Soul to Soul
Editorial

Soul to Soul

It’s been a really hard few weeks.

For one thing, it’s winter. It’s hard to be upbeat when you’re frozen. That’s a simple fact of nature.

And the news isn’t good either. The situation in Israel is primal in the agony of the choices facing decision-makers. The hostages are normal, regular, everyday people who were manhandled out of their lives with a brutality that most of us cannot imagine, much less imagine enduring, much less imagine perpetuating. Many of them are dead; some we know have died, others we don’t. Their families are in the kind of prolonged uncertainty that is its own hell.

Just to think about the little red-haired Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, is to fight tears. If they’re alive, they’ve spent most of their lives in captivity.

To free the hostages, the Israelis must release some of the worst of the worst, terrorists and mass murderers. And it’s not only that — some of those monsters might do it again. If Yahyah Sinwar hadn’t been released from Israeli prison in a similar swap, maybe October 7 wouldn’t have happened.

Or maybe it would have. The terrorist counterfactual is hard to figure out.

No matter what we think the decision should be, we must remember that Israel is in this position because Hamas and its backers are actively evil. The depths of their cruelty is a mystery to normal people, and if we are lucky, it will remain so.

And then American politics — let’s leave that aside for now. There is both too much and nothing to say.

So on Sunday night, as the snow fell — and it does look glittery and lovely on its way down — my husband and I went to see “Soul to Soul,” the Folksbiene’s annual salute to Martin Luther King Jr., and to the quest for justice and freedom that once joined the African American and American Jewish communities, and might do so again.

Andy and I have been going to this concert, the brainchild of Zalmen Mlotek of Teaneck — and of the world of Yiddishists and musicians and connection-forgers — for years, and every year it’s been superb.

This year, though, it was even better.

Zalmen, who is the Folksbiene’s artistic director, has assembled a superb cast, who come back every year. It’s two Black men, Elmore James and Sam McKelton, and two Jewish women, both improbably surnamed Fishman, Lisa and Cantor Magda. They all have superb voices and great charisma (and Cantor Fishman also has a trumpet, which she played in the IDF).

The evening began with the Jewish educator, philanthropist, and educational and philanthropic entrepreneur Peter Geffen, talking about being a very young Freedom Rider, and with Ritchie Torres, the young Democrat who represents the Bronx in Congress. Mr. Torres has distinguished himself as a strong supporter of Israel; his talk was direct, straightforward, kind, and inspiring. (I’d vote for him for anything.)

And then, in front of a background of mainly black-and-white photos of a young MLK (and of course he was young; he was assassinated when he was 39, so he was never not young) and luminaries including not only Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel but also Rabbi Joachim Prinz, as well as his young children, and photos of well-dressed people marching, holding signs, looking both fearful and hopeful, the four singers talked briefly before each song about some aspect of the civil rights movement.

And then they sang. In Yiddish, in English; songs of love, songs of grief, songs of joy; funny songs, sad songs, mostly but not entirely familiar songs. The evening started with a song from the choir at the Heschel School, and in the middle included a visit from talented members of the Impact Repertory Theater. It was about what these two cultures, the Black and the Jewish, share, and how it once was and once again will be easy to go from dutiful gratitude to deep connection.

All that’s easy to write. What’s harder to convey, but far more important, was the jubilant joy we all felt by the end of the evening. Many of us might be fighting off feelings of impending doom, but there was no such feeling in the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, where the concert was held, on Sunday night. Instead, with all the performers on stage and all the audience members on their feet, there was the kind of singing and clapping and swaying and jumping that could have gone on forever, if we could have had our way.

There is still joy in the world — in beauty, in fellowship, in music, and in a warm room as snow falls outside.

Thanks, Zalmen, for creating this oasis.

—JP

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