Fun meshoyrerim lebn: a small collection of primary documents
A perusal of primary documents relating to the lives of cantors around the turn of the 20th century in the Yiddish-speaking Jewish world attests to the universality of childhood apprenticeship as the pathway to becoming a professional cantor. The 1924 lexicon of the khazonim farband (cantors association) in New York City, which was made up of immigrant Jewish men born in the former Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, suggests that upward of 80 percent of cantors worked as children singing in professional choirs, frequently on tour. (Translating and analyzing the biographies in the cantorial lexicon, included in the 1924 yearbook Di geshikhte fun khazones, is a project I am slowly chipping away at.)
Because of the ubiquity among cantors of childhood labor as meshoyrerim (Yiddish, cantorial choristers, sing. meshoyrer) a kind of folklorized mythos about the wildness, deprivation and spiritual-aesthetic achievements of these cantorial children sprung up in memoir literature and the Yiddish press. Details of meshoyrer experience took on a kind of standardized form (ethnomusicologist and Jewish music scholar Mark Slobin has called it the “meshoyrerim literature”). These narratives usually included stories of touring between engagements in different small towns in the Pale of Settlement, inadequate nutrition, receiving meals as guests esn teg (eating on different days of the week with different householders in their cantor’s community), and the challenging relationships between meshoyrerim and their cantors, who were relied upon for income and education in their careers as sacred singers but could be abusive.
The richest rendition of the meshoyrer story is presented in the 1942 book Fun Meshoyrerim Lebn, by noted Yiddish songwriter Mikhl Gelbart (1889-1962). Gelbart’s book dramatizes his own childhood as a singer with cantors, drawing vivid images of Jewish poverty, the vulnerability of children in the precarious economy of Eastern European Jewish life, as well as captivating ethnographic sketches of the world of the Jewish graveyard, where meshoyrerim would sing memorial prayers for tips to supplement their meagre livelihood.
Beyond the intrinsic interest of meshoyrerim as another lost element of Jewish life in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe, their stories are important as an example of how culture is replicated through the lives of children. For better or for worse, meshoyrerim and their experiences demonstrate a part of the value system of Yiddish society. It is notable that the training of cantors, the key representatives of Jewish musical aesthetics, was achieved through a social system that was dependent upon deprivation, labor, and emotional extremes.
In this brief blog post I have collected a few choice excerpts from meshoyrerim narratives, drawn from cantorial lexicons and autobiographical pieces. These are my translations from the Yiddish, with the exception of David Roitman’s unpublished autobiography which exists in an English language translation commissioned by his family in the 1950s.
- Deprivation and aesthetics
Khayim Shulzinger’s autobiographical essay in the 1924 cantorial lexicon highlights two of the most common themes in meshoyrerim narratives: deprivation and the aesthetic appeal of the choir.
Khayim Shulzinger, “Khazn Khayim Shulzinger,” in Di geshikhte fun khazones (New York, 1924), 199.
In the year 1901, on Shabbos Mevarchim Shevat, the well-known Cantor Yakov Nagler came to Husheshi [probably Huşi, Romania] and davened in shul with sixteen meshoyrerim. When I heard him, I thought that I would be the luckiest kid in the world if I could be a meshoyrer with him. I came to him, and sung him my father’s “Zikhrono,” and I pleased him. He came to my father and assured him that I would be the apple of his eye, that he would learn [Torah studies] with me (he was a learned man), he would do anything in the world if I could be his meshoyrer.
I remember the proud morning when I set off at 6 in the morning to travel with the cantor. We would cross the border at Bardizsheni and then on to Tchernovits. And then the troubles began. We simply starved. The cantor loved feasting, but the meshoyrerim were hungry and remained silent. We traveled with him for two weeks before Pesach, when we came to Galats, where the cantor lived, and there we had troubles with the cantor’s wife too. In addition to not feeding the meshoyrerim, she would scold us, and to all of these good fortunes you can add beatings. Among the duties of the meshoyrerim was doing laundry, washing the floor. The meshoyrerim didn’t like doing this.
