CANTOR JACK "JACKIE" MENDELSON ORAL HISTORY

HANKUS NETSKY: It's August 21st, 2014, and we're speaking with Jack Mendelson, Cantor Jack Mendelson. And what's the other thing you say?

CHRISTA WHITNEY: You're Hankus.

HN: Oh, yes, thank you. (laughter) And I'm Hankus Netsky.

CW: Good, there we go.

HN: This is for the Wexler Oral History Project at the Yiddish Book Center. So, by the way, should I call you Jack or Cantor Mendelson, what do you prefer?

JACK MENDELSON: Okay, Jack, Jackie --

HN: Yeah, okay, great. So, Jackie, can you tell me about the Mendelson family?

JM: Mendelson family, I guess, for me starts with my zeyde, my grandfather on my father's side, my namesake, Jakob Benzion Mendelson Cohen. His family name was 1:00Morein, M-R -- M-O-R-E-I-N. Was running away from service in the Russian army. His father's name was Mendel, changed his name to Mendelson. And so, I don't -- before that, I know nothing. I know very little, actually, about anything about my family. Prob-- my theory is is because I'm the baby, and no one tells the baby anything. It's like -- and I'm really the baby. I mean, I had a sister, seventeen, fif-- then another, fifteen. My brother was thirteen, then me. I was born. And my mother said, "Louis slipped." That was how I was born. And so, zeyde, I unders-- was a Lubavitch rabbi. I understand he had a gorgeous voice. He would speak sort of like the -- like a maggid [traveling Jewish preacher]. He 2:00would sing his sermons. They say his Yiddish was incredible. He would -- and he had a great musical mind. Not trained, couldn't read or write music, but he composed in his head -- he's from Riga, so he composed in his head zemirot, zmires [Shabbos hymns sung at the table], you know. And we have a whole bunch of family zmires composed by my dad -- dad's father. And I know they're good, because Noah Schall told me they're good. So, that's it. If Noah Schall says they're good, they're good, because he doesn't give away ice in the winter. He'll give you a compliment maybe two years after you're dead. And -- and he heard them and he actually transcribed them. And he went, "Yes, they're pretty good. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, real -- really good stuff."

HN: You're -- do you -- offhand, do you remember one of those?

JM: Yeah. Okay, (sings) "Menukho v'simekho, or la'yehudim,/yoym shabosoym yoym makhmadim, yoym makhmadim./Oy, menukho v'simkho, or la'yehudim,/yoym shabosoym yoym makhmadim./Shom'rov v'zokh'rov heima m'idim./Ki l'shisha kol b'ru'im v'oym'dim./Menukho v'simekho, or la'yehudim, la'yehudim,/yoym shabos-- [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Oh light of joy, oh light of joy, peace be unto the Jews,/Shabbos day of bliss, weave your magic spell, weave your magic spell./Oh, light of joy, oh light of joy, peace be unto the Jews,/Shabbos day of bliss, weave your magic spell./All those who guard you, all those who guard you, with raised cup do tell,/Tell of six days of work, earth raised from chaos, built firm and well./Oh light of joy, oh light of joy, peace be unto the Jews,/Shabbos day of --]" So on and so --

HN: It's fantastic.

JM: Yeah. They had a Freygish one, too. Same text. (singing) "Ay, ay, ay, menukho, ay, v'sim-- [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Oh, oh, oh, light, oh, of j--]" That's how I learned khazones [Jewish liturgical music], because the family zmires have the DNA of khazones in them. So, I learned all my moves be-- when I was two. I 4:00was -- because everyone at the table, they're all going, (singing) "Ay" -- not thinking that this is not an easy thing to do. They didn't know it was hard, so they just did it. And that's what Pinchik does in "Roza de shabes [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Mystery of Shabbos]" -- (singing) "Ay," you know, and as -- (singing) "Ay, v'simekho, menukho v--" I love that move. (singing) "V'simkho, or la-yehudim./Hu asher diber l'am s'guloso,/shamor l'kad'sho mibo'o v'ad tseis./Shabas koydesh, yoym hemedos,/ki l'shisha kol -- [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Of joy, peace be unto the Jews./He spoke to Israel, He spoke to Israel, chosen for this behest,/Until night's stars shine bright, guard My blessed Shabbos, oh delightful day,/tell of six days --]," whatever are the words, (singing) "Ay, ay, ay, menukho." I remember the Shabbos of my bar mitzvah, there were -- we had a hundred out-of-town relatives from my side of the family, and we ate dinner together and we sang those zmires with harmonies from out of space. I mean, it 5:00was one of the greatest moments of my life, when -- 'cause we all knew it from zeyde and -- yeah, I was born on the fifth yortsayt [anniversary of death], so I never knew this guy. I heard he -- and the stories -- he was a great, great guy. He was a pious guy, and he didn't show -- he didn't care what -- didn't do it to show people. My father didn't know that his father had peyes [sidelocks] until he was ten years old, when he fell down and zeyde went -- bend down to pick him up and his peyes came out. And he says, "Tate [Father]!" He's -- he couldn't believe -- he said, "It's for me, it's not -- I don't have to" -- kodesh baruch hu [Hebrew: Holy One, blessed be He], and -- "I'm not -- nobody has to know." You know? And when I think of the Hasidim today that won't eat lettuce because there might have been a bug -- I mean, zeyde would -- fie on these guys. Anyway, 6:00so he's really the family -- my mother and her side, she's Hungarian, but born in the States, in Jersey City. And she was orphaned at age eleven and sort of was in charge of the three other siblings, and had a rough, rough life. Dirt poor. And she had a terrible nervous condition and was -- if it was today they'd say she was manic-depressive, so -- and she was constant -- it's either hitting us or loving us to death. And never just a sober, "I love you." It's like (speaking in a high-pitched voice and punching his hand), "Jackie, you're the greatest, I love you, Jackie!" Or, "Gib aykh a shmaysn [I'm going to give you a beating]" and made -- my job was to please her, and so -- and that meant singing 7:00khazones. She was a khazones freak. The minute she'd hear a khazn [(synagogue) cantor], she'd start bawling. Bawling. Just the sound. Especially Yossele, 'cause Yossele Rosenblatt is one of these guys that the minute he opens up his mouth, you sense a -- you sense tefillah -- you sense prayer, you sense piety, you sense meaning, you sense caring, and you -- it brings you back to something that you don't know, even, and it's that connection that he has. And the other one is our -- is not such a well-known guy -- for me, is Alter Yechiel Karniol. He's -- he -- I want to be Karniol. I just -- every day of my life, I try and imitate him. And so --

HN: Born in 1855.

