis did so with grace and with effectiveness.

Elliot B. Gertel is the Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Chicago. He has been film and television reviewer for the “National Jewish Post and Opinion” since 1979. His books include What Jews Know About Salvation and Over the Top Judaism: Precedents and Trends in the Depiction of Jewish Beliefs and Observances in Film and Television.