fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

August 14, 2013

The Torah and child sexual abuse

Leave a Comment / Opinion /

Everything we build and teach our children, all our investments and dedication to good, all our moral standards, our entire education system, can be wiped out in one fell swoop when we or our children are violated.

The first of all ethical and Torah axioms must be stated at the outset: No one has a right to in any way violate in any way the body or soul of another human being. Indeed, we don’t even have the right to mutilate our own bodies, because your body does not belong to you; it is “Divine property.” 

No crime is worse that assaulting another’s dignity — which is compared to the dignity of G-d Himself, being that every person was created in the Divine Image. Even a hanged murderer must not be defiled and his body not left to hang overnight because it reflects the Divine Image. How much more so — infinitely more so — regarding a live person and innocent child.

Abuse, in any form or shape, physical, psychological, verbal, emotional or sexual, is above all a violent crime — a terrible crime. Abusing another (even if it’s intangible) is no different than taking a weapon and beating someone to a pulp. And because of its terrible long-term effects, the crime is that much worse.

The next question is this: What are our obligations as parents, teachers, writers, Web site editors or just plain adult citizens when it comes to abuse?

On one hand, we are talking about protecting innocent people from criminal predators, which clearly is a major obligation and a priority concern. On the other hand, we do have laws prohibiting embarrassing people (even criminals) in public, always hopeful, allowing people to correct their ways. We have laws about avoiding gossip and speaking ill about others (lashon harah), and not feeding into the base instinct of “talking about others” or “mob mentality” witch-hunting expeditions.

We have several obligations when we see or know about a crime, as well as obligations to prevent further crimes:

1) A witness to a crime who does not testify “must bear his guilt” (Leviticus 5:1). 

2) “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14), which includes the obligation to warn someone from a danger we are aware of. If you see someone walking down the street and you know that farther down the block there is an uncovered pit in the ground or a man with a gun, you are obligated to warn him. If we are aware of a predator, we must do everything possible to protect people from him.

3) “Do not stand still over your neighbor’s blood (when your neighbor’s life is in danger)” (Leviticus 19:16). It’s interesting to note that this commandment follows (in the same verse) “do not go around as a gossiper among your people,” suggesting that gossip is an issue only when no life is in danger. But if a life is in danger, then “do not stand still” even if means speaking about it in public.

4) “You must admonish your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him” (Leviticus 19:17). If one does not admonish, then he is responsible for the other’s sin (Sefer HaMitzvot, Positive 205; see Shabbat 54b. 119b). Although at the outset rebuke must be done “in private, kindly and gently,” not to embarrass him publicly (Arkhin 16b; Sefer HaMitzvot, Negative 305), but if it doesn’t help, the obligation is to admonish him in public (Rambam Deos 6:8. Shulchan Aruch HaRav Hilchos Onaah v’Gneivas Daas 30).

This is true even about a crime that does not affect other people. All the care taken about public shame is because the crime does not affect the public. And even then, there are situations where the admonishment must be done publicly. By contrast, in our discussion about abuse, which affects others, all these restrictions do not apply: Embarrassment of a criminal is never an excuse or a reason to put anyone else in potential danger.

Based on the above, I would submit the following criteria to determine whether to publish and publicize the name of a molester:

1) The abuse must be established without a shred of doubt. Because just as we must protect the potential victims of abuse, we also are obligated to protect the reputations of the innocent, and not wrongly accuse anyone without evidence or witnesses.

 2) Publicizing the fact will serve as a deterrent or even possible deterrent of further crimes, or will warn and protect possible future victims. If that is true, then lashon harah does not apply. It would be the equivalent of saying that it is lashon harah to warn someone of a weapon-wielding criminal who may cause harm.

3) Even if a name is not available to be publicized, the issue of abuse itself must be addressed for the same reasons stated: to make the public aware of the dangers, to protect innocent children.

The argument that publicity will give the community a “bad name” and “why wash our dirty laundry in public?” does not supersede the obligation to protect the innocent from being hurt.

Anyone who suggests that abuse must be overlooked, because (as one person told me) it “happens all the time” and “by many people, including our leaders,” or for any other reasons — is not different from ignoring any other crime, and is in itself a grave crime.