JM: Yeah, and I always wondered, like in 1870, who was teaching him khazones. 8:00Where did he learn his chops from, and how did it -- what did he hear that that came out? But, so, (singing) "Nekadesh es shimcho bo-oylom, kisheym shemakdishim oso [Ashkenazi Hebrew: We will sanctify Your name on Earth as the angels sanctify it]" -- all in one breath -- "bishmei morom [Ashkenazi Hebrew: in the heavens above]" -- Noah Schall would say, "The character, it's about the character. It's the character in the words, the character." He drives me nuts, 9:00this guy. And I once sat in a plane, transcribing -- trying, 'cause I'm not a great transcriber, and -- but in my own way, and I -- off -- turn it off quick, turn it on again, 'cause I -- maybe I can get two notes here and three notes there. And I want to do the "Avinu malkeinus [Our Father, Our Kings]" before I die. That's what I want to do. But that -- but -- so, she was nuts, my mother. I like to digress. She was nuts for khazones. So was my dad, so was my dad -- and so, the 78s were constantly playing in the house, and WEVD was on all the time. And we waited for the shows. Did you know of a Chaim Bieler on WEVD? Had a show, it was sponsored by the -- that home, the -- of Israel, the something home, an 10:00old age home of some -- well, let's -- there is a guy in my shul, his name is Mark Bieler and his father was Chaim Bieler, and it just -- I look for people who knew him, and if you don't, then I don't know who would.

HN: I'm from Philadelphia, so --

JM: Right. Oh, okay, okay. (laughter) So, anyway -- but those shows were on, and live khazon-- Ganchoff on Sundays at 12:15. He would do four, five pieces of khazones every Sunday. Now, into the third year, he's running out of pieces, but which -- you think -- just count 'em up, I mean -- so, he's -- he would do the same text and it would be completely different. All improvisations. It was the real thing. And so, when I -- they sent me, at age eleven -- mom and dad sent me, at age -- well, mostly mom sent me to Willie Bogzester, B-O-G-Z-E-S-T-E-R. 11:00Willie Bogzester was a Viennese khazn who really couldn't make it vocally. Vocally, he had a big voice, but he -- he would run out of gas and he'd sing four or five measures in full voice, then the rest in falsetto. (laughs) He had a gorgeous falsetto. And, so he became a teacher. He had a studio in Carnegie Hall. He called it a "studye" -- "I had a studye in Carnegie Hall." And he lived on Forty-- I don't know, I think Forty-Eighth Street. Everybody lived on Forty-Eighth Street in Borough Park: Jackie Robinson -- well, Jackie Mason, Sandy Koufax. It was right around the corner from Temple Beth-El. And so, I'd go over, I'd have a lesson with him on Friday. We'd start ten in the morning and go 'til Shabbos, for ten bucks, and -- because he loffed me. "I loff you, Jackie, I 12:00loff you." (laughter) And he saw that I had an ear and I had a voice, and it was someone he could work with. And I couldn't read music, so early on, he just taught me by rote. He sang to me, I sang back at him, which was very fortunate for me, because then I could hear the inflections and imitate the inflections before I had the stricture of music, which could be -- they put bar lines in khazones, what a joke. It's -- there is no rhythm. You -- unless, of course, you're singing something metric, so -- and so, I -- and then, he taught me some solfège, and he taught me Yiddish songs, and he even taught me a couple of Italian -- an aria, a tarantella he taught me. (singing) "Gi la luna in mezzo al mare,/mamma mia, si salter!/Presto in danza a tondo, a tondo,/donne mie venite 13:00qua [Italian: Now the moon is over the ocean,/mamma mia, we're going to leap!/Soon we'll be dancing, round and round,/my ladies, come here]." So, my father said, in the deli -- Sachs and Mendelson's Delicatessen, big sign, S&M Deli outside, right? So, my father says, "Jackie, sing 'Qua.' Sing 'Qua.' Go on, sing 'Qua' to the customers." (laughs) And that's what he called it, 'Qua.' It's "La Danza" by Rossini. It's -- and I'd sing -- I would sing "Qua," if -- give me a hot dog, I'll sing "Qua" any day of the week. And so, it was all around me. It was all -- I got it from Bogzester. In the summertime, Bogzester would take me on the D train. We'd go to Washington Baths in Coney Island, saltwater pool, shvits [steam bath], which was -- you go walking from outside -- outdoors, actually. You walk into the shvits, and he'd bring in a pail, a pail and a sponge, into the shvits. We'd be with towels and sitting, and he'd be sponging himself and teaching me khazones, in the shvits. And so, it's -- first of all, I 14:00wanted it. I wanted it bad. And so, it's kind of -- it's almost like a joke, when you go to college and you -- and they have forty-two other courses that they have to do, and they got to learn Mark Kligman's course, and they got to get their papers ready, and then they got to do this and that and that and liturgy and bah-bah-bah, so am I gonna really study the khazones that I try and teach them, and -- now and then, you get one that's really interested in it, and they'll go home and really try it out and do it, and it's a mekhaye [delight], but it's --

HN: So, did you go for formal education in --

JM: Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

HN: Tell us about that.

JM: Well, yeah. Well, education and me is -- that's like a dirty word for me. I was a troubled kid. I was depressed, starting at eleven. My mother was a manic depressive, and when she would get depressed, they'd have to literally -- 'cause 15:00the meds weren't up to par in those days, and she literally had to have ECT treatments, shock treatments. Once every year, eighteen months, she went in to have shock treatments when she would be depressed. And I kind of got it. It was in the gene. My -- think about it, my father, also, he was so, so passive, I think he was depressed. And I know my uncle Nehemiah had problems with depression and was hospitalized, and all -- it's all in my -- so, I got it. So, starting at age eleven, I stopped doing homework and I just -- whatever I learned, I learned with -- from my native intelligence, through osmosis, what I heard in the cl-- I just managed to get through. I was smart. I could've -- but I couldn't -- I had no zitsfleysh [patience]. I didn't learn my sidra [weekly section of the Torah read on Shabbos] for my bar mitzvah. I fooled everybody. I was doing it in Tikkun, but I was doing it with the --

HN: With the vowels?

