Our new awakening to the reality of systemic misogyny and sexual harassment has led, inevitably, to a renewed conversation in American Judaism about the music and misdeeds of composer, performer, teacher and idol Shlomo Carlebach. Since his death in 1994, dozens of women have bravely come forward to tell stories of sexual abuse at his hands — most notably in a now-legendary 1998 article in Lilith that chronicled his legacy of sexual abuse.
His music is everywhere in contemporary Jewish worship. Indeed, many service-goers mistake his tunes for old, traditional ones. But they were written in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, many of them here in San Francisco, where he was a fixture in the Jewish corners of the counterculture movement. That is why, particularly here in the Bay Area, where he worked and where many of his victims still live, we need a serious reckoning with the ubiquity of his music in Jewish liturgical spaces.
It would be simpler if his music could simply be avoided, like, say, the comedy of Louis C.K. Disgusted by him? Don’t watch his comedy. But if you’re disgusted by Carlebach, you’re screwed; many synagogue services are so replete with his music that they are off-putting to those who disliked, or felt harmed by, the man himself. In many communities, for example, Carlebach is synonymous with Kabbalat Shabbat. His Psalm 95 is Psalm 95, and so on.
I have spoken in recent months with a number of service leaders who are actively looking for alternatives. It’s a daunting task. It’s even hard to tell, as a service leader, which music is his.
But I have some good news for prayer leaders who wish to root his work out of their communities: There is life after Carlebach!
Here are six ideas to get you started:
1. Join “ANYTHING but Carlebach.”
Earlier this year, my friend and rabbinical student Lauren Tuchman posted on Facebook, asking for some new non-Carlebach tunes. The response to her post was so overwhelming that she and I started a Facebook group to, as we wrote in the group’s rules, “Share and discuss Jewish liturgical music — literally *anything* but Carlebach.” It’s a very active group, full of knowledgeable people, with new questions, conversations and new/obscure finds every day.
2. Incorporate more female composers.
Believe it or not, Debbie Friedman was not the only woman composing Jewish liturgical music (not to diminish her importance). The supposed dearth of Jewish women doing this work is now a total myth, and there’s no place for the complaint that it’s hard to find them and their music. I asked the ABC crowd for their favorites. Here are a few:
Nava Tehila is a Jerusalem prayer community/music collective whose music is becoming pretty popular of late. One of the group’s composers is Daphna Rosenberg, who is also a vocalist and guitarist. (I wrote about their visit to the Bay Area last year.) If you’re looking for replacements for the Carlebach Kabbalat Shabbat canon, look no further.
Rabbi Miriam Margles. I only recently became aware of her via her earworm of a tune for Adon Olam. It has been stuck in my head since August.
Deborah Sacks Mintz is the knock-’em-dead voice you hear on some of Joey Weisenberg’s best recordings. But she’s also a composer in her own right. Sacks Mintz hasn’t published much so far, but what she has put out there is terrific, and I expect we’ll hear a lot more from her in coming years.
Cantor Basya Schechter. The Lecha Dodi she recorded with her band Pharaoh’s Daughter is criminally underused; it pains me. In addition to her recorded music, you can also check her out at Romemu, an emergent synagogue in New York, where she is the cantor.
Rabbi Shefa Gold. Gold is a leader in the Renewal movement, and her music has been a big part of the Renewal community (and others) for a long time. If you’ve spent much time checking out services around the Bay, you’ve certainly heard some of her music — repeating, elevating sacred chants that focus on one line or a few words. Her Ashrei is the tune I encounter most often.
Kohenet Taya Shere. Shere (who also goes by Taya Mâ) is local to the Bay and one of the co-founders and co-leaders of Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute. She also started the Makam Shekhina community of Hebrew priestesses and Sufi dervishes. On her website, she calls her latest album “Hebrew goddess chant. Lush world beats.”
Peri Smilow. I don’t know much of her music, but Smilow’s tune for Ashrei is killer, and always a pleasant surprise when I encounter it in the wild.
3. There are many places online to go looking for new and unfamiliar music.
One of my favorites is the website of Mechon Hadar, the vanguard organization of Traditional Egalitarian Judaism. The “Tefillah & Music” section of its site is an almost overwhelming storehouse of liturgical music, much of it pretty obscure. It’s easy to navigate, organized by prayer and service.
4. Start with Kabbalat Shabbat.
Investigate the tunes your community sings during this introductory portion of the Friday evening service. Nine times out of 10, there’s some Carlebach in there — perhaps all of it. Seeking out new tunes for this portion of the service will go a long way.
5. Visit other communities.
If your community is heavy on Carlebach, try visiting some others in your area to see what they do. We at J. have a couple great resources for finding other options in the Bay Area to check out.
6. Accept that you can’t accomplish this overnight.
The greatest difficulty in rooting out Carlebach’s music is simply identifying it. His catalog is extensive, and many of his tunes are used for multiple prayers. Even the most knowledgeable service leaders I know are occasionally caught off-guard when they learn that Carlebach wrote a particular tune. Start by bringing in new stuff, and trust in the patience of your community and knowledge of its musical leaders. Let yourself sort it out as you go. And enjoy the journey into new music.
So what you’re saying is that there needs to be a litmus test on art. You don’t like the artist you eliminate the art.
What’s even more terrifying is that you’re saying that the magical spiritual art of carlebach and and how it’s touched millions for decades is now all invalid. I’m really scared of a world where g*d is only allowed to work through perfect people. Cause then as Jews we’re screwed. Ever actually read the Torah? Our patriarchs and matriachs weren’t the most politically correct people. Our whole religion might be invalidated in that case. Oh yeah that’s what the reform movement is all about. I forgot.
