Re: Three Weeks

[Cantor Neil & Katie Schwartz <schwartz...>]

>>
>>    I do wonder, however, whether there are specific gigs that Jewish
>> musicians would not, in general, take. There are obvious ones--I think
>> even the least religious among us would be unable to play a Yom Kippur
>> bar mitzvah (despite the wonderfully oxymoronic conception of such a
>> thing), but what are the limits that being a Jewish musician plays
>> on where or when one accepts gigs.
>>
>
> This reminds me of an incident that happened to me about 12 or so years
> ago.  We had as the trombonist in our band a peace activist who wasn't
> Jewish.  Once, there was going to be a benefit performance for a group,
> the Veterans for Life, who were fasting in protest of the U.S. policy of
> waging covert war in Nicaragua and El Salvador.  Court, the trombonist,
> volunteered the band to perform at the benefit, although he would be out
> of town that night, but knowing that we were all committed to the peace
> movement, he knew we would accept.
>
> What he didn't know was that it was scheduled for the second night of
> Rosh Hashana.  So what did we do?  We could not perform our usual blend
> of Yiddish social justice and peace songs and dance music, so we showed up
> and conducted a Shofar service.  We sang prayers in Hebrew with accordion
> accompaniment and recited English translations, blowing Shofar and calling
> on the people of our country to repent of the sins of violence we were
> allowing to be perpetrated in our names, and sang prayers for peace.
>
> Everything in the service came directly from the Makhzor.  It was so
> appropriate that nothing had to be added or modified to fit the message
> of the evening.  The only Jews in the audience came up to me and said
> that they hadn't ever been moved so by a Jewish service and hadn't set
> foot in a synagogue 30 years, but felt a need, after this experience, to
> reconnect.  Those in the audience who were not Jewish expressed great
> appreciation for what we had done, and we felt that we had performed a
> mitzve in a way that would have been impossible by either playing our
> regular music (G-d forbid) or sitting this one out.
>

Even though I am a very traditional Conservative Hazzan, and thus would
not be likely to find myself in a similar situation (at least not in this
life-time), nonetheless I found this to be a very moving story.  "If you
save one person, it is as if you saved the world", and I agree that both
for the Jews present and the non-Jews, you certainly did a great mitzva!

                                                  Cantor Neil Schwartz