JM: -- side with the vowels and the tropes. And they would ask me, Do you know it? I said, "Oh-ho-ho, I know it." And I knew Rishon [Hebrew: Torah portion 16:00corresponding to Exodus 12:37-42, 13:3-10, lit. "First"] and Eikev [Hebrew: Torah portion corresponding to Deuteronomy 7:12 - 11:25, lit. "Because"], big portion, and the last six, I made two thousand mistakes. And every mistake that I made, I looked at my father and I said, I'm stabbing my father in the heart. So, that did a number on me. I still tell my shrink about it, age sixty-eight, we talk about my bar mitzvah. And so, I was -- academically, I was nowhere. I mean, I dropped out of high school and I worked -- went to work in a handbag f-- actually, I started Yeshiva High School. I went to Yeshiva Etz Chaim in Borough Park for Yeshiva Ketana, the -- to the eighth grade. Then, my father -- I couldn't get into Flatbush Yeshiva, never. Not -- marks -- couldn't get into BTA. But my father went to the dean and he pled and he cried, and I got into BTA. Six months, out the door. New Utrecht High School. Eventually, I dropped out, went to work in a handbag factory, but I'll still study with Bogzester. I 17:00still had that fire of the khazones. So, also, in my mind, I said, What do I need this shit for? I'm gonna be a khazn. Trigonometry? Up yours. I'm going to be a khazn. So, when I was eighteen, I went back to high school, I finished at night. I got a general diploma, with the immigrants. And I'm eighteen years old and we had a powwow. My older brother, Solomon, a wonderful khazn, who was a big mentor to me -- my parents -- Jackie should go to HUC. And I said, "What about JTS. That's -- I'm going to be a Conservative. I'm not going to be a Reform cantor." (coughs) So, No, go to HUC. The faculty -- you got Ganchoff on the faculty, you got Alter on the faculty. You got Avery, you got Belfer, you got 18:00Avrom Shapiro. The great Avrom Shapiro from Newark, New Jersey, the great tenor. They called him the baby Caruso. And at JTS, you got [Max Hulberg?] and that's it.

HN: Yeah.

JM: And that's it. And so, yeah. And also, to get my -- to get a diploma, Bachelor of Sacred Music, I would have had to take the courses, the whatchamacall courses, academic courses, whatever. I would have had to take those courses at Columbia. I could never pass that. At HUC, they gave 'em in the school. "Eh, they'll get Jackie through somehow." So, I went to HUC and I -- it was a great experience for me. It opened up my head. First of all, I met these giants of the Reform theology, and wonderful people. And, of course, I'm not good at picking up names now, and -- at sixty-eight, but -- well, the khazonim 19:00-- Israel Alter, made the biggest impression on me. He was a -- this man had taste and had discernment and knowledge, and you could see that he was someone to look up to and he was a god to me. And he -- and I start -- I was a street khazn, and he made me into a mentsh of a khazn, and he instilled in me a sense of taste and propriety, and the fact that it's all about the text, that's it. It's the text, and -- but I was secretly in love with the Reform movement, and I didn't have the beytsim, I didn't have the balls, to switch over, because -- well, my mother, what would my father say, my brother and my friends and blah-blah-blah? I couldn't -- in my mind, I couldn't stand up to it. And I could have been a -- I can imagine myself in a big Reform pulpit, and with my 20:00personality, I would have done khazones and all kinds of -- I want to do Piket. I want to do -- I love Piket! I want to do Isadore Freed, I want to do Helfman, for God's sake! My whole life, I never got to sing these great things. And I was -- and I just was delegated to a world of khazones that was diminishing, diminishing, diminishing, diminishing. As I was getting better and better and better, the profession was getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And it was like --

HN: Why was that?

JM: Well, sociolog-- everybody knows the sociological reasons, I guess. The Jews, after World War II, they got more comfortable and they didn't have any -- they didn't -- "Well, why do I need to go to shul and cry? I'll go home and have cholent" or whatever, and the less observant Jews go play golf, whatever. "What do I need this for?" And also, then another reason: the profession got watered 21:00down -- in my mind, one of the big factors were the Koussevitzky brothers. And I adored the Koussevitzky bro-- Moshe was my khazn, and we were dues-paying members of Moshe's shul and Dovid's shul. Orthodox, Conservative.

HN: The old Beth El.

JM: Beth El, Emanu-El. Dues-paying members. And -- but these guys were good khazonim, but their selling point was the high notes. They had these freaky high notes that no other khazn had ever had. "Mikolos mayim rabim adirim, mikolos mayim rabim adirim mishb'rei yam [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Above the voices of many waters, above the voices of many waters, the mighty greakers of the sea]" -- B-flat, C, B-flat, C, B-flat, C, C, D, D, D, D. People in the middle of the shul, in the middle of the davening, they're going like this. (laughter) "What is it? What" -- the -- twenty tuning forks used to come out after a high note in 22:00Temple Beth El, in an Orthodox shul. We'd hear tinkling. They're banging it on the chairs, on the benches. And so, the new generation of khazonim became trapeze artists. It became gymnastics. It didn't -- the art -- the -- where were the Pinchiks? Where were the Roitmans? Ganchoff was the obvious -- he was created by the Roitmans and the Pinchiks. And then -- but then nobody cared about them, they -- that -- they called him the khazn's khazn. He hated that, man. When he heard, he'd start to curse and spit. "What do you mean, the khazn's khazn?" But it's true, bec-- only the people that really knew could understand what the hell he was doing. But had there been more Ganchoffs, eventually the 23:00yidn [Jews] would have discerned -- they would know that this is something special, that this is something special. And so, all they wanted -- so, they heard high notes and they wanted high notes. So, now we have a whole generation of people -- I don't have to name names. They have some talent. They have talent and -- but it's all -- they're all waiting for the next high note. Waiting for the next high note. That's the name of a book or something, I don't know. So, that killed the kunst -- the art of khazones. And --

HN: So, can you tell me about your first position?

