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AUDIO: "Yih'yu L'ratson" by Cantor Rebecca Garfein(Singing in English at Performance of "The Colossus"): ... your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ...
What we're showing is the music that was either brought to this country on the backs of the immigrants that came here ...
(Singing in Hebrew and Ladino at Performance of "Ein Keloheinu-Non Komo Muestro Dyo"): Me Eloheinu, Me Chadoneinu ...
... or the music that was developed in this country, such as the modern synagogue music or even Broadway music or the music of the Yiddish theater on Second Avenue.
(Singing in Hebrew and Ladino at Performance of "Ein Keloheinu-Non Komo Muestro Dyo"): ... Ken komo muestro Rey, ken komo muestro Salvador ...A lot of the influences on the Yiddish theater were taken directly from the synagogues of Europe, where the cantor was really their form of, almost, entertainment.
(Singing in Yiddish at Performance of "Vos is gevorn fun mayn shtetele?"): ... in der heym, in shtelele a mol ...
The storyteller in "Vos is gevorn fun mayn shtetele?" is recalling those beautiful days back in the old country when he or she would go to the synagogue and hear the cantor praying for the High Holy Days.
"Lechi Lach" is the blessing as you go forth. We read out of the Torah from Lech Lacha, which talks about God telling Abraham to go forth, and he doesn't tell Abraham where Abraham is going. He just says, "Go forth to the place that I am telling you to go." And over this week, one of my bar mitzvah boys was practicing his speech, and he said the whole immigrant experience was about going forth. And, really, that encapsulates so much of what this album is about.