I remember till today a story about a bottle of seltzer. The cantor loved wine with mixed with seltzer. We, as you can imagine, were only allowed to look on jealously. Once when the cantor was napping during the day, we got into the seltzer. But there was a tell-tale sign…the cantor had made a white line to indicate the level of the seltzer in the bottle…and the end result was for four or five weeks I couldn’t make the blessing “to sit” for the beating he gave me. [A grimly humorous misuse of the blessing for “sitting” in a sukkah during the Sukkos holiday, to indicate how ferociously the cantor had spanked him]
- Familial relations in the cantorial choir
Pinchas Sherman (1887-1942) achieved success as the second cantor in the Great Synagogue of Warsaw during the tenure of Gershon Sirota. He also edited the Warsaw-based cantorial journal Di khazonim velt in the 1930s. Sherman’s view of his meshoyrer experience is less shaped by deprivation and is generally rosier than that of many of his peers. This stems in part from the fact that his cantor had a permanent position in a city and was not constantly on tour, allowing young Pinchas to continue to live at home with his family.
Pinchas Sherman, “Fun mayn yugend,” Di khazonim velt, Vol 14 (December 1934), 8-12.
In those days I used to stand under the window of the city cantor Reb Yossele and sing a piece of his melodies. The cantor Reb Yossele saw that I was a shy child who didn’t have the nerve to come directly into his house, so he stood in a corridor of a nearby house. He waited for the time when I started my concert and when I let out my first notes, he came out suddenly, grabbed my hand and led me into the house to hear my voice. When I had sung all I knew, he lovingly pinched my cheek, saying: “Oooh! You have quite a wild “fistel” [head-voice]. From that time onward, I was his meshoyrer and was part of his business and was looked after by his good-hearted wife, who worried about me and wanted to make sure I was studying Torah.
My brother left Stopnitz for Krashnik (Lublin province). And at my mother’s wish, and since I was singing with the city cantor and had a strong voice, he came to Krashnik with me in tow as a meshoyrer. At 11 years old I left my mother’s home and became part of my brother’s household. I lived in Krashnik for 5 years and throughout that time my brother studied with me sacred texts and I specialized in reading Torah and Megilas Esther. I was a pillar for my brother, making his job easier. And not infrequently the Krashniker ladies, hearing me sing a solo on a sentimental piece, what they used to call “moralish,” [moralish is used to designate musical pieces that impart an ethical or spiritual teaching through their ability to move the listener to tears of contemplation; the term is also used to describe instrumental playing, especially by violin soloists] would bless me that I should have the good fortune to sing in the Garden of Eden (they meant by that the Temple).
…From him [his brother] I learnt how to read notes and became acquainted with music theory, thanks to him I was able to write down all the things that I had floating around in my memory.
- Life in the graveyard
Mikhl Gelbart’s book offers anecdotes from all aspects of the meshoyrer experience. Among the fascinating scenes of musical life included are descriptions of the role the cemetery played as a place of musical performance and livelihood for cantorial singers. He includes a comic graveyard vignette at the beginning of the book, and then returns to the theme in a later chapter that describes the hardships of the summer months, when cantorial choirs had less work and meshoyrerim were more likely to experience extreme deprivation.
Mikhl Gelbart, Fun meshoyrerim lebn (New York: M. S. Shklarski, 1942).
In the days before the High Holidays when women would go to visit the cemetery to ask the dead to intercede for their good fortune, sometimes a meshoyrer would hide behind a gravestone and would speak with a breathless voice as if from the Other World, pretending to answer for the dead: “Woman, if you wish for me to have peace in my grave, that I should be in Paradise and should seek good fortune for you and your children, you should invite the meshoyrer Fayvel to eat with you on Mondays and Fridays (the two days of the week when the “dead meshoyrer” Fayvel had nowhere to eat). (8)
The only ones who were completely cured of the fear of the dead were meshoyrerim. The entire month of Elul, until the eve of Yom Kippur, we lived with the dead in the cemetery.
I remember well, how in the summer months we received no hospitality because there were no weddings. [Jewish weddings are traditionally not held during the weeks of mourning leading up Tisha B’av, the commemoration of the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.] So we impatiently joined the cemetery marketplace. When people came for keyver avos [pilgrimage to the graves of ancestors] and they would have us chant, El moley rakhamim [Hebrew, God of mercy, a memorial prayer] they would give us no less than 15. A well to do person—15 kopeks, and a poor man—15 groshen; and a really rich man—15 guilden. We were exasperated that the cemetery was always filled with paupers and very few rich people. Because the richer they were in life, the more sustenance we could draw from them after death.
