Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was born in Berlin in 1925 and grew up in Baden, near Vienna, where his father, Naftali Carlebach, was the chief rabbi. With the arrival of Nazism in Germany, the Carlebach family began a journey through several countries, finally arriving in New York in 1939. There, he and his twin brother, Eli Chaim, studied at Mesivta Tora Vodaas High School, a Haredi yeshiva. In 1943, they entered Rabbi Aharon Kotler’s Kolel and later the Chaim Berlin Yeshiva in Brooklyn, where Shlomo received his smicha, his rabbinical title, in 1954.

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach is considered one of the most influential composers of 20th-century Jewish religious music. Dedicated to Jewish liturgical music for over 40 years, he composed hundreds of melodies and recorded more than 25 albums that remain popular and appealing to this day. His influence is still felt in the Carlebach minyanim.

Carlebach was simultaneously a rabbi, religion teacher, composer, and singer, though he was always known as «the singing rabbi.» Although his roots were in traditional Orthodoxy, he branched out to create his own style, one that combined Hasidic Judaism, personal interaction, and public concerts with his music.

In 1950, Carlebach attended the Hebrew-language ulpan (school) of the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, where he would often play Hasidic melodies on the piano. Someone heard him and invited him to sing at the Hillel Center on Convent Avenue, an offer he reluctantly accepted. The poster for the event read: «The Place of Music in the Hasidic Tradition.» Years later, Carlebach would say that this poster «gave him the title of his life’s work.»

From 1951 to 1954, he joined the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and the Rebbe asked him to visit college campuses to «reconnect Jewish students with Judaism.» In 1965, he composed «Am Ysrael Chai,» a song that became an anthem for the movement on behalf of Soviet Jewry. In 1966, he met Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and other folk singers, who helped him participate in the Berkeley Festival. It was then that he decided to remain in the San Francisco area to help what he called «lost Jewish souls,» runaway youth, for whom he founded a center he called «The House of Love and Prayer.» In 1969, his song «Vehaer Eineninu» won first place at the Hasidic music festival in Israel. Carlebach died in 1994. During his lifetime, he was not well regarded by many of his Orthodox colleagues. He had excelled in Talmudic studies at the yeshiva, so many had hoped he would become its director. They viewed his choice of musical path with suspicion. Furthermore, they questioned his public activities, especially when women sang, which they considered a violation of halacha. Nevertheless, today the music of the «Singing Rabbi» can be heard in synagogues from the most Orthodox to the most Reform.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Shlomo Carlebach Foundation, article by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman and Ari L. Goldman.