Debbie Friedman—who she? / Mue [sic] recommendations

[lethargic_man]

I read all over Facebook today that Debbie Friedman has died. I heard her perform at Limmud a few weeks ago. She gently poked fun then at the fact she was older than the last time she performed at Limmud, fifteen or so years ago; I don't think anyone was expecting this to be perhaps the last time she performed anywhere.

She was introduced as being the writer of loads of songs we'd all know, and everyone else in the audience was singing along with them, but the only song she performed that I knew was a tune to Psalm 150 that I know she didn't write, because we were told at Limmud last year that it was originally a Sufi tune. (Later, someone told me that she wrote one of the other tunes to Psalm 150 I know.)

Possibly her tunes are more widely known in the Reform movement, but I think this article was overstating it to say "She is the voice of the Jewish people of the 20th century."

So, nu, what songs of hers might I have known that she didn't perform at Limmud?

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Whilst I'm at it, what other bands/singers should I know about, that I didn't before, like Gogol Bordello. (I haven't listened to music radio since 2000, so anyone new since then who's not ultra-massive the chances are I don't know... but what little pop I have heard, hasn't impressed me much, which is why what someone (I forget who) termed the "weirdo" section of my music collection (Taraf de Haïdouks, Los Desterrados, Kočani Orkestar, Gogol Bordello, etc) is growing at present faster than the pop/rock section.)

Comments

[liv]

Statistically speaking, the Jewish people of the 20th century is a group so overwhelmingly dominated by American Reform Jews that you might as well ignore everyone else. It's not just that her tunes are more widely known in the Reform movement, it's that she completely redefined what liturgical music was for, well, basically the Reform world. Basically she is the reason why most Reform shuls these days use music vaguely like contemporary American soft-rock, rather than music vaguely like 19^th century Protestant church music. So I don't think the article is over-stating things, but I also don't think it's surprising that you haven't really come across her much.

Songs of hers that come to mind: she has a version of that children's prayer about the angels guarding you on all sides:

May our right hands bring us closer to our Godliness
May our left hands bring us strength to face each day
Before us may God's vision light the path ahead
Behind us may wellbeing heal our way
All around us is Shekhinah, all around is Shekhinah

There's a version of Eliyahu haNavi with Miriam, and you might have heard her Lo yisa goy which she combines with a slight misquote from Albert Camus, viz:

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead
Just walk beside me and be my friend
And together we shall walk in the paths of Hashem

I must admit I'm not a huge fan of Friedman's musical style or lyrics, I find it schmaltzy, but I can't deny how influential she was.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Statistically speaking, "the Jewish people of the 20th century" is a group so overwhelmingly dominated by American Reform Jews that you might as well ignore everyone else.

That's not true. In the late twentieth century no more than half of world Jewry was American, and at the close of the century, the Conservative movement was still the largest denomination.

(That comment is also as annoying as the speaker at Limmud a year ago telling us that everything outside Israel or the States was the Jewish Third World, and that nothing of any significance came out of it. I'm annoyed I didn't think quite in time of standing up and shouting out "What about Limmud?" (Or, the translation in the Koren-Sacks siddur, for that matter. Or...))

There's a version of Eliyahu haNavi with Miriam, and you might have heard her Lo yisa goy which she combines with a slight misquote from Albert Camus, viz:

Ah, I've been wondering for years who added that last line.

[liv]

I don't personally agree that Judaism outside the US is unimportant, obviously; I'm very proud of my European heritage. I was talking about the pure numbers, and in terms of religiously affiliated Jews, American Reform Jews are by far the biggest single group worldwide. All the statistics I've seen say that Reform Judaism is the largest denomination in the USA; looking it up to check now that you've given me cause to doubt, I learn that the USian Conservative movement is only a little smaller, not half the size as I previously thought. My guess is that your average Conservative Jew would probably have heard quite a lot of Friedman's music too, and if that's the case we're looking at ten times the entire UK Jewish population. (Probably the reason why I had a hazy view of the relative sizes of the two movements is that people often lump Reform and Conservative Judaism together, in order to make the rhetorical point that the Orthodox-dominated demographic in the UK is not particularly typical.)

I'm not in the least trying to suggest that your Jewish context, or my own, are irrelevant and not worthy of attention. I'm purely taking issue with your implication that if you haven't heard of Friedman before this Limmud, she can't be all that famous.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

As I heard it, until a few years ago, the Conservative movement was the largest, but it has recently been losing people to both left and the right, making it now smaller than the Reform movement.

Of course, nowadays the (small) majority of world Jewry is secular Jews in Israel. (And, at the outset of Friedman's career, the very large minority of world Jewry would have been secular Jews in the Soviet Union...)

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

When I just see the English version I don't know what you are talking about. What tunes did she made? I have been in every Reform Shul in North and North West London several years ago when it was still very traditional. I heard lots of tunes again in Assif which I learnt at the Reform Shuls already including the so called Liberal one in Cologne, Germany (the very first I have ever been, too.) I do not know where they are all from. I only know that a few of them are Carlebach tunes.

[awful-dynne.livejournal.com]

She has a version of a Misheberach which some congregations use, the lyrics to part of it which might ring a bell are "May the source of blessing, who healed the ones before us help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing and let us say aah-mayn*"

*the amen is usually really drawn out, I tried to write it as it would sound in the song

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

I have to repete that as I made mistake:
I heard it on youtube just a second ago. I also heard Oseh shalom from her. I have never heard it. I only came across misheberach in St Albans Masorti Synagogue (SAMS) with a different tune and completely in Hebrew. I prefer the Assif tunes. SAMS is trying and often does not do very well. It is their fault as I wanted to offer to teach those tunes for free but nobody wanted to learn it. Instead I was treated like a pest because I am not a paying member and will never have the money. I keep close to the nice people. I accept excuses like not having the time.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard it a week ago; now, I've heard it twice! Both Wandering Jews (http://www.wandering-jews.co.uk) and Assif (http://www.assif.org) used Debbie Friedman tunes last Shabbos.