JM: My first -- well, I -- my first yontev [holiday], my first High Holidays was 1963. I was seventeen. Avenue C Synagogue in Bayonne, New Jersey. A little shul, kind of shtibl [small Hasidic house of prayer]-like, but it was a shul, and Orthodox. I had to say every piyut [Hebrew: Jewish liturgical poem], and thank God for the Davis records, that -- whatever Bogzester didn't teach me -- but he 24:00kept saying, "They don't -- Jackie, they don't say that anymore." I says, "Well, they do say it in this shul." So, I -- but Davis had everything on the records, and I learned it -- whatever I -- he filled in the blanks. Then, my second High Holidays was B'nai Israel in Rockville Centre, 1964. Guess who's the cantor there now. My son. (laughs) My son, Danny, is the cantor of the shul where I sang in 1964. And then, in '65, B'nai Israel, same t-- in Rockville, Maryland. I did the overflow. And then, in 1966, I was already in HUC. I got the position -- Conservative Synagogue of Riverdale. Later on, they merged with Adath Israel of the Bronx. So, it's Adath Israel Conservative Synagogue of Riverdale. Six wonderful years, a -- inteligentser [learned] community. They knew Hebrew, they 25:00knew liturgy, they understood hazanut [synagogal melodies] for the most part. I had a -- I lucked into the most incredible rabbi, a British rabbi who was musical. His name was Chaim Pearl, and he was a brilliant orator and a great musician. He would harmonize with me. He'd complain if I didn't do enough khazones. And boy, did I have it lucky, and -- '66 to '72. And in '72, I moved on to Beth Torah, North Miami Beach, where -- big shul where they demanded khazones. They'd shoot you with a gun if you didn't sing two big pieces in shakhres [morning prayers]. I'm starting Shochen ad [Hebrew: prayer recited in the morning service, lit. "He who dwells in eternity"] in shakhres and there's twelve hundred seating and a hundred standing and they're getting chairs out, waiting. And so -- and the rabbi also liked khazones. Max Lipschitz. And that was four years, then I came back to New York. I was at Temple Gates of Prayer in 26:00Flushing, Our Lady of Perpetual Simchas. (laughter) Lots of weddings there. Good big wedding hall with a lot of -- great caterer, and they -- oh, did -- they loved khazones there. I was totally on my own. Totally on my own there. Anything I wanted to do, I did. One of my members was Jack Baras, the greatest cantorial accompanist of the generation. And he -- and that was the kind of mevines [expertise] I had in the congregation. And so, I had to be up to the -- and I was so excited to be challenged. And then, I took a stab at opera. I got into the American Opera Center at Julliard. Very prestigious program. And the Lord shined his light upon me and I met my second wife. Notice I didn't mention 27:00anything about the first wife. I met Fredda at Julliard. She's this glorious mezzo-soprano. And I did Pinkerton in "Butterfly" there. Everyone in that cast got into the Met except me -- (laughs) from that cast. And I also -- I did "Jenůfa" by Janáček, with Fredda. And she was the Kostelnička, I was Laca. And that -- my voice was like a tsvishn-fakh, two different -- it's not a baritone, it's not a tenor. It's like -- so, it's a heldentenor. And a shver [heavy] heldentenor, like a heavy-voiced heldentenor. Hardest voices to train, these big, heavy shlepedike [weighty] voices. That's what I had, and I always had hoarseness. My whole career, I battled hoarseness. The hoarseness came psychologically. We've kind of -- we posit, my shrink and I of thirty years, we 28:00posit that it was imitating my father. My father had (imitates hoarseness) -- he could sing in tune, and my mother and he would sing together, (singing) "Maasay timloch [Ashkenazi Hebrew: When will God rule]" in thirds, help me, (singing with Hankus Netsky) "timloch b'tsiyon, b'karov b'yameynu, l'olam voed tishkon [Ashkenazi Hebrew: rule over Zion, soon in our days, forever may you dwell there]." They'd sing this at the table after davening. And my father, hoarse, my mother with a nasal, clear voice, cutting like laser. And -- but I probably imitated -- I loved my father so much, and I -- so -- but anyway, I had this big 29:00shlepedike voice, and it just -- I got an agent, and I went to Germany for three months, and I auditioned for every house for a heldentenor. And the minute I get on the stage -- I'd sing "Winterstürme [German: Spring Song]" from "Die Walküre [German: The Valkyrie]," and I'd sing the "Rome Narrative" from "Tannhäuser" -- and then, they said, Very good, Herr Mendelson, and I want to hear Verdi. Sing for me Verdi. "I'm not a Verdi tenor," I says. That's all they were interested -- in Germany, was Verdi. Wagner, they didn't care. They wanted -- it's too high. I can't sing "Celeste Aida [Italian: Heavenly Aida]." I could sing -- until I get to the high note, I'm fine. I got great B-flats, but not in the context of an aria that has such a high tessitura. So, that wasn't going to happen. And then, I happily said, "List-- I'm going to not only be a khazn, I'm going to go get myself" -- the job in Flushing was really a part-time -- just -- 30:00that's why I was able to go to Julliard. It was just Shabbatot. Couple of bar mitzvahs a year. I could do 'em on the phone. So, I need a big full-time job and I got it, and I went to Temple Israel Center in White Plains, 1986, for twenty-eight years. Retired this past June -- June 30th, 2014.

HN: So, can you tell me about teaching at HUC?

JM: Teaching at HUC is good. I --

HN: And you started way back -- when did you start doing --

JM: Teaching? I started teaching in HUC approximately 1980, while I was at -- in Flushing, '80, '81. And it -- I love the new campus, 'cause I went to Sixty-Eighth Street, to -- and the new kid -- there's something professional about the school. It's -- it reeks of professionalism. The reality is -- and 31:00they pay you coolie wages and they -- so, and -- but still, there's a certain something that permeates the halls there. And they have a good curriculum. They -- and they -- within -- and they leave you alone as an instructor. I can do kind of what I want to do. And I've taught -- traditional workshop. Three festivals. I've done High Holidays, Shabbat. I've done -- I did weekday nusach [melody] there. And then, I coach individual -- and occasionally, you get a doozy. You get one that you could -- that you feel you could -- and I've touched some lives there, and some of my Reform students, now colleagues, use hazanut as part of their arsenal, and will call me and Skype me to get a refresher.

HN: How do you train them?

