Studying the history of the cantors is like mining for rare metals. Whole tomes on Jewish history, music, liturgy, society, and culture will be written, and contain but one shimmering and hitherto unknown reference to cantors or Jewish music. A musicologist, like a miner, must be able to shine a light in dark and unexplored places to recover its most beautiful gems.1
This is part of a larger problem in specifically Jewish musicology, as articulated by one of it greatest exponents, Israel Adler:
“..the problematic of our sources, evident in the difficulty of carving a path to the wealth of musically interesting testimonies scattered in various types of rabbinic and scholarly texts. This difficulty is tied to the rarity of Hebrew works devoted to music that are independent bibliographic units, and to the fact that most of the relevant evidence on one or another aspect of the scholarship on Jewish music is hidden in volumes or anthologies that, usually, do not note in their defined theme anny connection to topics of musical interest. At best, the reference to a musical issue takes the form of a chapter or a section devoted to music. Most testimonies referring to Jewish musical traditions, to the rabbinic approach to music, to musical life among Jews, and so forth, are random and sporadic, inside exegetical commentaries, ethical and homiletic volumes, legal anthologies, responsa literature, books on customs and practices, travelogues, and so forth.”2
Because of such scattered source material, researchers like myself often must engage in quixotic quests to find bits of evidence of the cantorial past. Today, I’ll share with you the results of one such quest, which yielded a fascinating glimpse into a living document from London’s prayer leaders.
Part of my doctoral work has included reconstructing the Ashkenazi cantorial world of early 18th century London, uncovering the spread of chazonus, choristers, and musical complexity from the Continent to Albion. As outlined in my initial findings of several weeks ago, this history is fascinating but fairly slim pickings. After looking for early Anglo-Jewish sources in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, I recently stumbled across an entry for a London memorial (Yizkor) book from 1701. Books like this often contain memorial prayers for community leaders, including rabbis and cantors. But after arranging for the book to be scanned, what I received was something far more curious.
While the title page of this manuscript conveys its purpose as a yizkor book, remembering the names of the Ashkenazic community’s leadership, its actual contents are far broader in scope. The document was actively used by cantors and scribes of the newly-formed Great Synagogue of London over the course of one-hundred and fifty years, with new emendations, inscriptions, and additions revealing a rich texture of Anglo-Jewish history.
NEWS: Registration is filling up for this summer’s Sacred Music History & Cultural Tour of Great Britain, - a Jewish music-filled trip through London, Oxford, & Cambridge co-led by me and my colleague, Rabbi Marcia Tilchin. The trip runs from June 18-28, 2024 - you can find more details and register here, or write me directly.
I. Praying for Healing — At Night?
The manuscript opens not as a memorial book, but as a hand-written Friday night prayerbook for the cantor, including only the liturgies for kabbalat shabbat and kiddush over wine for Sabbath and festivals (the evening ma’ariv service is omitted entirely). The manuscript pages which follow pertain to the Sabbath morning Torah service, in which memorial prayers (yizkor) and communal blessings (mi shebeirachs) would be commonly recited each week. One of the most enigmatic features of this siddur is the placement of the prayer for sick (shown above) both in the Sabbath morning service and immediately following the kabbalat shabbat service of Friday night.3
This may seem unremarkable, but it may be unique among Ashkenazic rites. I have found no other source for saying the prayer for the sick on Friday nights — all others are circumscribed to the Sabbath morning. It is possible that this was an old practice of either the Hamburg Ashkenazim — whose customs formed the foundation of the Ashkenazim in London -- or perhaps the nearby Spanish-Portuguese Jews, with whom London’s Ashkenazi Jews prayed before forming their own community.
Whatever the reason, my Reform colleagues who are used to doing this prayer on Friday nights might take some inspiration here (or license in moving the prayer to this unexpected liturgical seam).
II. The Rabbi on the Shelves at Westminster Abbey
The intervening pages of the Duke’s Place Prayerbook are somewhat more mundane. In addition to blessings for the haftarah, new month, and community, a new section (“Mazkir Neshamot”) includes individualized memorials and blessings for the notable men and women of the synagogue, including how much money they donated. Something just always tickles me every time I see the word גיניס - “guineas” - jump out of the Hebrew.