One could even argue that the greatest “kiddush HaShem” (sanctifying God’s name) is when a Torah-based community demonstrates that it doesn’t just mechanically follow the laws or isn’t merely concerned with reputations, but that it sets and demands the highest standard of accountability among its citizens, and invests the greatest possible measures to protect its children from predators, create trust and absolutely will not tolerate any breach or abuse. That the greatest sin of all is ignoring or minimizing crimes being perpetrated against our most innocent and vulnerable members: our children.

In conclusion: The bottom line in all matters regarding abuse is one and only one thing: protecting the innocent. Not the reputation of an individual, not the reputation of the community, not anything but the welfare of our children. In every given case, whether to publicize, whether to take any other action, the question that must be asked is this: What is best for the victims? Will or can this action help prevent someone from being hurt or not? If the answer is yes or even maybe yes, then the action should be taken.

The crisis has reached a boiling point where it must be addressed and brought to the attention of the public to make everyone aware of the dangers, the long-term consequences and the zero-tolerance policy that needs to be applied to every form of abuse.

Anything less would be irresponsible, immoral and, yes, in some way complicit.

Rabbi Simon Jacobson is the author of the best-selling book “Toward a Meaningful Life.” He heads The Meaningful Life Center (meaningfullife.com), in Manhattan, N.Y., which bridges the secular and the spiritual through a wide variety of live and on-line programming.

The Torah and child sexual abuse Read More »

L.A. return is true Blu

Leave a Comment / California, Sports /

In the 65 years since Israel’s independence, no sports team there has been more successful than Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball club. Along with 50 Israeli championships and 40 national cups, Maccabi first made international history upon winning its inaugural European Championship back in 1977. It has since gone on to win four more European titles, with the dominance, from 2002 until 2012, of Los Angeles’ own David Blu.

Born David Bluthenthal in July 1980, the 6-foot-7 athlete played basketball for the University of Southern California before joining Maccabi for six nonconsecutive seasons until his summer 2012 departure, which caught fans by surprise. He was adored by Maccabi devotees, professionally celebrated when invited to play for the Israeli national team and became one of Europe’s most sought-after talents. 

Following his last season with Maccabi, Blu decided to go back home to Marina del Rey with wife Megan; daughter Bridget, 5; and son Baron, 18 months. (He has an older daughter Hailey, 12, from a previous relationship.) “I learned a lot living alongside Israelis; they are very loyal to one another and made sure I was part of them,” he said in an interview. “But once I came back to America, I felt free. Things are happening for me; I’m making connections, I went back to school, I’m smiling, my family’s happy. I lived in Europe, but this here is my home.”

The son of a Jewish mother, Suzanne, a nurse whom he lost to cancer when he was 14, and an African-American father, Ralph, who converted to Judaism, Blu’s first year off the basketball court saw him digging into his lineage as part of his bachelor’s degree studies in sociology at USC. While his original last name is believed to be derived from a 19th century Jewish-German slave owner on his mother’s side, Blu’s ancestry also includes financier Isaias Wolf Hellman, co-founder of USC, from which Blu, his great-great-great grandson, just graduated. 

Fascinated by his study of genealogy, Blu hopes to maintain a close connection to the Jewish community, the same bond that made his father send David, as a high schooler, to Israel to play with the American basketball team at the 15th Maccabiah Games in 1997. 

“I studied my Jewish side and my African-American side, all the way from Arkansas to California,” he explained, “and it’s interesting to see how both integrated in American culture. I don’t know many people with a similar black-Jewish background.”

What follows is a recent interview with Blu:

Jewish Journal: Was your departure from Israel planned?

David Blu: During my final season, I played every game as if it were my last. I knew it was the end. I thought of maybe one or two more seasons, but it all changed with the birth of my son in November 2011. I used to take my daughter to the playgrounds in Tel Aviv and she couldn’t communicate with other kids in Hebrew. We figured we would be headed back to the U.S. eventually, so we didn’t enroll her in Hebrew kindergarten. And whenever she stared at me at the playground, it broke my heart.

JJ: What was the thought behind changing your last name?

