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Carlebach and His
"Holy Hippalach" (Hippies)
In the mid-1960s, the "counter-culture" phenomenon developed in the United States, led by young people called "Hippies."
The Hippies rebelled against existing conventions and turned against the accepted order of the parental generation. They grew long hair, wore sloppy and colorful clothes, gathered at music festivals, and roamed the streets and parks with guitars in their hands, forming communes and smoking soft and hard drugs. They championed the struggle for peace, openness, equality, freedom, free love, and brotherhood among all human beings.
They were called "flower children" because of the flowers they attached to their hair, which became a trademark symbol of the rebellious youth generation.
Millions of young American men and women were swept away by the phenomenon, flooding universities in cities from coast to coast. A particularly large concentration of Hippies gathered in San Francisco, California.
"The Singing Rabbi" Carlebach was also carried on the waves of this movement.
The Rabbi found favor in the eyes of many young Americans who were swept up by the spirit of the times. He was considered by them an authentic representative of Judaism, one who knew how to speak their language and be a partner in a heart-warming dialogue between religions. He attended theological conventions with Christian ministers, met students at universities with whom he demonstrated for human brotherhood, and associated with the cultural heroes of the flower children, such as: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jefferson Airplane – singers and bands that the counter-culture phenomenon produced.
The Hippies loved him, and he loved them.
Among them, he discovered thousands of young Jewish men and women who were an integral part of the bustling crowd of flower children. Lost youth, on the verge of assimilation. He called them: "Hippalach" and gathered them around him. He sang verses from prayers to them, told them Hasidic stories, spoke to their hearts, and invited them to "do Shabbat with him."
Influenced by them and the spirit of the times, he let his hair grow long and looked similar to his "Holy Hippies."
Carlebach and the "Hippalach" in the 1960s
As he became more deeply immersed in the counter-culture, criticism against him from conservative Jewish communities intensified.
In the Orthodox and Haredi rabbinic establishment in America, he was viewed as someone who assimilated among "gentiles" and crossed red lines in male-female interactions.
Carlebach was not deterred and did not stop his path.
The demand for his performances abroad also did not cease, and he continued to travel the world. He performed in large and magnificent halls, at educational institutions and religious conventions, and everywhere he went, he was honored. He met heads of state and public figures who enjoyed his performances and sought to meet the extraordinary Jewish Rabbi.
In one unforgettable performance in 1965, at a rally for Soviet Jewry held in Prague, he sang for the first time a song he composed to a biblical verse that underwent lyrical adaptation: "Od Avinu Chai, Am Yisrael Chai" (Our Father is Still Alive, the People of Israel Live) – a song that became an integral part of Jewish culture in Israel and around the world.
Over the years, the song would be upgraded and become a kind of anthem for Israelis imbued with national spirit in moments of national euphoria or during times of crisis.
Carlebach in a mass performance before Jews at a rally for Soviet Jewry
"Od Avinu Chai" - Original performance by Carlebach To listen, click on the video
or here on the YouTube link
In that same year, 1965, his fans in Israel waited for him to sing with them, as they did every year, but he did not come.
When he arrived a year later, the signs of the times were already evident on him – his curls had grown a bit longer and his clothing looked more disheveled. Many wondered even then if Carlebach himself was using drugs. The biographies written about him obscure the answer, but he himself, in an interview he gave to the Haaretz newspaper, stated that he "wrote five songs in one trip under the influence of LSD."
One of his performances that year took place at the "Hamam" club in Jaffa, established by Israelis Dan Ben Amotz and Haim Hefer – two blatant rebels who disparaged Jewish tradition and led a new cultural wave, secular, defiant, and rebellious against all the conventions of the Jewish people. This was truly at the level of "heresy" for any religious person. Carlebach was invited there as a liberal, attractive rabbi, strongly connected to the spirit of the Sixties, whose signs were already evident in Israel.
The audience that filled the club was diverse – secular people for whom the Dancing Rabbi was an attraction, especially when he incorporated gospel songs and American music into his performance. There were also kippah wearers and women with head coverings, those who crossed the line and came to the Hamam, a club that even then had the image of a place enveloped in a licentious atmosphere, truly "pritzut" (immodesty/licentiousness).
Carlebach could have been a connecting point between the two audiences, but he went for what was, for him, the perfect utopia: absolute rapprochement of hearts and peace among peoples, between religions and faiths, between sectors, between genders.
His home audience in Israel didn't yet know exactly what their cultural hero was going through.
Rumors from America reached here too and blended with information about the counter-culture, about hippies and flower children. In the religious sector, they hoped it was a passing fad, but the winds of the Sixties blew all over the world and sent sparks of inspiration to Israeli music. New cultural heroes ascended the stage, rhythm bands of long-haired youths appeared on discotheque stages, and simple guitars were replaced by electric guitars. Carlebach looked and sounded like them.
The youth of the National Religious sector could not secretly admire their cultural hero. They contented themselves with singing Carlebach and continued to consume it, without the phenomena associated with his personality.
In the Bnei Akiva youth movement branch or in the boarding school of the high-school yeshivas, young boys wearing knitted kippahs held guitars and sang for the enjoyment of those around them, his songs along with folk songs with a conservative tone, without explicit or controversial lyrics like love songs or anything dealing with matters between a man and a woman.
Their model was "the Dancing Rabbi," and the guitar he played replaced for them the old Jewish violin that symbolized the Jewish shtetl and all the hallmarks of exile.
And then the Six-Day War arrived. All the cards in Israeli society were reshuffled, in culture and in music alike.
"Shifchi Kamayim Libech" - from an album of the same name produced in 1965 To watch directly on YouTube click on the link here
In the next chapter: The Six-Day War brings an atmosphere of holiness to Israeli society. Carlebach is absorbed in his holy work, establishes a "House of Love and Prayer," gives up his home audience, and finds a new, enthusiastic and embracing audience.
This is the fourth chapter in the fascinating biography of the Hasidic singer Shlomo Carlebach – a pioneer and trailblazer who laid the foundation for today's Hasidic music genre.
To read all chapters of the series in the table of contents at the following link:
(10 chapters - separate link for each chapter)
Research, writing, and editing:
Shlomi Rosenfeld