Historic Music of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in the City of New York
Volume 1: Songs for the Sabbath
Volume 2: The High Holy Days and Festivals
Volume 3: Selections from the Music of Congregation Shearith Israel
A production of the Hannah Tarry memorial fund of the Shearith Israel League in onor of the 350th Anniversary of Congregation Shearith Israel.
This set of compact disks are available from:
Shearith Israel League
8 West 70th Street
New York, NY 10023 or by emailing:
sil@sailtd.com
American Judaism, the new history by Jonathan Sarna, devotes opening chapters to the founding of Judaism in America. Congregation Shearith Israel features prominently in this history. These historical recordings truly are significant in our American Jewish history, for musicologists tell us that, in fact, Shearith Israel has managed to keep tradition in tact for these 350 years. We hear that wonderful tradition on these recordings. First, a look at the nature of this tradition is equally fascinating.
Most Jews are familiar with the "Sephardic" Jews as those who left Spain during the time of the expulsion in 1492. Many more are not familiar with the facts that around 100,000 Jews left Spain for Portugal, thinking that they would be saved there from the Spanish Inquisition. Their hopes were only short-lived, for the cruelties of Church evildoing hounded them a few short years later there as well. The difference was that Portugal saw the sad economic results of the departure of the Jews' mass exodus from Spain. When the Inquisition came to Portugal, the option of leaving was often not available. It was convert or die. Many Jews, forced to stay in Portugal, outwardly converted, but remained secretly Jewish. By mid-sixteenth century, many of these crypto-Jews of Portugal managed to leave and wound up going to the Netherlands, southern France, Venice, and some other cities in Europe, such as Hamburg. Some went to the New World and elsewhere in hopes of escaping the Inquisition. They came to be known as "Portuguese Jews".
After so many years of secrecy, the Jews had not been able to retain their musical traditions. When afforded the opportunity to return to being openly Jewish in Amsterdam, for example, they did so eagerly. The return to open Judaism posed an interesting dilemma-they needed to relearn the traditions. So, the Jewish community "imported" rabbis and cantors to teach them the traditions. Many of these officials came from Sephardic Jews in the Moslem lands (such as Turkey and Morocco) who had been able to continue openly as Jews. The only problem now was, that the North African or eastern Mediterranean style of music was quite foreign sounding to these "westernized" Jews, used to the new Baroque style music, (especially of the Italian flavor), so popular in that day. So while they adapted the music of their new teachers, they slighly modified it to more closely fit their western musical tastes. Additionally, local popular songs, such as secular Dutch folksong, crept into the repertoire. Thus was born the musical "traditions" of Amsterdam.
Switch to the New World. In 1630, the Dutch captured the colony in Recife (Brazil) from the Portuguese. The Jewish community instantly blossomed with the greater freedoms afforded by commercial control of the Dutch West India Company. Jews rushed there for the greater freedoms. Jews went throughout the Caribbean as well, and these "port Jews" were in communication with each other. However, by 1654, the Portuguese won Recife back. So, the Jews once again fled, fearing an Inquisition by the Catholics. This time, the local Portuguese leader gave them ships, and safe passage to leave.
So it was that a bedraggled, scared, ship-weary group of about two dozen Jewish refugees came to New Amsterdam. They had nothing but their lives, and were mostly women and children. They were unwelcomed by Peter Stuyvesant, the local official. However, the influence of wealthy Jewish stockholders of the Dutch West India Company back in Amsterdam, insisted that they be allowed a refuge in the colony. The Jews of Amsterdam sent additional well-to-do families to further help out. From this group is measured the beginning of Jewish life in America, and that same year is the counted as the birth of Shearith Israel.
Sarna calls the dawn of Shearith Israel, the start of the "synagogue-community" in America. The entire function of Jewish life centered around the synagogue, as well as day to day discipline of the community. Shearith Israel had yet to win the right to have 'publically' held services. With good fortune, Abraham de Lucena, brought the first Torah scroll to America, establishing the first "cherished place of holiness." It wasn't until 1730 that a building for the synagogue was erected.
Shearith Israel, being the first, came to be the "mother" synagogue for all of colonial America, and served as a model for other colonial port communities that came into being in Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston and Newport.
As early as 1720 Ashkenazim formed the majority of the Jewish population in New York, but those Jews joined the one synagogue and adopted the Sephardic customs of Shearith Israel. The formal name of the congregation, was Kahal Kadosh Shearith Israel, Holy Congregation Remnant of Israel, reflecting their experience as refugees not only from Recife, but from the terrible scourge of the Inquisition that the Portuguese Jews felt so intensely.
Shearith Israel meticiulous maintained the traditions of Judaism brought from Amsterdam, and later the Sephardic synagogues of London. They, and generations after them, saw it as their duty to maintain these holy traditions. Sephardic Jews had the bitter experiences of trying to secretly maintain traditions for generations by merely imitating the previous generations in families. Sephardic congregations wanted a Jew to be able to know the liturgy and tunes anywhere they might wind up in the world. Nothing would now allow them, psychologically or spiritually, to deviate from this tradition after such hard won freedom to openly practice it.
We are the fortunate beneficiaries of this attitude, as today we have, nearly intact, a Jewish musical tradition that dates back at least to the fifthteenth and sixteenth century, (and possibly older, if maintained from Spain, via Morroco and Amsterdam).
From Shearith Israel's first hazzan, Gershom Mendes Seixas, through the Reverend A. Lopes Cardozo, to today's cantor, Rabbi Hazzan Ira L. Rohde, the traditions have been maintained.
The historic recordings of the present series were originally recorded in 1959 by Hazzan Rev. Abraham Lopes Cardozo, who served as hazzan from 1945-1990. The narrator of the recordings, who also chants Kiddush, is Rev. Dr. Louis C. Gerstein, Minister of the Congregation from 1942-1988. Congregational Choirmaster is Leon Hyman, who has led it since 1955. The texts from volume 1 come from the Daily and Sabbath Prayer Book ed. by Rev. Dr. David de Sola Pool, also a Minister of the congregation from 1907-1956. The selections from volume 2 come from the New Year, Day of Atonement, and Festivals Prayer Books of the Union of Sephardic Congregations of America.
As early as 1910, a choral circle which included women and children was organized to sing "the melodies outside of the actual services." A mixed group sings on volume 3 on several tracts. Otherwise, it is all male choir for the recordings. On the third volume, some of which was recorded as early as 1950, there are also occasional organ accompaniments, although this never occurred during regular services, but only for concert format.
For those interested in obtaining scores to this music, the Rev. Abraham Lopes Cardozo has published several books of the works of the Sephardic Jews, including: Sephardic Songs of Praise and Selected Sephardic Chants.
These 3-volume CD set were originally recorded without benefit of Digital and without Dolby noise reduction, which was later added. They have been remixed from the original. Listeners will hear that they sound like "older" recordings. Nevertheless, the sound is clear, and the texts distinct. Ashkenazi Jews unfamiliar with the tunes will find many of them refreshing and new. Those unused to the formal readings of older traditions, will be brought back to "yesteryear" by the declamatory style of the English readings.
The Sephardic community, and Shearith Israel in particular, have much to be proud about in presenting their traditions to America in honor of the 350th anniversary of Jewish life here. This recording will allow everyone to enjoy the sounds of our Colonial heritage, and relive the past through time-honored traditions brought to life and lovingly rendered.