DB: I grew up playing basketball, mostly with other black guys, and I used to get teased a lot for my name. It’s something that sticks with you for life, though it has nothing to do with my religion. I am a proud Jewish man. But I didn’t want my family to endure all that. I didn’t even want my wife to take my last name at first. So we decide to shorten the name four years ago when we were in New York. I live right around the corner from Hollywood, and one of my dreams is to someday be a sports commentator on ESPN. And let’s face it, David Blu sounds more Hollywood, right?

JJ: How do you see yourself involved in Israel in the future?

DB: One of my good friends is Elliot Steinmetz, who coaches back East at the North Shore Hebrew Academy High School and has been working with the USA Youth Men’s Basketball Team for the Maccabiah. [The 19th games concluded July 30.] He is giving me good advice about expanding my Jewish brand, and I’m very interested in contributing with my professional knowledge and experience to the community.

JJ: How is life away from the limelight in Israel?

DB: Back there, I’m a celebrity. No matter where I went I was instantly recognized, and I loved it. On the other hand, it feels great being surrounded by family and friends; I no longer miss out on those precious moments in life. I miss the day-to-day of playing basketball. There’s nothing like that feeling of getting the ball in at the buzzer. Maybe one day I’ll get to see my son do the same.

L.A. return is true Blu Read More »

A work unworthy of Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker

Leave a Comment / Books, Culture, Entertainment /

What is a reviewer to do when a truly gifted writer writes a genuinely awful book?

I suspect that I was invited to write this review because the editor suspected that I might be open to the author’s experience, moved by the power of her words, and might not dismiss her critique of Israel, her sympathy with the Palestinians and her participation in the Gaza flotilla out of hand. 

Alice Walker is of my generation. I am familiar with her writings and often moved by her passion and the power and majesty of her words. We marched in many of the same marches; we knew in different ways many of the same people. Her mentor at Spelman College in Georgia, Howard Zinn, was later my teacher at Boston University. I marched with Zinn, I demonstrated with him, still I remained far more critical than Walker of his work then as now, but one could not fail to be impressed by his charisma and determination. She writes movingly of my college classmate Andrew Goodman, who was killed in Philadelphia, Miss., along with James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, two Jews and a black, civil rights workers during 1964’s “Freedom Summer.”

So, as I began reading Walker’s “The Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wanderings as the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm’s Way” (The New Press, 2013), I was prepared to be moved and pained, to be made to cringe by Israel’s occupation and the heavy-handedness of some of Israel’s actions.

Instead, I found a work that was uninformed and self-indulgent, where mistakes that could be corrected by a simple click of the mouse and stroke of the key in Google, remained untouched by the author and her editors, where history is unreliable and maps so thoroughly distorted that anyone who knows the Middle East finds them comical.

Examples abound. Permit me a few: Ariel Sharon was not the president of Israel, but its prime minister.

Example: An Israeli commission found Sharon indirectly responsible for the murders at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982. The actual killing was done by Lebanese Christians who entered the camps and settled old scores. But one couldn’t learn that from Walker’s writings. According to Walker, “He [Sharon] led a massacre of the people.” I celebrate the fact that the Israeli public in response to the lessons of Jewish history and Jewish morality insisted that if a massacre occurred on its watch, it was its responsibility. But there is a world of difference between direct and indirect responsibility for a massacre, as any moralist — including Walker — should well know.

Further, I have no fondness for the Israeli general who only late in life came to understand that Israel could not continue to dominate a Palestinian population that did not want its rule. Sharon used the word occupation [kibbush], much to the chagrin of his former supporters and their fellow travelers in the United States. He withdrew from Gaza, resettling its Jewish inhabitants and abandoning settlements that had been productive and prosperous, able to house Palestinians comfortably, to offer them a livelihood from fertile hothouses that yielded fruits and vegetables. These settlements were burned down by an irate Palestinian population that was more intent on eradicating any remnant of Jewish presence than on bettering its own situation.

Example: A map illustrates the loss of Palestinian land from 1946 to 2000. It neglects to mention that Israel accepted partition in 1937 and 1947. The Arab countries chose to go to war when Israeli statehood was proclaimed in 1948. It omits the fact that it was Jordan that began the assault against Israel in 1967, after repeated requests that it stay out of the war, and that Israel’s conquest of the territories was the result of a defensive war.

Walker’s sentiments, however well-intentioned — and I don’t want to bother challenging her motives — are fundamentally unserious. Walker advocates a one-state solution. Muslims, Jews and Christians living together. Kumbaya.

