The Twin Cantors: Khazones and Community in 20th Century Brooklyn

The first thing to know about The Twin Cantors is that they were not twins. Maurice Epstein (1905-1994) and Bernard Epstein (1909-1971) were born a few years apart, and on different continents. Maurice immigrated with his parents to the United States from Russia at the age of nine months, and his brother was born in New York City. Nor were the brothers cantors in the typical sense of being synagogue functionaries, although they did at times lead services in synagogues. The brothers Epstein, professionally billed as The Twin Cantors, were performers of a populist style of khazones (Yiddish, cantorial art music) that crossed boundaries of ritual and popular culture in the early years of their career in the 1930s and into the mid-twentieth century. Over the course of a career that spanned four decades, the brothers performed on stages, pulpits and in elaborate life-cycle celebrations, drawing together Jewish communities through their brilliant music.

The brothers are representatives of the first wave of American born cantors who formed a bridge between the Yiddish-speaking immigrant community and their American-born children. Alongside well-known figures such as Leibele Waldman, the Malavsky Family, and Moshe Ganchoff, the Epstein brothers sustained the musical memory of khazones, transformed to serve the needs of the American Jewish community. What can be heard of their music today, on a handful of homemade recordings preserved by their family, resounds with the fiery exuberance of the “golden age” cantorial sound.

The Twin Cantors were part of a scene that offered a theatrical style of khazones, well-honed to the conventions of musical theater and stage performance. The brothers would trade phrases and leap into ornate harmony arrangements, in distinction from the more typical soloist cantorial voice. In contrast to the traditional texture of cantor and choir, The Twin Cantors were a self-contained musical act, with a dramatic stage name to match.

In a wonderful and meandering conversation with Maurice Epstein’s daughter Leah Steinhart and her husband Sholem Steinhart, and four of his grandchildren, Marla Sherman, Jacob Sherman, Mollie Epstein Makar and Rachel Epstein, I had the privilege of getting a window into the history of the Twin Cantors through the lens of intimate family memory.

The history of the Twin Cantors can be roughly divided into pre- and post-World War II periods. The family members’ personal memory of the earlier period is less rich in first-hand experience. The grandchildren stressed that their grandfather rarely spoke about the successes of his early career. Their knowledge of the Twin Cantors performance history during their early years has been supplemented by a scrap book of clippings from the Yiddish press that their grandmother kept, and that the family recently paid a scholar to translate into English.

As young star cantors of the New York Yiddish-speaking immigrant community, the brothers worked an unusual and attention-grabbing angle by presenting themselves as twin performers. According to the family, the brothers had originally shown the ambition to work as a secular pop music act and had even tested the waters of show business under the name The Rami Brothers. This plan was thwarted by their mother, who opposed the idea of her sons singing non-Jewish music. As a result, “They ended up in Warsaw, not Hollywood,” to quote their daughter Leah.

The novelty act quality of The Twin Cantors billing was not unusual in the vaudeville dominated entertainment landscape of the day. As is well known, star cantors of the “golden age” performed prodigiously in venues outside of the synagogue, including Yossele Rosenblatt’s turn as a touring performer on the American vaudeville circuit. The Twin Cantors combined a powerful traditionalist musical sensibility with an instinct for the theatrical norms of the American entertainment industry.

The Twin Cantors were popular entertainers in Yiddish New York, appearing at Madison Square Garden in the 1937 concert produced by the Cantors Ministers Association of America and Canada, also known as the khazanim farband. The brothers Epstein worked a circuit of Jewish venues including synagogues and resorts, performing in the ‘30s in the Catskills, Chicago, Philadelphia, Winnipeg and other cities.

Fascinatingly, these American Jewish performers also toured in Europe (on at least one tour that is documented). In 1936 the brothers appeared in Paris, Brussels, Antwerp and in Poland in Warsaw and Lodz. Their Warsaw performance at the Nowacy Theater was reviewed in the Yiddish newspaper Haynt by the renowned critic Menachem Kipnis. Kipnis wrote,

“America has cantors of all types: Black, white, yellow, red, even a cantor in a dress, the famous woman cantor from Odessa, who shook the world. Now comes the latest sensation: a pair of twin cantors, who stick to one another like the Siamese twins. Even though they are different in life, each his own man, at the lectern, they are one body, one spirit – one khazn…when the twins opened their mouths with “L’chu neranena,” the audience began to stare with their eyes and immediately felt that before them stood two professionals who know just how and with what to draw out the Jewish spirit and to tap into the Jewish spark…and hearing the twin cantors, I thought to myself: a shame, everything that has now become exploited, business-like. Under the veneer of a tasty bit of old-cantorial practice, one forgets oneself. One gets mixed up between prayer and theater, talks on their heads, with a thunderous bravo. The holy with the secular.”

