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 c h a p t e r 1 1 1 1 Sanctification of the Brand Name the marketing of cantor yossele rosenblatt Jeffrey Shandler During their period of mass immigration from eastern Europe to America, it quickly became a commonplace sentiment among Jews on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean that the United States was inimical to proper Jewish religiosity and that this new way of life was more suited to worship of the almighty dollar than of the Almighty. However, such assumptions were complicated by the phenomenon of the celebrity cantor,a fixture of American Jewish life from the s through the middle decades of the twentieth century. Exemplifying the American celebrity cantor is one of the most well known Jewish clerics in the United States during the first decades of the twentieth century: Cantor Joseph (Yossele) Rosenblatt. His career, as recounted in print and documented on recordings and in films, suggests not only the possibility of being a religious Jew in the United States but also how the American marketplace could be engaged to enable new prospects for traditional Judaism. Rosenblatt’s piety was not despite his fame but defined by it. Indeed, the very fact that Rosenblatt was a celebrity cantor, widely known among Jews and non-Jews alike, evinces a new kind of religiosity in the making, one that embraces rather than reviles modern capitalism, seeking to do so on terms compatible with traditional religious precepts and values.1 Born in Belaia Tserkov, a small town in the Russian Empire, in , Rosenblatt was the son of a cantor, who early on recognized the boy’s musical talents. Celebrity quickly became a fixture of his life as a musician. Young Joseph and his father spent much of the boy’s youth touring small towns in eastern Europe, showing off the young singer’s talents.2 At the age of eighteen, Joseph  jeffr ey shandler Rosenblatt was engaged as cantor in Muncacz, and within a few years he moved to Pressburg, where he also began his prolific career as composer and arranger of cantorial music. In  Rosenblatt moved to Hamburg, assuming the position of chief cantor. His fame spread through his first recordings, made in , and was enhanced by performances at large public gatherings, including the  Zionist Congress, which was convened in Hamburg. Finally, Rosenblatt came to the United States in  to serve as the cantor of the First Hungarian Congregation Ohab Zedek, located in Harlem. The United States would be not only where he spent most of the rest of his life but where his career as celebrity cantor reached its height. In part, Rosenblatt’s fame would be measured, by both his public and his family, in monetary terms. His  biography, written by his son Samuel, recounts the cantor’s salaries and fees for individual performances, in both sacred and secular settings. For instance, in  Rosenblatt’s gross income was more than ,, including a payment of , for conducting Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services in Chicago. Soon thereafter, when the cantor left the congregation in Harlem for another synagogue, Anshei Sfard in Boro Park, Brooklyn, the biography notes that his new employer offered him “a ten-year contract at an annual salary of ,,” which is vaunted as marking a “new high in cantorial remuneration.” Rosenblatt’s son also notes when his father’s earnings became a matter of public attention, sometimes even regarding a loss of income. Thus, shortly after taking his position in Brooklyn, the cantor came down with pneumonia (having spent the holiday of Succos outdoors in inclement weather). The news of Rosenblatt’s illness soon became public knowledge. “The press carried daily bulletins on the progress of his convalescence . . . from a malady that was estimated to have meant a loss to him of , worth of engagements.”3 Cantors had already come to play a significant new role in immigrant Jewish culture by the time that Rosenblatt first came to America, after a generation of steady mass immigration of Jews from eastern Europe had been under way. The cantor’s new stature in the immigrant community was articulated in terms of publicity, income, and, later on, use of new media. During what came to be known as the “cantorial craze” of the s, immigrant congregations in New York City vied for who could employ the most renowned cantor for the largest sum. As the term “craze” implies, this was a phenomenon that began suddenly and did not last long—moreover, there was something less...

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