 Anybody looking at the landscape of the Middle East has to wonder how one-state solutions are working for Shiite and Sunni Muslims, for Coptic Christians and Muslims in Egypt, for Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, for Alawites and Shiites in Syria.

In fairness to Walker, she is no less foolish here than Jews in Israel and in the United States who advocate a one-state solution, saying that Israel’s security is served by dominating a Palestinian population that does not welcome its rule. At least the president of the Palestinian Authority is clear, even if he is not politically correct, when he says that the Palestinian state to be created on the West Bank will not welcome Jews. 

I hate the wall that was erected to divide Israel and the Palestinian territory, but any serious student of the region must at least mention why it was erected and be cognizant of the fact that it has been effective in preventing killings.

Walker is an advocate of nonviolence. Yet she writes as if Israeli wars against Gaza were unprovoked, as if Israeli citizens were not bombed and innocents not murdered. She also writes as if the leaders of Gaza did not place its military resources within the civilian population hiding behind schoolchildren and sick people, presuming that Israel would be restrained because of its values. The best argument for nonviolence as a Palestinian tactic is to remember the difference between the tactics of Intifada I and of Intifada II and the response of the Israeli public.

Alice Walker has written many serious books worthy of your consideration; “The Cushion in the Road” is, sadly, not one of them. There are also substantive critiques of Israel’s action in Gaza and the West Bank by serious people who feel responsible to understand the complexity of the situation in its historical, moral and political context. This, too, is not one of those.

When an important writer writes a book unworthy of her reputation, one can respond with anger or with sadness. I prefer sadness.

Michael Berenbaum is professor of Jewish studies and director of the Sigi Ziering Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Ethics at American Jewish University. Find his A Jew blog at jewishjournal.com.

A work unworthy of Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker Read More »

Songs of hope at Auschwitz

Leave a Comment / Books, Culture, Entertainment /

When Judith Schneiderman was 14, she was taken from Hungary and sent to Auschwitz. It seemed that all hope was lost — that is, until she opened her mouth.

A naturally talented vocalist who was never formally trained, she began to sing, and it probably saved her life. The wife of an SS commander overheard her, then taught her German songs and how to entertain Nazi soldiers, who would give her food. 

Her story was self-published in the book “I Sang to Survive.” Co-authored by Jennifer Schulz, Schneiderman’s granddaughter, the German version was presented in May by the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, located in Berlin. 

Schulz, an acting teacher in Los Angeles who is credited in the book by her maiden name, Jennifer Schneiderman, said that although there are many Holocaust books out there, her grandmother’s is unique because it’s “about hope and human kindness and that there is more good than evil in the world. Even though there are a lot of terrible things in the book, it’s a small aspect of what the story is about. It’s a love story more than anything else.”

Instead of placing emphasis on the tragedies that befell Schneiderman — who turns 85 this month and now lives in Columbus, Ohio — the book aims to be uplifting. It takes a look at her life before the war, her time in America, her family and her 66-year romance with Paul, a fellow survivor she met at a displaced persons camp who died earlier this year. They settled in New Jersey and had four children together.

Schulz said that the theme of “I Sang to Survive” is how “we really can survive anything if we believe in our hearts that there is goodness in the world.”

In her book, Schneiderman wrote that her time in the camp taught her about human nature and changed her perspective forever. 

“During the Holocaust, I learned the most important lesson of my life: that nothing is purely good or evil, and that both reside in the best and worst of us and our intentions.”

The book begins in Rachov (part of Czechoslovakia at the time), where Schneiderman was born in 1928. She was one of eight children in a very religious family. They lived in the back of the grocery store that they owned on the main street of their town. However, Rachov was economically depressed and, despite her vocal talents, she was never able to afford lessons.

“We were not poor, but we didn’t have enough money for such luxuries,” she said via a phone interview. “My father had a beautiful voice, and that’s where I got it. But I was the star in the house.” 

One of her daughters, Helene, was more fortunate in taking the next step in musical training. When she turned 18, Helene Schneiderman started taking voice lessons at Westminster Choir College in New Jersey. There, she excelled, and eventually got into the renowned Stuttgart State Opera in Germany. When the mezzo-soprano told her parents, however, both had mixed feelings, Schneiderman said. 

