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Shlomo Died in New York and
Carlebach is Resurrected in Israel
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach passed away in October 1994 in New York, at the age of 69, moments after the plane he was on took off for Toronto, Canada.
Immediately upon news of his death, all media outlets in Israel widely reported it, adding many details about the man and his personality, and about his contribution to Israeli and Jewish music. Even the Haredi newspaper "HaModia," whose rabbis had ostracized him, published an obituary.
The media festival surrounding "the Dancing Rabbi" lasted a few days and concluded with coverage of the funeral, including quotes from the eulogies delivered at his fresh grave.
Not a word was said about the last years of his life.
Carlebach's final years were spent with a pacemaker implanted in his chest, after suffering cardiac events and a prolonged hospitalization – far from the family he had established, without close soul friends, without a regular impresario to systematically organize his performances and take care of his daily needs.
Instead of mass performances with tickets sold in advance, which he knew at the peak of his career, he had to settle for performances before limited audiences at private concerts or family celebrations – weddings, bar mitzvahs, circumcisions. Here and there he was invited to perform before Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, to deliver a Torah lecture or tell Hasidic stories in "Shabbat workshops."
Even in Israel, there was no great demand for his performances, as there had been in his glory days.
He found his greatest comfort among a handful of his loyal followers in the moshav they established, "Mevo Modi'im." There he felt at home, loved and admired, a spiritual leader to the Anglo-Saxon moshavniks who longed to celebrate Sabbaths and holidays with him, to eagerly listen to his words, to touch him, to sing with him.
The sponsors who used to generously donate to him dwindled. Their generosity decreased in parallel with the Rabbi's decline into illness and old age, and his failed financial management led him to repeatedly ask them for "a small loan" that was never repaid.
His financial conduct, which was an open secret, deteriorated his situation until he was completely destitute.
Among other things, he was known as a spendthrift – mainly for charity and acts of kindness for others. But also for his personal needs. For example, he used to stay in expensive hotels and fly on reputable airlines. He had one reliable source of income – royalties from his widely popular songs throughout the Jewish world. Like any artist of his stature, he could have lived off royalties and copyrights from his works until the end of his days. But Carlebach did not properly manage his due royalties, whether by choice or out of ignorance. And so, songs and melodies he composed became public domain, available for anyone to sing and perform without the creator profiting.
A professional and loyal impresario would certainly have taken care of this too.
But he didn't get along with impresarios, whom he replaced from time to time – they thought business. They wanted to make money from his performances and asked him to sing the "sure-fire songs," those that the audience loved. He wanted to give the audience what his heart told him to give: more complex songs, new melodies, long Hasidic stories, and words of Torah that added significance to the messages he preached.
Carlebach began his international career in the United States, and there he also ended it.
A place where he spent his youth and adulthood, he felt more comfortable. That was his natural environment, among American Jews and non-Jews.
Although he never built a permanent home in Israel or resided there permanently, he wanted to be buried in Jerusalem. And his wish was fulfilled, even though the fulfillment required complex logistics that demanded funding from money he did not leave behind. His funeral arrangements, including flying his body for burial in Israel, were finally settled, only after a few loyal Hasidim collected donations and contributions to enable a dignified burial for the man who in his life cared for everyone but himself. The money donated by the benefactors also allowed for the placement of a magnificent tombstone on his grave on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem. Since then, the tombstone has become a place of pilgrimage.
Every year on the anniversary of his passing according to the Hebrew calendar, 16th of Marcheshvan, hundreds of men and women of all ages gather for an annual memorial day ("Yahrzeit") around Carlebach's tombstone on Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem.
Between the annual memorial days, throughout the years and in all seasons – there are those who come there individually, with a broken heart, with existential doubts, with spiritual emptiness. They come to seek inspiration and to commune with the man who was the rabbi of broken hearts and all those who strayed.
Sometimes a group of young people, more or less "freaky," gather and come to the grave for no logical reason, but just to sing his songs together as a group. They arrive spontaneously. Someone pulls out a guitar and breaks into a Carlebach tune, and everyone joins in, swaying body and soul, boys and girls who surrender to the melody and see it as part of their soul.
If Carlebach were to rise for a moment from his grave and look around at these young people singing and dancing his songs with mystical enthusiasm around his tombstone, he would be filled with satisfaction.
