Gotta sing! Gotta dance!
Millburn shul connects to Israel and its own centennial through klezmer
For Gershon Leizerson, the classically trained violinist and composer who is the musical director of the Israel Klezmer Orchestra, there is no wall between the stage and the audience.
“Music for me is about the community; it’s about the connection. I wouldn’t like people to sit and be afraid to make a sound,” he said.
The Israel Klezmer Orchestra’s YouTube channel shows high-energy musicians singing and dancing as they combine traditional Jewish melodies with modern influences.
IKO’s story begins with Mr. Leizerson, who was born in what was then the Soviet Union in 1980. He lived with his family in a communal apartment in Tver, a small provincial city near Moscow. The family was Zionist and dreamed of making aliyah. Mr. Leizerson remembers his father singing traditional Yiddish lullabies to him, and that when his grandmother and other relatives visited, they would sing and listen to records of Jewish music together.
“This was our connection to the Jewish roots, because we didn’t know anything,” Mr. Leizerson said. “Not religion. Everything was forbidden in the Communist time.” He remembers his father learning Hebrew from the underground with different groups of people, or listening to Voice of America on the radio. Though they had an Israeli flag in the apartment, there were restrictions on practicing Judaism in public, and it was dangerous to show your Jewish identity, he said.
Mr. Leizerson studied violin and piano In Russia with two different teachers; his violin teacher was Jewish, and she taught him traditional Jewish music. By the time he was 6, he was composing music in the Jewish style. “I played classical violin, and even then, I played klezmer, and I composed Jewish music,” he said. “It was a bit like an illegal thing to play traditional Jewish music.”
In 1990, Mr. Leizerson, his parents, and his brother immigrated to Israel. They moved to a religious kibbutz, Beerot Yitzhak, near Tel Aviv. Though in the Soviet Union his father had been a high-ranking engineer and his mother had worked in a university, once they got to Israel his father worked in a factory for $1 an hour and his mother took a job in the kibbutz laundry. “For them it was important for me to continue to make a difference to pay for the lessons,” he said. He continued to study music and was able to find Russian teachers who had made aliyah.
He learned about Judaism and Israel, and how to speak Hebrew, on the kibbutz. He also learned how to daven, read Torah, and chazzanut.
Living on the kibbutz, where he milked cows in the fields, also taught him about nature. “Klezmer music is about nature,” he said. “There are many songs about the forest and the connection of our soul to the nature — between the spirit and the ground.”
Mr. Leizerson earned a master’s degree from Tel Aviv University’s Buchmann-Mehta School of Music. At the same time, he took courses and master classes in Yiddish and klezmer, and he continued to play klezmer.
Then, with a foot in both the classical and klezmer worlds, Mr. Leizerson felt he had to decide in which direction he was going.
His mother died from cancer in 2006. Feeling lost and broken, Mr. Leizerson attended KlezFest in Montreal. Then some American friends invited him to klezmer music camp in Canada.
That was life changing for him.
“I felt my community of music, my way of life,” he said. “I went there and I came back to Israel a different person. I understood my musical future would be connected to klezmer.”
In 2017, when klezmer was having a revival in Israel, Mr. Leizerson founded IKO. The goal was to present traditional klezmer music, rooted in the sounds of Eastern Europe, and combine it with rhythmic guitar and Mediterranean sounds, and Hebrew as well as Yiddish. “But it remains klezmer,” he said.
Another goal was to introduce klezmer music to Israelis and international audiences.
“I felt this is our tradition,” Mr. Leizerson said. “This is our music that was played for a thousand years in Europe. I want to continue it here in Israel, to create a new klezmer, and I found out that young people, when they hear this music — it’s so joyful, it’s so danceable, it’s so nice and simple, and open-hearted — they fall in love with this traditional music.”
IKO will bring a six-person band to Congregation B’nai Israel Millburn on May 18. (See below.)
This will be the only the second time since October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, that IKO will play abroad. In November 2023, a month after the war started, IKO performed in France, because the concert tour already had been scheduled. “The concerts for us and the Jewish communities in France were like a healing process to us and the listeners,” Mr. Leizerson said.
Since the war began, it has been difficult for Israeli artists and musicians to play abroad except at Jewish events. They have found themselves unwelcome at festivals, theaters, and cultural events in Europe. Mr. Leizerson hopes that will change.
Before October 7, IKO played at many Jewish cultural festivals around the world, including at Israel’s embassy in Albania, and at cultural events in India, Germany, Serbia, Singapore, and Thailand. “We are now in the process of an invitation in Croatia,” Mr. Leizerson said.
Meanwhile, back in Millburn, Congregation B’nai Israel’s clergy and leadership were busy planning for the synagogue’s centennial. They felt it was important to show solidarity with Israel.
“This year and last we have worked hard to support Israel in many different ways,” CBI’s president, Henry Bloom, said. “Cantor Lorna Wallach was aware of the Klezmer Orchestra, which was not only great entertainment for our fundraiser, but another opportunity to support Israel.”
In September, Cantor Wallach received a publicity email from IKO’s musical director about the group’s desire to play for Jewish groups outside Israel. “I was very intrigued,” she said. “Then once I watched some of their YouTube videos, I became an instant fan! The musicians are so talented and energetic, and their music and performance style are so joyous and uplifting.
“I loved the idea of bringing Israeli musicians to us this year, knowing that many musicians have been struggling to get performances and share their music,” she continued. “Since klezmer music has historically been associated with celebrations such as weddings and other communal events, klezmer music from Israel is a fitting way for our CBI community to celebrate in its centennial year.”
The synagogue’s president, Ari Isenberg, said: “We are eternally connected to the land and the people of Israel. Supporting Israel takes many forms, including by promoting arts, culture, and music. We are honored and delighted to showcase these Israeli musicians and to shower them with enthusiasm and warmth.”
As a sign of that warmth, the six musicians — ranging in age from 24 to 52 — will stay with congregants in their homes, Cantor Wallach said. “What better way to makes bonds and connections?” she asked.
Preparing for the trip to New Jersey, Mr. Leizerson is thinking about the songs the IKO will perform for adults and families with children. The list will include the Bottle Tune from Tzfat. The song traditionally is played on Lag B’Omer, which starts on May 15 this year. “The tradition is to dance with a bottle on your head,” Mr. Leizerson said. “We invite everybody to put something on their head and to dance with us.”
One thing is clear: The IKO’s audience cannot expect to sit in silence. “Klezmer music was created for making people happy and for dancing,” Mr. Leizerson said. “This is the opposite to the classical music where people are expecting to sit and listen.”
IKO encourages the audience to respond to the music and will lead singing and dancing during the show. “It’s not something sophisticated,” Mr. Leizerson said. “It’s not something that is hard to do. We teach people very fast how to move, and we lead dancing, and we sing together, teaching some sentences in Hebrew and in English.”
It forms one big family that includes the performers on stage and the audience watching them. “Klezmer is coming to make someone smile and to see the good side of life,” Mr. Leizerson said. “This is what we would like to create in New Jersey.
Who: The Israel Klezmer Band
What: Will perform after dinner, catered by A Bite of Heaven
Where: At Temple B’nai Israel in Millburn
When: On Sunday, May 18; cocktails and dinner are at 5:30 and the music begins at 7. A bonus Meet the Musicians session precedes at 4.
Why: It’s the synagogue’s spring gala, this year celebrating its centennial
For whom: Everyone 8 years and older
For more information and reservations: Go to cbi-nj.org/concert or call (973) 379-3811.
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