“We decided for her future that she would go,” she said. “It was a little difficult visiting the first time [in Germany], but the second visit was much easier. We supported her 100 percent. She is very special girl not only as a singer, but she’s an unusual human being.”

Although Helene Schneiderman also had her hesitations about going to Germany, she knew it was the best decision for her future. 

“There is a very good system for young opera singers, where you get paid by the month and you perform often, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to be in one place for years at a time,” she said. “My parents struggled with the thought of my coming over, but they love me more than they could hate anyone, and so things went smoothly.”

Recently, Helene Schneiderman, who has performed in Austria, France and Italy, put out a CD of Yiddish songs, “Makh Tsu Di Eygelekh” (“Close Your Little Eyes”). It includes four tracks of her parents singing together.

“I always enjoyed singing Yiddish songs because my mother taught them to me as a child,” Helene Schneiderman said. “The lullabies were especially beautiful.”

Although Judith Schneiderman never got the chance to sing professionally, to this day, she still does it for fun, especially with her family. Her favorite tunes are, of course, in Yiddish. 

“Sometimes when I’m alone and I’m in a fairly good mood, I feel like singing them in my room,” she said. “My daughter Helene and I sing duets. I still have a voice. I’m very surprised at my age, 85, I’m not wobbly, not yet.”

Songs of hope at Auschwitz Read More »

Kerry: Egypt violence ‘deplorable,’ Egyptians must ‘step back’

Leave a Comment / Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News, Worldwide /

The United States on Wednesday strongly condemned the bloodshed in Egypt after the breakup of opposition protests by Egyptian security forces and urged all sides to seek a political solution.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House told the interim government to end a state of emergency, a throwback to the nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule under Hosni Mubarak, as soon as possible.

“Today's events are deplorable and they run counter to Egyptian aspirations for peace, inclusion and genuine democracy,” Kerry told reporters at the State Department.

“Egyptians inside and outside the government need to take a step back, they need to calm the situation and avoid further loss of life,” he added.

Kerry said the United States had urged the interim government “at every occasion” against using force to resolve the political stalemate with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egyptian authorities said 235 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded in clashes between security forces that broke out after the security forced broke up protests camp of thousands of supporters of deposed president Mohamed Mursi.

“Violence is simply not a solution in Egypt or anywhere else,” Kerry told reporters. “Violence will not create a roadmap for Egypt's future.”

The United States and its European and Arab allies, in particular the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, have sought to help craft a political solution to the Egyptian crisis. But their envoys returned home last week after several days in Cairo without an agreement.

“The interim government and the military, which together possess the preponderance of power in this confrontation, have a unique responsibility to prevent further violence and to offer constructive options for an inclusive, peaceful process across the entire political spectrum,” Kerry added.

The violence is the worst Egypt has suffered since war with Israel in 1973, forcing tough decisions for Egypt's Western allies, especially Washington, which funds the Egyptian military with $1.3 billion a year.

The Obama administration has refused to label the army's July 3 overthrow of Mursi a “coup” because it would mean having to cut off that aid under U.S. laws.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the United States' aid policy on Egypt was still under review.

“We will continue to not only monitor and be engaged, but will review the implications for our broader relationship, which includes aid,” she told a daily briefing for reporters.

Kerry: Egypt violence ‘deplorable,’ Egyptians must ‘step back’ Read More »

Klezmer, classical royalty at the Bowl

Leave a Comment / Culture, Entertainment /

“Energy is eternal delight,” the poet William Blake said, and klezmer music proves his point. For centuries throughout Jewish Eastern Europe, rhythmically high-strung klezmer bands, which often featured a virtuoso violinist and clarinetist trading licks, were a provocation to dance. They could also make brides weep at the drop of a yarmulke.

Once viewed as a profoundly autobiographical music of the Jewish people, klezmer has shown range and flexibility over time. In the first half of 20th century America, and during its resurgence in the late 1970s and ’80s, klezmer took on an almost jazz- and big band-like sound.

On Aug. 20, Itzhak Perlman joins Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot and the Klezmer Conservatory Band at the Hollywood Bowl in a program including klezmer and cantorial songs from Perlman’s latest CD, “Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul.” The concert seems designed to show klezmer as more than just up-tempo ethnic dance music.

