Mama, we have our son again.

So says Poppa at the end of the Jazz Singer as he hears the strains of Kol Nidre being sung with gusto by Al Jolson. 

Kol Nidre is a prayer that basically ‘kicks off’ a day and an hour of fasting for the most holy day in the Jewish Calendar, Yom Kippur.

It is, however, also our not so secret guilty pleasure,  whether you are a Ashkenazi or a Sephardi Jew. The Ashkenazi melody especially when sung by a half way decent chazzan is simply beautiful, and is known worldwide. The Sephardi, especially Moroccan version also wows the senses. 

There is a lot of controversy over the prayer itself over the years but here are things you may not know about the tune.

Samuel Pallache and the Age of Dissimulation

Dissimulation  

Many Jews went to Fez in Morocco at the time of the expulsion, and one of the families that did so was the Pallache. One of the progeny of that family was one Samuel Pallache, who had a remarkable career, and came to be known as the Pirate Rabbi to the modern generation.
 

To fully understand that career, though we have to understand dissimulation.

Gefilte Fish Line

Yottam Ottoleghi sneeringly says of “gefilte fish as “sweet, grey and smeared with gelatinous gunk, gefilte fish was perceived as a typical remnant of the old Ashkenazi world that was best left behind in Eastern Europe.”

Like many of his ilk he is keen to leave behind the rich Gefilte fish, but also fails to recognise how important said cuisine was back in the day. My Uncle Harry once said to us that he was sure that we came from Russia because we like our gefilte fish savoury rather than sweet.

606

Jordan Kutzik in the Jewish Daily Forward, November 2015, told us of a discovery of early klezmer music that had “lain in the EMI Music Archives in Hayes, England, untouched for many decades”

He pointed out that klezmer recordings were rare, and what existed nowadays was in the hands mainly of academics or musicians so that this discovery allowed the general public to be able to hear the early music that had been recorded in the Russian Empire Amongst all the dances and songs in this discovery was one called “606 Dance”, recorded in Odessa, celebrating Preparation 606, a treatment for syphilis.

The Jewish General that Time Forgot

We have all heard of the saying that in World War 1 “lions were led by donkeys”

Yet there was one general of whom this charge was never made.

His name was John Monash, and was considered one of the best and most intelligent generals in World War 1. That he isn’t better known is probably because he was an Australian, and since the war the focus has been of the British and French Generals.

Jews and Jazz

Of all the genres of music perhaps Jazz has the most intriguing history as far as Jews are concerned. You might expect that given its origins, it was an Afro-American 'thing'. Well there's some nice trivia ahead, including Benny Goodman, Satchmo, Gershwin, and Cab Calloway. 

The Chinese General and the Irish VC

Sometimes stories are so odd that you cannot believe them to be true – and yet they are.

Let's start with Morris Cohen Morris Abraham "Two-Gun" Cohen (1887 - 1970) was a Jewish soldier and adventurer who became aide-de-camp to the Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen and a major-general in the Chinese army. I bet you’ve never heard of him …..and for all his various adventures, he is buried in Blackley Cemetery in Manchester.