This morning, as I do each day, I set out on foot before first light and walk between 5 and 7 miles, listen to podcasts, music, or the sound of birds in a city before traffic noise distorts the ether. As I turned onto one road in my neighborhood, tree-lined covered with a canopy of green 80 year-old maple trees, I cast a very long shadow, as shown in this photo.
The image took me back 50 years this month to the summer of 1973 in Israel.
I arrived in Israel for the first time at the end of June, in the middle of the Watergate hearings, and spent two months studying Hebrew at Ulpan Akiva in Chavatzeret HaSharon, a seaside town just north of Netanya above Tel Aviv, before beginning my first year of rabbinic school in Jerusalem. On the Ulpan (an accelerated Hebrew immersion program) were two other fellow classmates; one was already a cantor and the other, like me, destined for rabbinic ordination years later. We formed a small singing group and entertained the other students and staff of the Ulpan on Erev Shabbat each week. Included among the staff was the Ulpan founder and director, Shulamit Katznelson (1919-1999), the daughter of the legendary Zionist leader Berl Katznelsen (1887-1944).
Shulamit loved our singing so much that, without our knowledge, she contacted the Summer Netanya Festival organizers and suggested that we sing in the central square of Netanya before thousands of Israelis. She informed us of our appearance – our resistance notwithstanding – and we three sat down to decide what to sing before what was expected to be a huge Israeli crowd.
That summer, the most popular song in Israel took the lyrics (Shir baboker baboker) written by the noted Israeli poet Amir Gilboa (1917-1984) that had been set to music by Gidi Koren (b. 1947) and Shlomo Artzi (b. 1949) and sung by Shlomo Artzi (see below link to his original performance of the song). Every young Israeli knew the song’s lyrics by memory by the time we sang it at the festival. We suggested to Shulamit that we sing this song, and she approved it whole-heartedly.
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (1925-1994) was the headliner of the festival open-air concert. We were his warm-up act. We were introduced, took the stage and began singing Pitom Kam Adam, and within seconds the thousands of Israelis in the square joined us.
It was an uplifting experience, to say the least. When we finished the song, the crowd went wild in its approval. Rabbi Carlebach came forward and said – “Now THAT was a great opening.”
Later on that summer, Shulamit was scheduled to appear on an Israeli Army Radio program modeled after the American popular television show “What’s My Line.” Shulamit and her assistant director, Sarah, invited me to come along. After her segment, the radio show’s host asked her about the Ulpan, what happens there, what they taught, how they taught Hebrew, who were the students (from all over the world), etc. She said, “Ar’eh l’cha. Yochanan, bevakesha, ta’aleh l’bimah (I’ll show you – John – please come up to the stage”). The room was filled with about 500 IDF soldiers. I was sitting with Sarah and she started laughing, at my expense. I said, “I can’t go up there, Sarah.” “Sure you can!” She said. “Go!”
The host said, “Yochanan – bo, bo!” (Come forward). The crowd started chanting the same – “Yochanan, bo – Yochanan bo.” I couldn’t refuse.
I had been a song leader at an American Jewish summer camp (Camp Alonim of the Brandeis Camp Institute), so I knew how to lead singing. But this was a completely new venue for me. Terrified, as I ascended the steps to the central microphone, the radio show’s host handed me a guitar, asked me a few questions (in Hebrew), and presumed that I was planning to make aliyah. I chose not to disavow him of his assumption. The crowd cheered and chanted: “Yochanan – tashir, tashir” (sing, sing).
I led a few songs including as a conclusion Pitom Kam Adam, and the soldiers joined in with full enthusiasm, voice, and spirit. The program was broadcast nationally on Army radio.
Israelis love to sing, and good poetry set to music in Israel is part of the national ethos and character. Nothing brings Israelis together more fully and lovingly than song – across ideological, religious, ethnic, and political lines.
That’s what’s needed now in the Jewish State – more singing, less polarization, more unity of purpose, less divisive politicking, more affirmation of the state’s founding generation’s vision of a Jewish democratic State of Israel, and less right-wing fanatical legislation.
Here is the chorus for Pitom Kam Adam:
פִּתְאֹם קָם אָדָם בַּבֹּקֶר וּמַרְגִּישׁ כִּי הוּא עַם וּמַתְחִיל לָלֶכֶת
וּלְכָל הַנִּפְגָּשׁ בְּדַרְכּוֹ קוֹרֵא הוּא שָׁלוֹם
“Suddenly a man gets up in the morning
And feels that he is a nation and starts to walk,
And to everyone on his way, he says shalom!”
Listen to the song here and enjoy! – https://soundcloud.com/kolramahberkshires/pitom-kam-adam