What could have been just another Jerusalem chazanut (cantorial music) concert turned into a very moving and emotional experience for hundreds of people Tuesday night.
The concert, held in the Ramban Synagogue, featured once-famous but now largely unknown liturgical pieces from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France.
Among them were 24 examples of Alsatian liturgy and melodies, part of ongoing efforts to preserve the prayer customs from that region. One of the selections, recited once a year on Simchat Torah, is a version of the Kaddish prayer in which each line is sung to a different holiday tune.
Audience members who hail from the region, which borders France, Switzerland, and Germany, reportedly had “tears on their cheeks as they sang along with the choir.” Conductor Dr. Uri Aharon, in appreciation for their efforts and emotion, agreed to perform one selection – the well-known Tzaddik KaTamar Yifrach – a second time so that the audience could join in.
The selections were performed by the Zimratya choir and Cantors Claude Hoenel of France and Michel Heymann from Luxemburg; the latter studied long ago with one of the composers of some of the selections. Rita Feldman accompanied them on the piano.
The event was a milestone project for Dr. Michel Rothe, for whom documenting the Jewish sites and practices of the Alsace-Lorraine region is a life-long mission. He is the co-author, with his late father-in-law Rabbi Max Warschawski, chief rabbi of Strasbourg and the Lower Rhine region, of a book describing and featuring pictures of some 200 synagogues in the Alsace district. Evidence still exists of a Jewish community there over 1,000 years ago, and it was even mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century. Having suffered pogroms in the Middle Ages, nearly 4,000 of its Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and the area now has approximately 15,000 Jews – a quarter of them Sephardic.
The Alsatian-born Dr. Rothe, now a dentist in Jerusalem, now runs a French-language website entitled "Judaism of Alsace-Lorraine," in which he preserves photos, rare recordings and texts that he feels would otherwise disappear.