Visit now the Carlebach Kleyzmer festival in Zfat

“Momo”

By Eleonora Shifrin

 

Our daughter, Mirale, grew up by Reb Shlomo’s feet. Quite literally, as can be seen in the pictures.

Like in so many homes among the ‘chevra’, Reb Shlomo’s music could be heard in our home, and in the car, most of the time. And so by the time Mirale emerged into this world, the voice from the tapes was already no less familiar to her than the voices of her own parents.

As she was growing, she heard us speak about ‘Shlomo’ very often, and, not surprisingly, one of the first words in her lexicon became ‘Momo”, this is how she pronounce his name.

 

When she was two years old, we decided to take her to Reb Shlomo’s concert in the Haifa Auditorium. Our seats were in the middle of a row, quite removed from the stage, and Mirale was sitting on my lap when Reb Shlomo appeared and started singing. Our daughter’s immediate reaction was: “Momo?” She looked surprised since no tape-recorder was anywhere in sight. She looked at our immediate surrounding but didn't see the source of the familiar voice. Having found nothing she started turning her head around and around like a human radar, while continuing to repeat “Momo, Momo”. Then she froze still for a moment to catch the direction from which the voice was coming, climbed down from my lap and, before I could catch her, crawled past all the people’s feet into the isle. There she got up, stood still for a few seconds, just to make sure she was on the right track, and made her way towards the stage. Upon reaching the stage she raised her head to see that the voice was coming from the man up there and started looking for a way to him. It didn’t take her long to find the steps on the side of the stage. She climbed up, went straight to Reb Shlomo, stood for a few minutes looking at him, then finally sat down next to his left foot, raised her hands up in the air and started singing together with him. She seemed to be in a state of trance, and there she remained till the end of the concert. Fortunately, Avraham had a camera in his hands, and was taking pictures throughout the concert.

 

The effect on the audience was similar to that of a cat on stage: everybody was watching her, discussing her, waiting to see how Reb Shlomo would react… And he didn’t react. He just patted her on her head and continued with the concert. Later he laughed that she “stole the performance”, which to a great extent was true.

 

For the next 8 years, until she was ten, whenever she happened to be at Reb Shlomo’s concert, Mirale would go up on stage and stood next to Reb Shlomo, as if it was her most natural place to be. She would sing and pray and dance with him, completely oblivious of the audience, totally absorbed and filled with Reb Shlomo’s spirit.

 

Only when I noticed that she became conscious of how she was looked at by members of the audience, did I put an end to her ‘stage carrier’, disregarding her wild protests. But this didn’t of course severe her very special bond to Reb Shlomo who filled her soul with his spirit for ever.

 

These days her own children (among whom the first was sure enough named Shlomo) are putting themselves to sleep listening to Reb Shlomo’s undying stories and singing.

Visit now the Carlebach Kleyzmer festival in Zfat  

Mirale will be telling her memories from reb shlomo together with her sons and husband singing reb shlomos songs on Tuesday August 16th  at 8 p.m in the House Of Love and Prayer in Zfat.