Brodner’s Cartoon du Jour: Rosenblatt

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In our time and place, the humility of atonement and the calling to account have a deep imperative. Just open a newspaper or any news website. How fine a mass atonement and a dawning self-awareness would be.

This all brings to mind Cantor Yosele Rosenblatt. A recent Times piece about an intrepid audio amateur in Crown Heights who is meticulously restoring Rosenblatt’s old records said this about the cantor:

“Mr. Rosenblatt was born in Russia in 1882 and toured Eastern Europe as a child prodigy. In 1912 he immigrated to the United States and became the cantor at Ohab Zedek, an Orthodox synagogue then on 116th Street in Harlem. Blessed with a penetrating bell-like tenor with a range of two and a half octaves, and a gift for coloratura and falsetto, Mr. Rosenblatt had the ability to squeeze the pathos or elation out of every prayer.”

He was a celeb in his time and became most famous, perhaps, for singing in the first full-length “talkie” film, The Jazz Singer. Here, playing himself, he reminds Al Jolson of his father and of the huge tank-car of guilt he should be feeling. (Jolson can’t quite get Bill Demarest into the concert. I’m sure Preston Sturges could do it, but that’s another movie.) The cantor would not perform “Kol Nidre” in the movie, because he felt that it was a prayer and not appropriate for popular performance. In any case, you can see and hear this man called the “Jewish Caruso.”

I have included Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidre” below, performed by the incomparable Jacqueline Du Pré. Peace.

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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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