“Sing, girl!” a member of the St. Brigid Catholic Church, an African American South L.A. based church, called out encouragingly from her seat in the synagogue pews, as a young vocalist, part of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills’ (TEBH) choir, nailed the high notes in her solo.
It was a moment that captured the warm and generous spirit permeating the Temple Emanuel sanctuary during TEBH’s fourth annual Bird Goldstein “Songs of Freedom.” Taking place on April 6, less than one week before the start of Passover, the interfaith concert aimed to celebrate stories of liberation from different faith traditions through the universal language of music.
“Kindness, we just need kindness, and that is the motivation for singing this song today,” Temple Emanuel Senior Cantor Lizzie Weiss said before leading TEBH’s choir in David Friedman’s “We Can Be Kind.”
The Sunday afternoon program included individual performances by Church of the Good Shepherd, a Beverly Hills-based Catholic community; Urban Voices Project, composed of artists and performers from Skid Row; TEBH and St. Brigid Catholic Church.
Each faith community’s choir performed two or three songs, with a crisp backing band accompanying each of them.
Things got lively from the get-go. As Urban Voices Project took the stage, the energetic group sung the hopeful “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.” Immediately, the crowd was on its feet, clapping to the beat and singing along with lyrics that were conveniently displayed on a TV screen beside the bimah.
The choir of the Urban Voices Project is one of several programs offered by the Skid Row-centered nonprofit. It’s an organization well versed in dealing with trials and tribulations. On Sunday, the group conveyed those struggles through song as it performed the decisive “Walk with Me,” a tune written by songwriter, activist and actor Maggie Wheeler, perhaps best known for her recurring role on sitcom “Friends.”
At the end of Urban Voices Project’s three-song set, the crowd gave them a standing ovation. It was the first of many that would happen over the course of the two-hour afternoon.
At the conclusion of the program, all the choirs came together—nearly 50 performers onstage at once, ranging in age from children to older adults—to perform two more numbers: “When You Believe,” Stephen Schwartz’s inspirational song from the animated Exodus feature “The Prince of Egypt,” as well as “Freedom,” an upbeat take on the “mi chamocha” prayer.
The latter required folks from the church choirs to sing along in Hebrew.
There were multiple moments of the different faith traditions learning from one another. During the TEBH choir’s three-song set, Temple Emanuel’s Senior Rabbi Jonathan Aaron introduced the group’s first song, “Am Yisrael,” by explaining to the mixed-faith crowd what that phrase meant. Aaron, who wrote the song, said that everyone in the room, regardless of their beliefs, were part of “Am Yisrael.”
Showing they were taking this notion to heart, the St. Brigid Catholic Church community announced during its performance it would be doing a seder with TEBH before the start of Passover this year.
TEBH Co-President Kara Corwin was in the crowd. Toward the end of the concert, she joined Cantor Weiss to offer a few words of thanks to everyone who had played a part in putting the concert together, particularly Temple Emanuel’s Robert Bird and Gail Goldstein.
Though there was a healthy turnout—approximately 150 guests seated in the sanctuary’s pews—Weiss expressed her wish for even more people to show up next year.
“Let’s hope up that one year that wall goes up,” she said, referring to the removable wall in the back of the sanctuary, “and there’s a 1,000 people in this room.”