JM: I don't --

HN: What do you -- what's --

JM: I do the Bogzester technique. I do the Willie Bogzester technique. Now, I say -- and they -- they're all musicians. Some of them come in with master's degrees from, I don't know, Cincinnati Conservatory, Oberlin, and whatever. And they walk in and they're musicians, musicians. I say, "You're not musician-- forget musicians in this class. Open up your makhzor [prayer book for the holidays], shut the Katchko, shut the music" -- and they're scared. And all of a sudden, they became kids. They become like they're in my hands. Good, okay. So, I go, I go (singing) "'Ochilo lo'el [Ashkenazi Hebrew: I firmly hope in God]', your turn." "Ochilo lo'e-hel" -- "I said -- no, it's not 'E-he-e-el, it's 'E-e-e-e-el, e-e-e-e-el.'" I call that a trapdoor, 'cause you notice the bottom opens up and then you sing the same note, then you go up again. (singing) 33:00"E-e-e-e-el." They can't do it. So, I say, "All right, car warming up on a cold morning. "Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh." That they can do. They go, "Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh." I say, "Do two now." "Eh-eh." Now I do -- (singing) "Eh-eh-eh-eh." "Oh, oh." Some of them can't. They go back to the old. But eventually -- the younger they are, the better it is. The less entrenched, you know? The greatest is to teach -- in my shul -- is to teach kids khazones. They don't know it's hard, and they just do anything I say. The musical ones, my God! I got a fifteen-year-old. I started with him when I [sic] was eight. His name is Samuel Dylan Rosner. Blue eyes, blonde hair, eight years old. I go -- walk into class with my guitar. I'm going, (singing) "Rad halaila [Night falls]" and I hear a perfect soprano singing back 34:00at me. And I'm looking and I stop singing and I whisper to the teacher, "Who's that kid?" And she tells me, blah-blah. So, I ask permission, "Can I take him?" I take him out of class, we go to my office, and I asked him to match pitches. He -- I find out -- he finds out that he has perfect pitch. He never had a piano lesson or nothing -- and nothing, noth-- he's got perfect pitch. He's musical, an ear that you cannot believe. His voice is exquisite. I call his mother. I said, "You've got to immediately get him a piano teacher and start learning piano, number one. Number two, the next thing is you call the Metropolitan Opera and say, "How do you audition for the children's chorus?" He auditions a week later for the children's chorus, gets in. They teach him music. For two years, he's singing in the children's chorus, and then he becomes a soloist. And now, he's singing the "Shepherd Boy" in "Tosca," you know, with world-class tenors on 35:00the stage of the Met. And now, he's learning more and more music, and he's playing piano. Now he's proficient on the piano. And now he's fifteen, and he's composing. And he's -- but compos-- serious composing, with serious piano parts. And now -- and I got him in at age thirteen, a year too soon, into HaZamir, the national high school choir, Matthew Lazar. I got him into HaZa-- he's now the soloist for HaZamir. And God knows what he's going to be. He loves opera, but not more than Jewish music. So, he may become a khazn, and he'll be a good khazn, because -- and I've had kids -- I've had a good num-- Faith Steinschneider is -- I met her when she was fifteen. She was in my children's 36:00choir at Temple -- at Beth Torah, North Miami Beach. And she had a phenomenal ear and a love for hazanut, and I taught her for countless hours, one-on-one. And she's a serious Eastern European-style khazn and knows how to be a soprano at the same time. And she's the best, she's the best in that field. And I've had others like that, and that's the greatest, to work with the little ones. So, HUC is a good experience. JTS early on was difficult. They were -- they had -- they were wrong-headed, I believe, in their idea of how they taught hazanut. They had kids coming -- people coming with no background, had never been to shul. But they got in, they had a voice, they could read music, and the could read Hebrew 37:00mechanically. All right, so that -- and they'd -- somebody taught them the mode -- "This is Magen avot [Hebrew: liturgical poem included in the Jewish liturgy for Friday evening, lit. "He shielded the patriarchs"] mode, these notes. Go improvise." And I said, "You can't do that." So, for -- they wouldn't listen. So, for the first five years, I was teaching Katchko and Alter in the closet. I was a closet Alter and Katchko -- and eventually, it came around, now they have a two-track system. They allow me and others to teach a musical siddur where they learn note-by-note, a professional take on a davening, two professional takes, and then, maybe, to be able to put another note here and there. And, so --

HN: So, can you tell me about the -- getting into, like, the khazones project with Frank? You had collaborated and desired then to kind of branch out and 38:00collaborate with other musicians? Have you always done that? Or is that --

JM: No, I've -- the -- I don't know, the -- I don't know if you'd call -- I guess for hazanut, I guess it's avant-garde, this idea of singing hazanut like a khazn with a sort of a klezmer-jazz accompaniment, or blues or improvisatory musicians behind you. I never experienced it 'til I met Frank London. That was, that was -- lucky me that it was someone like that. And I knew who he was, obviously, and I knew that he loved hazanut. I saw his earlier albums. And Erik Anjou, who directed the film "A Cantor's Tale," hired Frank to write the score. So, that's how we met. And then, we went into the studio and recorded some 39:00pieces of hazanut with Frank and Anthony Coleman and David Chevan, and -- there were -- I don't know if it was Kenny -- it might have been Kenny Bashir at some of the sessions. And they were all wonderful musicians, and it opened up my eyes. And I would prefer to do it that way now rather than straight. I still love straight, with accompaniment, beautiful accompaniment and a great accompanist that can improvise a bit, you know. I love singing hazanut with Danny Gildar, it's fun. It -- I do love it, because he'll answer you like a khazn, and in a nusach quote, and Joyce Rosenzweig. But this free -- this call and response thing is just incredible. The other night, singing "Tihir rabi 40:00yishmoel otsmo [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Rabbi Yishmael purified himself]" at the concert was a -- was, for me, a perfect example of how great that could be.

HN: You have any thoughts about the current state of Jewish music?

JM: Well, Jewish music -- aside from khazones, I mean, I like what's happening in the klezmer world. I mean, unless I'm not seeing the whole picture, I -- but it seems to be popping up everywhere, and incredible players -- Eastern Europe and Israel. Did Israel always like -- yeah, it's like a new thing in Israel, isn't it? And it's like -- when I come to KlezKanada, I -- it's heaven. It's heaven. I mean, early in the morning, I hear violins walking -- warming up in a 41:00Freygish scale, and twenty violins -- oh, my God. The only other time in my life I heard that was before a performance of "Fiddler on the Roof." I was sitting -- I got there twenty minutes early, and the trumpets were playing Freygish scales by semitones. (sings) And this, with the violins, it's like -- oh my God, I'm in heaven, two years ago when I first came here. I -- and these bands, and that -- and then -- and they just -- it's so close to khazones that I just feel at home. And I love the reception I get here, when I do my work here. I feel like, over here, amongst these people, that what I am doing is important. And that's 42:00something. At least it's something. So, I got an idea. I'm retired from the pulpit. I'm struggling with it like anyone would -- come Shabbat and I'm lost. I don't -- I belong on the pulpit. Fifty years, I've been doing it, you know? So, I want to start a minyan. In Manhattan, they got a minyan for everything: New Age, post-denominational, scratch my back minyan, minyan of no rabbis, no cantors, no nothing. Sing songs. I want to do a khazones minyan, one to start -- once a month. It shouldn't be too expensive. I just need a friend to get a spot, a space. Maybe Angela will lend me some space in Central Synagogue. And she's a fan. She loves khazones, Angela Buchdahl. She loves khazones. She -- ladies and 43:00gentlemen, Angela Buchdahl can do khazones idiomatically. And --