The final pages of the manuscript are for a singular gentleman — Rabbi Yehudah ben Yochanan, who left a very large sum to the community in his will: two thousand pounds for communal disbursement to the poor; one thousand pounds for the building of a poorhouse; five hundred pounds towards the remaining principal; five hundred pounds to help the community leadership; three hundred pounds to the burial fund; three hundred pounds towards the needs of the congregation. This bequest, the equivalent of a million dollars in today’s currency, was perhaps because of this rabbi’s financial success in the early days of Hebrew printing in London.
His English name was Rabbi Jacob D’Allemand, though it’s hard to call him English when his last name is literally the French for “from Germany.” Rabbi D’Allemand’s skills as a grammarian were in demand during the second two decades of the nineteenth century. He published a humash, a Hebrew Bible, and a Hebrew grammar written in German. He further served as the Hebrew editor for a long-reprinted series of Masoretic Bibles for Christian Hebraists (sometimes reprinted with Luther’s German translation). D’Allemand’s editions are even found among the earliest Hebraica in the library of Westminster Abbey. This success can be partially attributed to Rabbi D’Allemand’s established career as a public Hebraist, teaching as Professor of Oriental Languages to an Anglican seminary in London.
Such bridges between Jews and Christians give amazing texture to Anglo-Jewish history and life, and pages like this serve as a reminder of how figures like Rabbi D’Allemand cared for their communities while promoting Hebraic culture as a public good in British society. Unfortunately, the Great Synagogue community isn’t around any more to say this annual prayer in D’Allemand’s honor — the shul was destroyed in the Blitz in 1941. But perhaps one of my English colleagues will give this a read and offer once more this prayer for a worthy man.
III. A Prayer Following the Madness of King George
The gem of the entire manuscript is an insertion which shows a critical moment in British history. It is the page (reproduced below) for “HaNotein Teshua” — the traditional Blessing for the Sovereign and the Royal Family. The prayer is entirely in Hebrew, excepting the name of the Sovereign, spelled out in Hebrew transliteration — “Our Sovereign Lord King George.”
Except that George’s name has been blotted out.
This is the prayer used in the Great Synagogue during the long reign of King George III (1760-1820), who descended into madness in 1810, in what is known as the Regency period (1811-1820). Reading further we see the clumsy Hebrew transliteration for: “Our Most Gracious Queen Charlotte; His Royal Highness George, Prince of Wales; the Princess of Wales, and all the Royal Family.”
But George, Prince of Wales assumed new authority as regent following his father’s illness. Hence, the Prince’s former title has been blotted out, and replaced with “THE Prince REGENT” — this time in English.
This is a fascinating view into a historical landmark in British history. But my favorite part is this:
See the three dots under the Aleph? Here we find the workings of a wise scribe who wanted to make the Reader (Cantor) sound sufficiently English. Left unvocalized, the phrase would be read as “un di royal family.” Too Jewish! The “Segol" (eh) vowel was therefore added to the word (and, it appears, the vav blotted out) so that the Reader will say “and di royal family” - in more proper English, at least by a degree.
As this quest comes to an end, I turn back and find that I have been tilting at a windmills rather than long-armed giants. I don’t think that this document did much to advance my history of the Ashkenazic cantorate in London. Bur the journey has been its own blessing, and yielded a wonderful glimpse into the Anglo-Jewish past.
Such is the stuff of life, where the quest for one outcome often leads to something completely different. In this new year, may we all be blessed with unexpected journeys of understanding. Whatever the impossible dream pursued, may we be surprised in this year for the good.
I am cognizant that “gems” is also a term heavily appropriated by the cantorate in its concert programming. I do not believe that the full implication of gemological terms to describe cantorial masterworks and their concert use has been fully explored. Suffice to say, it minimally conceives of hazzanut, like precious stones, as beautiful, valuable, hidden, and essentially fixed unless shaped by an expert craftsman. I will comment on the fuller ramifications of this preservationist approach in a future post.
Israel Adler, “Musicology and Jewish Sciences,” Tatslil 11 (1980): 25 [Heb]; the above is translation found in Dov Schwartz, “The Soul Seeks its Melodies”: Music in Jewish Thought, trans. Batya Stein (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022): 32-33. A review of this book will appear in Beyond the Music in the coming months.
The Ashkenazic practice of reciting mi sheberach prayers for the ill was documented in R. Moshe Issereles’ gloss to the Shulchan Aruch. There was a resistance to doing so on Shabbat, which is also a day of largely refraining from requesting needs; nevertheless R. Isserles permitted this in case of immediate danger.