Hebrew songs added to the lively mix of jazz, funk, blues and ethnic dance at the inauguration of Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown this week.
Joining the long lineup of entertainers were students from Oakland Hebrew Day School, who belted out four songs at the Oakland Museum’s Great Hall Monday evening. The entertainment followed Brown’s oath-taking ceremony in the Paramount Theatre.
Wearing white-collared shirts under royal blue Oakland Hebrew Day School sweatshirts, 15 kindergarten through sixth graders sang four carefully chosen songs, including Lo Yisa Goy, a call for peace, and Amar Rebbe Elazar, which touches on the importance of education.
“We wanted to make a blessing upon the administration,” said Cantor Sara Shendelman, who teaches drama at OHDS and who prepped the kids for their appearance at the inauguration. “I hope we’re making a loving, spiritual statement.”
The school does not have an official chorus, though a music teacher comes once a month. Just before recessing for winter break, the school got word from Brown’s campaign office that students had been invited to perform at the ethnically diverse festivities following the inauguration of Oakland’s 47th mayor.
“We thought it was just so nice that Mayor Brown wanted to include all of the communities in Oakland,” said Terry Amgott-Kwan, OHDS’s office manager and head of the school’s parents association.
Rabbi Elie Tuchman, the school’s director, agreed. “Being involved in everything that goes on around us is an essential part of what it means to be a modern Orthodox Jew,” he said.
All OHDS students available to rehearse during the break were invited to join the impromptu chorus.
Shendelman distributed tapes of the songs to the young singers, who practiced on their own at home and then rehearsed three times as a group in Shendelman’s home.
Among the singers were Shendelman’s two daughters, Aliya, 10, and Shaendl, 7, who had the advantage of being able to get in some extra practice with the group song leader.
“We were up in Tilden Park the other day and we started rehearsing the songs, and a little group gathered around us and clapped when we were done,” said Shendelman in an interview before the performance.
The 15 singers got an equally enthusiastic response Monday. “We got a ton of applause,” reported fourth grader Benjamin Dorfman. “I think we did really good.”
Dorfman and other singers admitted to being a bit nervous at the beginning of their 15-minute performance. The nerves went away quickly, however. Said Ariel Amgott-Kwan, 9: “It was really exciting.”