HN: This is the rabbi at --

JM: She --

HN: -- Central Synagogue who's brilliant, brilliant --

JM: She's the rabbi. She was the cantor, and she was in my High Holiday class at HUC, and after becoming a cantor, went on to become a rabbi, and now she's become the rabbi of Central Synagogue, and the cantor now is Mo Glazman, my -- also my student from HUC who likes khazones. His master's recital was on the life of Yossele Rosenblatt. He wrote a play, and the -- and so, the -- get those people to give me a space once a month Rosh Chodesh bentshing, blessing the new month. I come in and daven. Maybe I'll put together a choir if I can, or -- if there's money for it. But certainly, I'll get the congregation to hum, and just 44:00-- it'll be advertised as such, and only people who are interested in it. There's going to be no talking, there's going to be no sermon, going to be no page announcements. Your -- Ganchoff, when I was -- Ganchoff, Moshe Ganchoff was my big -- I talked about Alter before. Moshe Ganchoff was my life Rebbe. He became my Rebbe. I was so fascinated with what he did, because he had Karniol in his delivery. He was freaked out by Karniol when he was ten years old, because his father was a painter, and when he was working, he was listening to Karniol on 78 recordings. His father. Just a layman. Ganchoff knew the entire canon of Karniol by heart when he was a kid. That's the kind of ear he had. And I remember once he did a master class, and at the end of the class, Jan Peerce was sitting there, and Pierce said, "Moshe, do some Karnyol." Peerce knew, and 45:00Morris Barash was at the organ, and he said, "Give me an F-minor." -- Ganchoff. "Give me, give me" -- gives him -- and he starts singing the "Avinu malkeinus," and oh my God, those -- we were just -- we just didn't know what to do with ourselves. And those who were untutored knew it was great, but they didn't know what it was, but they knew it was great. And that's the hope I have, that the fakh [profession] that I teach is so great, it's such a great prayer, art -- slash art form that if enough people do it well, it'll come back. It'll come back. If I and some others can get enough people to do it idiomatically correct, and stubbornly keep at it, like everything else, it'll come -- it'll find its 46:00way back in some form. So, I'm driven to try and find people with a good ear. The first thing is the ear. It's the ear. It's the ear, that's it. It's like the ear. Yeah, you got -- voice is a given, all right? Alter used to say the three W's. You -- to be a great khazn -- woice, woice, and woice. But it's more than -- it's the ear. And Ganchoff had it all. And, plus, he was a superior musician, Ganchoff. And he -- and curious to no end. So, when my days at HUC were over, I went to Brighton Beach, bam yam, right by the ocean there. I went two, three days a week. I went to him, spent five, six hours. Thank God, I had a part-time job. I could do whatever I wanted to do. Spent days with Ganchoff and -- haking 47:00[beating it into] me and pulling it out of him, always with a cassette recorder, getting everything. I got 'em all, I got those crazy recordings of us working together. And then, he had a fan. This guy was ninety years old, his name was Brightman, Khazn Brightman. He was a fan of Ganchoff. And Ganchoff, whenever he would do a -- and he'd sit in on my lesson. Whenever -- and Ganchoff would improvise a Karniol or something -- Brightman would go, "I want to die!" And he'd walk -- he'd get up and walk away. "I want to die!" And he'd walk away and then he'd come back. That was the reaction he had to Ganchoff doing something. And then, those characters -- they're such characters. Why -- what happened to them? When the -- the -- my youth, there was -- the people that I met, the choir leaders. Sam Sterner. I remember he'd beat the crap -- we were all kids, and he'd beat the crap out of an eight-year-old, all right? No, he didn't hit 'em 48:00with a fist or anything. But he gave 'em a good shmayse, a good beating. So, the mother comes to the rehearsal to pick up the kid, the kid cries to the mother. The mother runs to Sterner, and said, "Mr. Sterner, you hit my child!" So, Sterner says, "Well, he started it." (laughs) That was the mentality. I mean, we're all sitting on a -- we're sitting on a train. We're sitting on a train and we're going to Boston for a gig, and the wife of Shtaynvartsl -- Shtaynvartsl was one of the tenors -- and his wife had to go to the bathroom, and it was a -- there were no bathrooms on the train. And his wife had to go. And so, he begged the conductor to stop at a local stop, and he wouldn't do it. So, he huddled us all together and he taught us a song that he made up on the spot, and we circled the conductor and everybody went, (singing) "Kakn, pishn, kakn, pishn, kakn [Pooping, peeing, pooping, peeing, pooping] -- keep it up, let's do it. And, 49:00(singing together) "Kakn, pishn" --

HN: "Kakn, pishn" --

JM: Don't stop.

HN: "Kakn, pishn, kakn, pishn" --

JM: "Conductor, stop the train."

HN: "Kakn, pishn, kakn, pishn, kakn, pishn, kakn, pishn" (continues to repeat this throughout the song) --

JM: "My wife, she darf geyn [needs to go]!" (singing together) "Kakn, pishn, kakn, pishn" -- (singing) "ta-ra-ram, ikh kak af dir, ta-ra-ram, ikh pisht af dir, ta-ra-ram, ikh kak af dir, es gezunterheyt [ta-ra-ram, I shit on you, ta-ra-ram, I piss on you, ta-ra-ram, I shit on you, eat in good health]!" (claps) (singing together) "Kakn, pishn, kakn, pishn" -- he's -- meanwhile, he stopped -- (laughter) he stopped the train, yeah. You -- there are no characters like that anymore. (laughter) It's gone. But maybe we can tell enough stories -- there are characters here, in this encampment. There are characters here. Did you see that guy with no teeth that was dancing at that thing yesterday afternoon?

HN: He came to my class, yeah.

JM: Oh, my God.

HN: Amazing.

JM: What a man!

HN: Yeah, a real Saint-Laurent, Montreal --

JM: I love that man.

HN: -- ninety-year-old.

JM: I love that man.

HN: Yeah. Just one little question. I was wondering, what was it like to teach Ashkenazic --

JM: One second, I (overlapping dialogue; unclear) -- 10:45 is my class, okay.

HN: Yeah, me, too. Me, too.

JM: Okay.

HN: We got about five minutes, right?

JM: No, more --

HN: Ah, okay.

JM: -- more, go ahead.

HN: Okay. What was it like to teach Ashkenazic khazones at HUC, since they insist on, I assume, Sephardic Hebrew? But this was -- it's in the music, it has to be Ashkenazic. So --

JM: Yeah.

HN: -- what was that like?

JM: Yeah. Well, yes, it has to be, but I teach it in Se--

HN: Oh, you taught it in Sephardic, yeah.

JM: I taught it in Sephardic pronunciation. But I always go -- I -- let's do it in Ashkenazic. I want them to know what it is and what it's like. And when I say -- also, when I say ear, the first thing I try and teach them is, I'll sing and I'll say, "Hum for me." "Well, what do you mea--" -- "Just hum whatever chord you think comes here, and that" -- so, I need to -- I have to get them proficient in that, because -- to develop some kind of an ear for it. It's just 51:00incredibly important. And I teach, preach that when you're davening, you have to hear the kahal [Hebrew: crowd] answering you with an answer or a "brim," even if they're not. You -- and also, you have to make the kahal hear that chord. And they will hear it. They won't know to answer it unless you teach them. In my shul, sometimes I would get humming, real humming. And so -- and that's where the ear comes in. So, HUC, yeah, I -- we did Sephardic pronunciation.

HN: So, you've talked a lot about the favorite cantors of the older generation.

JM: Yeah.

HN: Do you have any favorite cantors in your generation? Colleagues, people around the world?