Between notes of praise, Kipnis allowed himself some moments of his characteristic snark aimed at the American cantorial scene, taking aim at the heterogeneity of cantorial performance. As has become better understood in recent years through the work of scholar Henry Sapoznik and others, performers of cantorial music in New York prominently included women and African-American singers. Kipnis’s conservative tastes could not make room for these “newcomers” to the cantorial art. He was highly critical of American cantorial music, which he saw as being demeaned by an excessive commercialism. In his review of the Twin Cantors, Kipnis seems to have fallen under their spell, offering praise for their emotive and technically brilliant singing, even as he derided their show business flair. Notably, his review highlighted the fact that American cantors had rejected “modern cantorial music” in favor a traditionalist sound, an assessment that reflects the role that musical nostalgia for older strands of Jewish vocal music played in the immigrant community. For the Yiddish-speaking American community, sounds that were intended to represent the “old world” and the memory of small-town Jewish life were more popular than the classical music-oriented approach of urban cantors in Europe.

The Twin Cantors on tour in Warsaw in 1936

Vivid memories of their grandfather Maurice and granduncle Bernard came into sharper focus in my conversation with the family starting with the later period of the Twin Cantors, in the second half of the 20th century. At the center of much of the family lore that they shared with me was a location that played a central role in the family’s history. The Epstein brothers were not only performers, they were also the proprietors of a unique Jewish business in Crown Heights that blurred the line between synagogue and entertainment center. Twin Cantors, in addition to being their stage act, was also the name of their catering company and event space located at 1128 Eastern Parkway that the brothers operated starting in the 1940s. The family suggested that no longer being able to tour in Europe after the start of the war may have contributed to their decision to go into business. Over the following decades, thousands of Jewish couples were married in their hall.

The Twin Cantors catering hall hosted multiple weddings every weekend. The brothers presided over each ceremony together at a synagogue located on the same block, which the brother also owned and used specifically for their wedding and bar mitzvah trade. The catering hall was in a multi-level building with several dining rooms. The Twin Cantors was a family business, with one son working as a graphic designer and manager for the facility. The family’s impressive flair for drama encompassed the design of the physical space. The chapel on the third floor was decked out with an enormous heart that the bride would descend from by a set of stairs for a theatrical flourish. A loft hidden above held an organ that was played during wedding services by Jean Rubin Epstein, Bernard’s wife. The main dining hall was painted with burgundy-colored walls and featured classical-inspired friezes. Apparently, the nude Greco-Roman sculptural motifs did not pass muster with Bube Chava, the mother of the Twin Cantors, who challenged the decorum of the decorations: “You can’t have that on the wall!”

In a blog post reminiscing about his years as a coat check boy at the Twin Cantors, Bob Gibson, an elder Brooklyn native, described his employers:

“The twins, Maurice and Bernard Epstein, were an awe-inspiring pair. They never talked to me or acknowledged my existence, but I did see them in action at a few of the eight or nine weddings they conducted each weekend. They would arrive at the Chuppah, the canopy over the marriage couple, from opposite ends of the chapel singing antiphonally in their high Chazzan’s Kapels resembling black baker’s hats. The twin in the rear of the room would advance haltingly to the front as he sang. Then they, of quite different heights, so not identical twins, would face the bride and groom as a unit to conduct the ceremony. A performance for enthralled guests sitting enveloped in pastel wallpaper and fluorescent lights.”

According to the family, the Twin Cantors were “sun worshippers,” who were always deeply tanned and elegantly attired. While their profound knowledge of khazones and beautiful voices were important elements in their appeal, the Twin cantors were keen showmen, who understood the value of gesture and physical beauty. As Maurice’s granddaughter Rachel Epstein told me, “He performed with his whole body, when you saw him sway.” His daughter Leah emphasized his impact on audiences, “When he sang you could hear a pin drop.”

Outside of their work in the catering hall, the Twin Cantors were a source of musical delight for their family. The grandchildren, still in awe of their childhood experiences, recall how when the family gathered for the Seders each year at Passover, the home ritual had the quality of a concert. They recounted how a crowd would form on Eastern Parkway of people listening to their family sing, the voices of the Twin Cantors soaring above.

The Epstein Family sings together at the piano

I am very grateful to Leah, Marla, Jacob, Mollie and Rachel for sharing these loving memories with me. Their story provides a glimpse into the working life of cantors and their music in the long twilight of the cantorial golden age. Even after khazones ceased to be a mass media pop culture phenomenon, as it had been in the earlier immigrant era, the work of artists like The Twin Cantors still maintained a powerful hold on Jewish communities.

Further Reading/Works Cited

Bob Gibson, “Teens – Auditorium to Checkroom,” Blog. https://www.bobjoey.net/p/teens-auditorium-to-checkroom.html

Jeffrey Shandler, Jews, God, and Videotape: Religion and Media in America (New York: NYU Press, 2009).

Mark Slobin, Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).