I am woman, hear me sing

‘Music is meant to be shared, to be heard.’

By BARRY DAVIS
The Dorot choir, with Dassie Jacob at center (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
The Dorot choir, with Dassie Jacob at center
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Sadly, gender inequality continues to proliferate in various cultural spheres, with women often drawing the short straw. Add to that the constraints of religious observance, and the possibilities on the ground diminish manifold.
That imbalance is being addressed, and redressed, by American-born Hadassah “Dassie” Jacob, who has been spearheading large singing ensembles of Orthodox women for some years now. Her latest vehicle goes by the name of Dorot (Generations), which comprises around 40 women across several age groups, and will unfurl the fruits of its ongoing musical labors, to a strictly female audience at the Harmony Cultural Center on Hillel Street, in downtown Jerusalem, on January 16 (8 p.m.).
The choir operates from the OU Israel Center in Jerusalem, where it has been holding weekly rehearsal sessions since last March. Considering the ambitious program Jacob and the troupe intend to perform on Monday, that is a pretty rapid turnaround.
“When I accepted to do this, I told them it would take a year,” Jacob recalls. “These are women who never sang together before come from all over the place and had not met each other. We were going to meet once a week, for an hour and a half, including warm-ups. It was a real challenge.”
During my visit to Jacob’s Ramot home, I heard some tracks from a CD recorded by her previous choir, Shira Chadasha – also an all-female outfit – and it made for impressive listening. Jacob is clearly not just looking to produce some pleasing sounds, but wants to push her choristers and provide her audience with quality entertainment.
The pianist-director has been channeling the musical vocal aspirations of women for over half a century, beginning from her teens. Jacob, née Feigenbaum, got the requisite start to her artistic path at the age of six, beginning on classical piano with famed Russian teacher Margarita Jolles. She has been writing songs since the age of 12, prompted by a number recorded by popular crooner Perry Como.
Music was part and parcel of the Feigenbaum family home, back in Cleveland, Ohio.
“My mother, Sonja Feigenbaum, was a superb pianist,” Jacob explains. “She created, initiated and developed a music program at the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland and taught music theory and appreciation and piano to three generations of Cleveland Jewish students.”
It was a solid backdrop to Jacob’s subsequent own creative endeavor.
“I grew up with that,” she continues. “My mother always said that music is the ‘universal language.’ I learned from her incredible energy, her talent and commitment, to strive for excellence. It doesn’t guarantee that you will always reach it… but you can get pretty close!” Jacob was also taught that, while talent is there to be enjoyed, it also comes with obligations.
“I learned that music doesn’t belong in a closed private room. It is meant to be shared, to be heard. I also learned that ability – such as it may be – is an obligation more than a privilege. The underlying message was: ‘Get out there and do something positive, something beneficial, something useful with it!’”
She is certainly doing that, and has been doing so for some time now, incorporating her love of classical music and inventive arranging in her choral output.
There are, for example, Beethoven and Bach in numbers such as “B’kori Aneini,” the title track of the Shira Chadasha album, which opens in Beethovenesque sonata style, while the opening bars of “Kol Haneshama” owe much to Bach who, in some circles, has been dubbed “the first jazz musician.” Jazz, however, was not part of Jacob’s early musical nutrition, although the Beatles certainly were.
Dorot may not even be a year old, but the foundations for the ensemble were very much in place at the outset. For a while, when the new project came along, Jacob toyed with the idea of overseeing both choirs, in between holding down a job as a speech writer for WZO chief Avraham Duvdevani and former defense minister Shaul Mofaz. But it proved to be beyond the capabilities of even such an enthused character as Jacob.
“I was a shmatte [rag] afterwards, I just couldn’t do it,” Jacob admits.
“So I decided to go for the one which had the better infrastructure. It’s the same music and it’s the same kind of women.”
Chemistry is also very much part of the creative mix.
“I don’t know if I just attract the same kind of women. When we work together there’s this click. I’d auditioned all of them, so I knew they could all sing.”
They could also, clearly, bond. The singers are a cohesive bunch, and on Monday will sweep their way, seamlessly, across a diverse program of numbers taking in traditional material of the liturgical variety – such as “Rabot Banot,” based on a stanza from Proverbs 31, traditionally sung on Friday night. Then there’s a jaunty number called “Modern Balabusta,” with lyrics by Jacob, with the musical backdrop taken straight out of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta portfolio. For Jacob, variety is evidently the spice of life – and music. There are intricate three-part harmonies in the Dorot output, as well as swelling counterpoint.
A lot of elbow grease has gone into ensuring that the Harmony Cultural Center audience will get its money’s worth.
“My father, Joseph Meyer, taught me that. It was only later that I found out that it actually came from [American inventor] Thomas Edison that genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. It was kind of: ‘Take your talent, such as it may be, and sit down and practice!’”
Mr. Feigenbaum knew what he was on about.
“He was also a fine ba’al tefilla [prayer leader], whose straightforward musical davening [praying] I enjoyed from across the mehitza [partition between the men’s and women’s sections].”
In addition to offering female audiences top-notch musical entertainment, Jacob wants to offer her choir members a chance to strut their stuff, and to give vent to their artistic inclinations.
“This is an era when women’s creativity and expression are really on the rise, as is their professionalism, but the opportunities for them to sing in public are limited. This is a project by women, for women, where they didn’t feel they needed a man’s gushpanka [stamp of approval] to be able to sing and to express themselves.”
Of course, if you’re taking on a challenge, it helps to feel comfortable with the talent and people you have at your disposal.
“There was this click at the very first session with Dorot. I knew it was going to be hard work, but I knew they had it in them. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew they’d get it. They were determined.” The results of the weekly sessions at the OU will be proffered to the 120 women fortunate enough to get hold of a hot ticket for the Harmony Center show, with more where that is about to come from to be offered around Purim time.
“We have one woman who came on aliya from America a year ago, and she says being in the choir has really helped her feel at home in Israel,” says Jacob.
“These women enjoy singing together and I enjoy working with them. I call what we do ‘magical music’. It really is.”


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empowering women
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