JM: Yeah, I have -- I've got colleagues that I love to listen to. I love Simon 52:00Spiro. Simon, he's got such a fast mouth. He's got such a fast coloratura, and also, he has such a deep knowledge of khazones that he does things he doesn't even know that he's doing. And the few times that I've heard him really daven, without making jokes, were wonderful, peak moments for me. I love Alberto Mizrahi -- Mizrahi's a good improviser. Ooh! An excellent improviser. And he's got all the keylim, the tools. And God, I'm going to forget people, and not -- the kid, Netanel Hershtik, ooh-ooh-ooh! Ooh, he's a something. Alter used to say, "He's a something." He -- Alter came back to HUC on a Monday morning. He said -- he used to start his -- before he would talk, he would moo like a cow. 53:00And he said, "Moo, moo, moo, kinderlekh [children], moo. Yesterday, moo, my cousin took me to Yankee Stadium. Moo. Mickey Mantle -- he's a something. He's a something." He's a something, that Netanel, and his father. His father, oh, wow. Naftali is -- is about the best davener in my generation. Just about the best davener -- is Goldstein, out of HUC. Whoa. I had a three-day encampment that I made up that had -- that lasted three years. Maybe two, I don't remember --

HN: The Hartt College -- at University of Hartford.

JM: No.

HN: Oh, not that one.

JM: No, it was -- (laughs) it was in, olev-asholem [rest in peace], in the Catskills, and it was in Kutcher's. It's called the Rozhinke. The Rozhinke Retreat. It's still -- you could look it up on YouTube, whatever --

HN: I remember it (UNCLEAR).

JM: -- Google. Yeah, the Rozhinke Retreat is -- was a three-day retreat for Ashkenazic khazones, period. That's all we did. And I -- used to be -- all my friends came. Moshe Schulhof, olev-asholem, came, and he taught Pinchik. Oh, what a davener he was. What a great davener he was. Moshe Schulhof came and -- Lubin, wonderful khazn. Abe Lubin came, a Glantz specialist. And Glantz a god, particular god of mine. And Izzy Gold-- and I mentioned Izzy Goldstein as someone I like to hear. He's one of the real gadole hador [Hebrew: giants of the generation], the -- one of the giants of our gene-- he improvised a weekday mincha that was out of his mind, it was so great. Just incredible. That's really 55:00the test of a great khazn: weekday mincha, how to do those -- the benedictions, the eighteen -- oh, my God. Ganchoff's weekday mincha, oh my God. So, he goes, (singing) "V'lamalshinim al t'hi tikvah, v'chol harishah k'rega toved [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Frustrate the designs of all those who malign us. Let evil quickly disappear]" -- I don't remember -- "Al hatzadikim v'al hachasidim, v'al zikney am'cho b'yisroel -- v'al gerey hatzedek v'aleynu, yehem da-ba-ba-ba, yehemuno, 56:00'emuno rachamevecho adonai eloheynu, oy v'seyn, v'seyn -- bom -- sachar toyv oy l'chol habotechim bey emes, oy v'sim chelkenu imohem [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Towards the leaders of Your people Israel -- towards faithful proselytes and toward us, let Your da-ba-ba-ba, let Your tender mercies be stirred, oh and grant, and grant -- bom -- grant your favor, oh, to all who faithfully trust you, oh and may our portion be with them]" I'll say it again. "Oy v'sim chelkenu imohem l'olam, oy v'loy nevoysh, v'loy nevoysh ki v'cha oy batach'nu. Baruch atah hashem, mishan umivtoch oy latzadikim. [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Oh and may our portion 57:00be ever with them, oh and may we never suffer humiliation for we put our trust in You. Blessed are You, God, who sustains the righteous.]" That's a -- without -- that's one of two different nuschaot [Hebrew: melodies] for weekday mincha. That's what they call "khsidish [Hasidic]," in a minor. And then you got the pentatonic. (sings) The black keys. So, that kind of obscure nusach fascinates me so much, and I -- (UNCLEAR)

HN: Just a few other things. Can you just show what you mean by text painting in khazones -- like a -- say a line of text and then show how a khazn might really --

JM: Yeah.

HN: -- bring it out.

JM: Yeah. So, for instance, Alter had a -- was great at that. So, too great, because he painted every word. And by the time you said the Tikanti shabes [Hebrew: the relief of Shabbos], it was not time for lunch. It was time for dinner. But still, Katchko davens through, and he makes his points. But Alter 58:00interprets everything. So, anyway, (begins to sing) "Sh'--" So, in the middle of Tikanti shabes, whenever he refers to Tzion, he does a certain move. So, he goes, (singing) "Sh'ta [Hebrew: Lift]" -- so, (singing) "Sh'ta'aleynu, sh'ta'aleyn, b'simecha l'artzeynu [Hebrew: Lift us, lift us, joyously to our land]," to our land. (singing) "L'artzeynu, l'artzeyn, l'aretzeynu," that's sort of reminiscent of, I don't know, "Exodus," the theme from "Exodus" or -- like, (singing) "Yerushalayim, yerushalayim [Jerusalem, Jerusalem], da-da-da-da-da" -- 59:00it's got a certain feeling. But I think I -- he -- I think he takes it right out of Puccini. (sings wordlessly) I love it. (singing) "L'aretzeynu!" One example. Another example is like if you sang a word like -- let's say you're in -- Ganchoff says -- let's say he goes, (singing) "Baruch ato ad-hoshem elokeynu 60:00melekh ha'olom asher bidvaro [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Blessed are You, the Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who speaks the evening into being]" -- the first paragraph of mayrev [Jewish evening prayer] -- (singing) "maariv aroavim, b'chochmo potei-ach sh'orim, uvit'vuno m'shaneh itim umachalif et haz'manim, m'shaneh itim, m'shaneh itim, umachalif et haz'manim, um'sadeir et hakochavim b'mishm'roteihem barakia kiretzono, um'sadeir et hakochavim b'mishm'roteihem [Ashkenazi Hebrew: skillfully opens the gates, thoughtfully alters the time and changes the seasons, and arranges the stars in their heavenly courses according to plan, and arranges the stars in their heavenly courses]" -- "Once you have found her, never let her go." Sorry. (singing) "Barakia kiretzono. Borei yom valailah, goleil or [Ashkenazi Hebrew: According to plan. You are creator of day and night, rolling light]" -- it's coming -- "Goleil or" -- rolling light -- "Goleil or" -- choir -- bom --

HN: (singing) Bom!

JM: Hold it!

HN: Bom!

JM: (singing) "Goleil -- goleil or mipnei choshech [Hebrew: Rolling -- rolling light away from darkness]" -- or -- darkness, "choshech" -- and goleil, he does a dreidel. (singing) "Goleil." So, there's your word painting.

HN: And the last question is just, any Yiddish songs that you love to sing?

JM: Yeah, I love to sing Gebirtig, "Moyshele mayn fraynd [Little Moyshe my friend]," I love that.

