By Boris Levenberg
HAIFA, Israel — The Jewish people have always sung. They sang in moments of grief and in moments of joy. The Jewish people have always fantasized, dreamed of better times. They have celebrated and grieved, laughed and cried.
I completed a fantasy piece about the songs of the Jewish people a few days before their tragedy broke on the day of their great and joyous holiday, the Joy of Torah. I titled the piece I Hear a Scream. On the “Black Sabbath” of October 7, I heard the screams of Jews, victims of a pogrom that happened where there could have been no pogrom – in the territory of the Jewish state.
As a composer who writes Jewish music, in it I cry and laugh, mourn and rejoice, conveying the feelings of my people, strong and proud, suffering and struggling. That cry should not have been there, for there should be no Jewish pogroms in a Jewish state. But Jews do not only grieve and celebrate. They are learning. They have always loved to learn. This tragedy has made them learn to fight misfortune, to fight and defeat their enemies. And while the war is going on, the Jewish people are singing.
Readers of your publication have recently heard my song My Heart is in the East on the verses of Alex Gordon in his essay The Melody of Zionism. I want to introduce readers of the San Diego Jewish World to my fantasy on the themes of Jewish folk songs for solo violin and string orchestra, I Hear a Scream, dedicated to the memory of my mother. This new work of mine features the melodies of the Jewish world of the past, but one can also recognize in it the major fantasies of the future Jewish people.
Above: the sheet music and a recording of my new piece.
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Boris Levenberg is an Israeli (until 1990 Soviet) composer and music teacher, author of numerous symphonic, instrumental, vocal and theatrical works, widely performed in concert halls in Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, USA, Brazil and Israel. The Jewish theme occupies a special place in the composer’s work.