That's how he loved them. Young men and women who connect to faith through music. They can be religious or secular, right-wing or left-wing, Ashkenazi or Mizrahi – it's completely irrelevant.
The main thing is the spiritual spark that illuminates their soul and has the rhythm of a Jewish melody.
But they are only a small handful who carry Carlebach's spiritual flame and live by its light.
The Tombstone – click on the image to enlarge
2022 – At Rabbi Carlebach's grave on the 38th anniversary of his passing
In the years since he passed away, "Carlebach's Legacy" took a turn he never dreamed of.
The legacy revolves mainly around his songs and melodies, and to them are added stories and legends that may or may not have happened, and interpretations of Torah teachings that he may or may not have said, and rumors and stories passed by word of mouth, and above all, an aura of holiness hovers. From them emerges an exemplary figure whose path is followed.
This began already in the eulogies delivered at the funeral. There, the eulogizers began to crown him a righteous man and a saint. Since then, the stories and legends around the figure of "Reb Shloimeh" grew and gained the dimensions of a legacy – rabbis and public figures mention his melodies and praise the character of the righteous man, radio and television channels dedicate programs to the memory of "Shloimeleh Carlebach," klezmers and wedding singers gladden celebrants with Carlebach songs, religious and Hasidic singers compete among themselves for cover versions of his songs, and masses of young people from all religious sectors take the songs and melodies for granted, as if these were tunes their ancestors brought with them from exile in Europe.
Here's an event that could not have happened in his lifetime: a clip showing 3,000 yeshiva students singing Carlebach in mass singing, with enthusiasm and devotion.
A scene like this, which took place at Binyanei HaUma in Jerusalem in 2018, could not have happened during his lifetime.
Throughout his musical career, Shlomo Carlebach was ostracized by such yeshiva students. Heads of yeshivas and leading rabbis forbade the playing of his songs, issued halachic rulings to burn his records and books, and zealots burned the House of Love and Prayer he established in Jerusalem. He was deemed an outcast and endured public and private insults.
They rejected him and his songs because he did not separate men and women, because he embraced every Jew from every stream, even Reform and Conservative, because he respected the gentile of another faith and engaged in dialogue with him – this was his original legacy that he sought to promote during his lifetime.
Carlebach's original and true legacy is found in the moshav of his followers, Mevo Modi'im.
There it gains true and honest proportions. There they tell visitors that "Rabbi Carlebach was a very beloved rabbi who was known for composing many melodies from prayer and the Tanakh and delivering them to a secular, Jewish, and Christian audience, with the aim of emphasizing the bringing together of hearts. The Rabbi is considered one of the pioneers of modern Hasidic song, appealing to as wide an audience as possible."
And they know what they are talking about.
They were his warm home, and they are the authorized torchbearers. All the rest are refurbishing the past and making unfair use of his songs and image.
If Rabbi Carlebach were to emerge from his grave and see his discs distributed in Bnei Brak and Haredi neighborhoods of Jerusalem, in Elad and Ramat Beit Shemesh... and if he were to hear the compliments showered upon him by rabbis, heads of yeshivas, and influential community figures from the Haredi sector and Religious Zionism – he would ask them:
"Now you recall?"
But Carlebach, being Carlebach, would not be angry.
"Oy oy oy..." he would sigh and say: "Holy Kinderlach... you broke my heart in my life. Now from my seat in Paradise I forgive you."
And he would break into a joyful, heart-warming melody. And just before returning to his place in Paradise, he would ask:
"Just do me a favor. Every time you sing or play one of my melodies, please, dear Jews, pay royalties to my two daughters, my legal heirs, so they may have some comfort after my death, more than they had in my life."
Neshama and Nedara (Deri)
Shlomo Carlebach's Daughters
(Photo from Facebook)
Carlebach's singing is not ordinary singing, in the familiar pattern of standard songs. It has its own uniqueness, and original characteristics, and not so original ones.
What is Carlebach's singing? And what is its connection to Christian religious songs in the "gospel" style?
About this in the next chapter:
Shlomo Carlebach and his daughter, Neshama.
Neshama Carlebach, an award-winning singer and songwriter.
She collaborated with him during his lifetime, and after his passing, continued his legacy in her unique way.
Image from Neshama Carlebach's website..
This is the Seventh 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