HN: Well, "Vos makhstu epes moyshl [What are you up to, little Moyshe]?"

JM: (singing) "Vos makhstu epes moyshele?/Ikh derken dir nokh on blik [How are you Moyshele?/How well I recognize you]." What we need Anthony Coleman for this, 62:00because he's --

HN: I know.

JM: That's wild.

HN: That Gebirtig album --

JM: (singing) "Du bist geven mayn khaverl/mit yorn fil tsurik [You were my dear friend/many years ago]" --

HN: Well, that's --

JM: What's next?

HN: The Rebbe --

JM: Yeah.

HN: -- about how the Rebbe used to beat us --

JM: Sure. Yeah, he used to beat --

HN: -- and he was so wonderful.

JM: About Rokhele [little Rokhl]. (laughter; singing) "Vos makhstu epes, rokhele? Vi ikh volt zi itst gezen -- iz gevorn a -- ikh gedenk tsu -- in harts [What are you up to, little Rokhl? How I would love to see you now -- became a -- I remember -- in my heart]" -- oy! Sh--

HN: No problem, yeah.

JM: Shut up with the Yiddish, leave me alone.

HN: That's all right, it's all right. No, I was just wondering, 'cause --

JM: Well, Bogzester taught me the "Dos yidishe lid [The Jewish song]" --

HN: Oh, my --

JM: -- when I was eleven.

HN: Wow.

JM: When I was eleven. The --

HN: That's a lot of stuff. (laughter)

JM: (singing) "Der yid meg zayn orem, dokh iz er zeyer raykh,/vayl gaystike oytsres hot der yid zeyer a sakh./Der yid iz geduldik, zayn bitokhn iz 63:00groys,/fin a brenendikn oyvn kumt er lebedik aroys./Men ruft im ben-meylekh, a yakhsn, a gvir,/yedes land farshlist far im di tir. [The Jew might still be poor, still he's very wealthy,/for he's rich with spiritual treasures./The Jew is patient, his faith in God is great,/Even the inferno doesn't consume him./He is considered a descendant of kings, of honored lineage and wealth,/yet every country slams the door in his face.]" That's all you'll get for free --

HN: No problem. (laughs)

JM: -- as Jackie Mason said in my -- "Cantor's Tale," that's all you desoyv. (laughter) He did a little khazones (UNCLEAR).

HN: Yeah, I know.

JM: "That's all you desoyv."

HN: That's so good. That's fabulous. Oh, so we're all set?

CW: Yeah.

HN: Do you have any questions? You have one question, I'll bet.

CW: I have a question.

HN: She always has one question. (laughter)

JM: Please, help me.

HN: There's one question.

CW: I'm just wondering, if you don't mind going back to the neighborhood you grew up in, can you tell me a little bit about -- describe --

JM: Oh.

CW: -- the deli, the S&M Deli.

JM: Borough Park, yeah.

HN: The S&M Deli.

JM: Yeah.

HN: She wants to hear more about the deli in Borough Park at the time, like --

JM: Well, the S&M, Sachs and Mendelson's Deli, was a deli that was open on Shabbos, to my father's regret. We worked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and every other Wednesday. Sachs worked every other Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When Sachs retired, my father bought him out. We were closed on Shabbos. And on -- and only then, my father put on a yarmulke behind the counter. In any case, one day, a man walks in with a bunch of young women and a couple of boys. And my mother looks at him. He kind of has an Irish-looking face, so my mother says, "Louis, go see what the Irisher wants." So, it was a stage whisper, and so he heard it, and the guy says, "Ikh nisht bin ayrishke. Ikh bin malavski -- khazn malavski. [I'm no little Irishman. I'm Malavsky, Cantor Malavsky." And my father said, "Cantor Malavsky? The Malavsky family?" And he says, "Yo [Yes]." That's -- so my father went crazy. Corned beef was 65:00flying, everything was free, and the whole family -- and then -- and they end up singing, "Haveyn yakir li [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Is it because my beloved son]" for the customers. (laughter; singing) "Haveyn haveyn yakir li, yakir li efrayim [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Is it because Ephraim is my beloved son]" -- that was a high moment, high moment. And --

HN: (singing) "L'shona habo b'yerushalayim [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Next year in Jerusalem]" --

JM: Yeah.

HN: Oh, I love that thing.

JM: Yeah. (laughter) And --

HN: Okay.

JM: -- and Borough Park just -- Borough Park as a community was an amazing place. There's a shul on every block. The shul that you go to, the shul that you don't go to. But you -- and there were so many great khazonim. You go for shakhres for one, the Torah service to another. You run, you catch Musaf another one. You're quick, you run back to -- but -- what -- then Moshe was last, 'cause he'd davened 'til 2:30, Moshe Koussevitzky. So, when David was finished at twelve -- Conservative, twelve on the dot -- you ran and you heard Moshe. And it was a great place for -- to grow up in. Everybody knew khazones. The cab drivers. The waiter in my father's deli was a great lover of quarten and could 66:00show you, with his little voice -- they all knew khazones, everybody. And now, nobody knows nothing. They're supposed to daven. You -- but you -- the cue for them to daven, "Unesane tokev [Ashkenazi Hebrew: Let us speak of the greatness]," (sings) "U'v'kheyn u'l'kho sa'ale kedusho ki ato eloheynu melekh -- unesane tokev k'dushot hayom [Ashkenazi Hebrew: And thus unto You may the Kedushah ascend, for You our God are King -- let us speak of the great holiness of this day], daven, daven, d-d-d-d-d-d-d" --

HN: (hums)

JM: -- now, I do -- (sings) "Unesane tokev kedushat hayom" -- silence.

HN: Yeah, nobody knows to repeat. (laughs)

JM: So, I do it. I go --

HN: That's amazing.

JM: -- so I go like this, I go like this. (pretends to sing; laughter) And then somebody does it, maybe another one catches on. (laughter) The kids I teach, my bar mitzvah kids, I say davening is very simple. You don't have to say the real words. Just go, "They daven, they daven, they daven, they daven, they daven, they daven, they daven, they dav--" And they love it. (laughter) And I got 67:00entire kids, thirty kids going, "They daven, they --" And it sounds like davening. Each one is doing it in their own voice. "They daven, they daven, they --" Remember, whoever's watching this, that's how you daven. People don't really say the words. It's just -- (sings) I'm missing -- it's called "murmuray [murmuring]." We need murmuray. If you get murmuray, then that'll goose the khazn -- you know, like goose? That'll goose the khazn to sing better. And the khazn sings better, it'll goose the congregation to do better murmuray. You get it? You get it? Okay.

HN: Capisce. (laughter)

JM: Okay.

CW: A sheynem dank [Thank you very much]. (laughs)

HN: All right, Jackie.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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