But let’s start burning museums and books and tearing down buildings if those guys behaved badly.
Let’s do the same with science. If it’s discovered that Einstein groped a graduate assistant let’s kill off relativity. Find a girl whose got a different idea regardless of whether or not it’s better.
Need a heart transplant? Better hope that the guy who invented that didn’t make a pass at the wrong girl cause you might die. I mean how can you have a procedure invented by someone who wasn’t a plus approved by the sisterhood?
Or maybe it’s time to grow the f up. The take away from all this me too drama might just should be that women should stand up today. Every time. No matter who it is. No matter what you think it might cost.
Cause that’s the only way it’s going to stop.
The rest of this is just freaking childish.
How about a return to Nussach?
Exactly!
In his article “How to purge ..” David Wilensky glosses over an assumption he’s making — that he thinks the best response to the complex story of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach is to purge his music. But is it? Apparently he hasn’t spoken much to the women whose cause he claims to be championing.
I have. I was close friends with women who were sexually involved with Reb Shlomo in the 1960s. I have since sat with an open heart with dozens of women who experienced his inappropriate behaviors, and listened to their stories.
As co-founder Reb Shlomo’s House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco in 1968, I wrote a memoir about those years, “Holy Beggars,” which was published in 2011. See Dan Pine’s article in J May 27, 2011. (https://www.jweekly.com/2017/12/12/purging-music-shlomo-carlebach-age-metoo/)
I chose to include in my book what I witnessed and knew of Reb Shlomo’s misconduct with women. As a student of his who still considers him a rebbe, this was a difficult decision for me . It resulted in fierce opposition, including law suit threats, as well as the loss of some of my dearest Orthodox friends in Israel.
What motivated me was to honor the full, complex range of what I lived through at this pivotal time for American Judaism. That meant acknowledging and honoring the women who had been hurt by Reb Shlomo’s actions and doing what I could to support their healing. It also meant acknowledging and honoring the enormous love, and the enormous contribution, that Reb Shlomo made to my life as a spiritual seeker and a Jew — and his similar contributions to thousands of others, Jew and non-Jew alike.
It was hard. So much of our current public discourse has descended to angry tweets: “He was a sexual abuser!” / “No, he was a perfect tzaddik!” Real life is more complicated. Wisdom, understanding, compassion, healing, all take effort.
Of all the women I was privileged to sit with, listen to, and cry with after the publication of my book, none of them felt that they wanted his music to be banished. For many, that would have made them feel even worse. What they wanted was to be heard, recognized, valued, respected.
Continual renewal of music in Jewish liturgy is positive and necessary for a vibrant, evolving community. But censorship is not. Instead of a censorship crusade, let’s focus on what will really make a difference: high standards of decency and accountability for all, especially leaders; safety and support for everyone to share what they are experiencing, community life where everyone is respected and valued.
With all due respect, you knew the women he was “sexually involved with.” The difference between women he was sexually involved with and women he preyed upon and forced himself upon and was sexually involved with without their consent, what about them? Those are two very different categories.
If we’re talking about Judaism and not some New Age substitute, both behaviors were wrong.
What did you or any of his circle personally do to help these women back in the day, as the things you later wrote up were happening? Was the problem such a secret?
Nabokov was forbidden in USSR, but considered to be one the prime writer in the world. Censorship of Mark Twain is not making him smaller writer, it makes the society poorer. Music of Carlebach will survive the the temporary foolishness of the crowd.
Ps. I came from former USSR. I know how life can have funny twists. The truth prevails.
My message is- take off your hands from his art!!!
Off with his head!
If I thought that banning Shlomo Carlebach would prevent one woman from being sexually harassed, if I thought it would get one underpaid female rabbi to be paid at the same scale as her male colleagues, if I thought it would prevent a single incident of a man denying that the objectification of women is an ongoing problem in our synagogues, I would do it. But I don’t. In fact, I think the focus on vilifying a rabbi from a movement that most of us don’t identify with anyway, who has been dead for more than twenty years, is just a way not to talk about the real problems we face today regarding the treatment of women in the Jewish community.
I respectfully disagree. I think that if *even* Carlebach doesn’t get a (posthumous) pass, then future harassers are going to think twice before acting. If we hold everyone accountable and give weight to these acts, then we are part of a cultural sea change that protects and respects women as equal human beings. I think it might directly impact the pay of female rabbis, eventually.
I read both this article and Aryae Coopersmith’s response on a friend’s Facebook page. What I liked about this piece was the positive focus on incorporating newer music, much of it composed by women.
I’m ambivalent about purging music because the composer was tainted. It feels a bit like the old Wagner debate. But, it is troubling that synagogues have showcased the work of an abuser and given him kavod. Synagogues are not concert halls. There’s a reason we use the word “sanctuary.”
I was an eleven – year old child when Carlebach felt me up at my Orthodox day school, calling me “Holy Maidel.” I got away from him quickly. I thought it was creepy, but I didn’t tell anyone. As a grown woman, I know what it really was, criminal unethical, behavior.
My synagogue seems to have quietly stopped calling certain Friday nights, “Carlebach Shabbat.” That’s a start. I would like to see more of these new composers’ works introduced. Maybe we can marginalize the name, if not the tunes. The music loses some of the weight and association with abuse when surrounded by the works of young female composers. I don’t like censoring art, but I feel that limiting the air time we give Carlebach will have a healing effect over time.
Revert to the traditional nusach. Properly done, it works! And every known Chassidus has great tunes for Lecha Dodi, Keil Adon, and other such prayers.
In any case, weekly repetition of Carlebach tunes loses much of its appeal over time.