“It’s very heartfelt, and some of it is just plain happy,” Perlman said by phone from Chicago’s Ravinia Festival. “There is definitely improvisation. In some ways, there’s improvisation in anything. In classical music, even though you may not change the notes, you still improvise musically so that not every performance is the same.”

Perlman also sees a link between klezmer and prayer. “When you hear the klezmer style of clarinet playing, there’s a lot of praying and krechzing [sighing or groaning] and sobbing in the clarinet,” Perlman said. “I will try to do a bit of that when I play the violin. It’s about adding human emotion.” 

For Perlman, the human voice is a natural conduit to emotion, and he compared Helfgot, a tenor and chief cantor at the Park East Synagogue in New York City, to Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.

“I knew about him, heard him on YouTube, but didn’t hear him live until two or three years ago in Israel,” Perlman said. “I went backstage and said, ‘Let’s make a record.’ ” 

The result is “Eternal Echoes,” released by Sony late last year. “The timbre of his voice is attractive,” Perlman said, “and his style and technical ability are quite phenomenal. It’s my opinion that it’s easy for him to sing, and you can hear it. It’s just very effortless.”

Helfgot said his voice stood out from the crowd even when he was a child. “But I didn’t think I’d make from that a profession,” he said. “I remember at the Shabbos table at home, my father would ask, ‘Why do you sing so much higher than everyone?’ And I said, ‘This is my voice.’ ”

Helfgot said it is the variety that makes the new disc and concerts with Perlman special. “It’s not only one kind of music,” Helfgot said. “You have khazones, Yiddish folk music, klezmer and real khazones, which is a little more heavy. That’s what makes this project unique. Everyone can find something that he’s close to.”

Helfgot is especially happy about the multicultural audience he sees at concerts. “In New York, we played to thousands, and I saw all kinds of people in the audience,” he said.  “Jewish, not Jewish, Orthodox, not Orthodox. People of every kind.”

Kids from Perlman’s summer music program on Shelter Island in New York performed on the “Eternal Echoes” disc, as well, he said, adding, “I would say 95 percent of them never heard this kind of music before. Not all of them were Jewish. You could tell they were excited about the musical experience, the singing. They couldn’t stop talking about it.” 

Perlman’s students won’t be coming out for the Bowl concert, but musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic will be among the additional players. 

Hankus Netsky, founder and director of the Klezmer Conservatory Band, who is also Perlman’s musical arranger on “Eternal Echoes,” called the klezmer show a dream come true. “The show is Perlman’s baby,” Netsky said. “He’s the only one who could do this — take this to the Hollywood Bowl.”

Netsky, a faculty member at the New England Conservatory, started the Klezmer Conservatory Band as an experiment in 1979. “It was a missing link in 20th century music,” he said. “It’s our classical music.”

Supertitles on the Bowl’s high-definition screens will make the songs accessible to everyone, Netsky said. “They are great settings of poetry, musically attuned to what’s in the prayer,” he said. “Klezmer has come back because it’s good. It’s not nostalgia.”

Asked why the clarinet started to take over the sound world of klezmer in its American incarnation, Netsky said, “Because the clarinet sounds like a violin, and it’s louder. It became a more dynamic violin. In America, louder worked.” Indeed, the band’s clarinetist, Ilene Stahl, has been called the “Jimi Hendrix of klezmer clarinet.” 

Perlman, Helfgot and company will be performing most of “Eternal Echoes” on the Bowl program, but there may also be room for songs like “Yiddishe Mamma,” not on the recording. Perlman said he wasn’t sure about “Kol Nidre,” the disc’s concluding track, but with the High Holy Days near, Helfgot said he was considering it. 

“It’s such an incredibly sacred piece,” Perlman said, “but we’ll see.”

Perlman also said to expect “a little shmoozing” with the audience during the Bowl program, and he agreed you can’t have a klezmer concert without dancing.

“Let’s hope that the audience can do a little dancing in the aisles,” Perlman said. “We did that at Symphony Hall in Boston. Can you imagine? The home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They were dancing in the aisles. So let’s see what happens at the Bowl.”

Klezmer, classical royalty at the Bowl Read More »