We had bad days when no “customers” came—then we sadly ate very little. Meanwhile we would sing together a High Holiday composition, and between one piece and the next—we would tell jokes about the dead. Once a boisterous meshoyrer broke into a tsadik’s [religious leader] grave, opened a few charity boxes and split the money with the dead—reasoning that if the dead would keep quiet [about his crime] we would also keep quiet…
We had however, a good day for earning…we sent one of the meshoyrerim to town to buy and we had a feast in the graveyard, fit for a king! And all kinds of fruits to snack on. Thanks to the dead, we lived another day…now you understand why we so longed for the late summer fruits?
After that we lay back down by one of the lying gravestones, of pure marble [i.e., the gravestones of the rich bear false inscriptions about the dead person], and played cards and told jokes, and why not? Indeed, for us meshoyrerim the graveyard really was a “good place.” [In Yiddish, the graveyard is euphemistically referred to as the “good place,” to avoid having to mention death and incur bad luck.] More than one lively composition was composed by skimming from the dead. As Tsalke used to say: “Long live the dead; they give us livelihood and they don’t tell tales.” (50-51)
- Child trafficking
Among the more disturbing aspects of the meshoyrerim experience are descriptions of children being kidnapped and trafficked for their economic value as musical laborers. Cantors depended on skillful and talented child singers to distinguish their musical offerings and to get lucrative jobs. This led to fierce competition between cantors for the best meshoyrerim, at times extending into unscrupulous and dangerous behaviors that put children at risk. David Roitman (1884-1943) was one of the great stars of the cantorial gramophone era. His unpublished memoirs, left unfinished at the end of his life, include numerous scenes of abusive behaviors by cantors towards their children accompanists.
Autobiography of David Roitman (unpublished manuscript, undated, c. 1943)
As soon as I finished my meal, the young man came to me. I accompanied him, but he misled me and took me to the suburb of a town not far away from a forest. There I entered a house where, instead of seeing my uncle, I met Cantor Moishe Guberman. When I saw him, I was terrified. He looked at me and saw that I had turned as white as a sheet. Then he began to speak to me in as softened tone and told me that he came to take me back to Orel and also that my father wanted me to sing under his direction. He would not let me go, and I was brought back to the city. I was kept in a locked room until night-time. While in the house, I heard someone enter and ask if this was the home of a cantor, called Guberman, who had a little boy. Immediately, I was pushed under a bed. At night, the same young man came again and took me in a carriage which was covered with a hood and traveled with me beyond the city limits. There the cantor waited for me with a wagon and three spirited horses, at the very spot where it was customary to travel along the road of Holleniss. He was afraid Cantor Shapiro would post people at various points so as to kidnap me. We therefore travelled to Archaneroad. This is a distance of over fifty miles from the town of Almon up to Orel….
When my brother came to Orel, he first sent Baruch, the driver, to see the cantor and to tell him that because my parents were preoccupied with my sister’s engagement they sent him to bring me back. This cantor was always terrified that Cantor Shapiro would want to take me away from him. You can then understand why he told the driver that he would not let me go. The driver returned to my brother and told him that not only was I suffering from a foot ailment, but – what was worse- the cantor refused to let me go. Then my brother went immediately to the cantor and told him that if he did not let me go, he would have to take me by force. The cantor sent at once for the sexton of his synagogue who also pleaded with my brother not to take me away. The two of them went into another room to confer as to what to do. My brother told me that Cantor Leib Shapiro was now withs us in Lidvinke and that he said he would not leave our house until I was brought back to him. When the cantor and the sexton returned to our room, they said that I should be consulted about my willingness to travel. They thought that because I was young, I would not travel by myself…I was yearning for Cantor Shapiro and his delightful chants, and since I myself began to sing much more beautifully within the short time I had been with him, I stated that I would go…
Works Cited/Further Reading
Mikhl Gelbart, Fun meshoyrerim lebn (New York: M. S. Shklarski, 1942).
Rokhl Kafrissen, “Singing in the Cemeteries,” Tablet (October 29, 2021). https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/singing-in-the-cemeteries
Benjamin Matis, “An Annotated Translation of Pinchas Szerman’s Poilishe khazones in fargangenheit un tzukunft, 1924,” Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia Vol 14 (2016).
Aaron Rosen, ed., Di geshikhte fun khazones (New York: Khazonim farband, 1924).
Mark Slobin, Tenement Songs: The Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982).