New York – New Life For Classic Book On Carlebach

New York – The 15th yahrzeit of Reb Shlomo Carlebach has been marked throughout the world this week with concerts, ceremonies, commemorative programs, and in Israel, the release of a book in Hebrew entitled, “הרבי מקרן הרחוב”.

VIN learned today that this book is in fact not new, but a Hebrew translation of Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum’s classic work, “Holy Brother: Inspiring Stories and Enchanted Tales About Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. (Jason Aronson 1996), issued this week to coincide with Reb Shlomo’s yahrzeit. VIN caught up with Yitta to talk about the new translation, which has already garnered rave reviews in the Israeli media.

VIN: How did the book come to be translated into Hebrew?

Yitta: David Hillel, a son-in-law of the legendary Reb Dovid Zeller, o”h, contacted me a few years ago and asked for permission to
translate the book into Hebrew. In case people don’t know, Reb Dovid Zeller was a disciple of Shlomo’s and a giant himself . He was a great spiritual leader who, like Shlomo, went into places most frum people don’t go — ashrams, meditation centers, spiritual retreats —
found holy yiddalach looking for meaning, and was mekarav them. I thought it was most fitting for his son-in-law to be the translator, and I was thrilled. Because holy people are usually impoverished , I didn’t take a penny from him, and I hope he’ll be able to make some money from the book, as well as achieve his overriding cause — spreading Shlomo’s light in Israel among Hebrew-speaking readers. But of course I want to emphasize that he didn’t do this for the money – it was a labor of love. He was very punctilious and spent countless hours on research and fact-checking many of my stories. He was extremely respectful towards the material, and it was an honor and privilege
to work with him.

VIN: Did YOU make any money on the book?

Yitta: I received a grand total of fifteen hundred dollars from Jason Aronson. ($1,500). For me, too, “Holy Brother” was a labor of love, a crusade, a mission. I didn’t do it for the money. However, I like to think that Shlomo repaid my efforts by blessing “Small Miracles” with its success, which still stuns me to this day and for which I am infinitely grateful.

VIN: Why did you write the book to begin with? Were you a Shlomo “groupie?”

Yitta: I was never part of the “inner circle.” I wasn’t a groupie, I was a Bais Yaakov girl from Boro Park. But I attended countless concerts and shiurim that he gave, and had many personal encounters with him ever since I was a little girl. My father, Reb Laizer Halberstam, o”h loved music, and in fact produced the fourth post-Holocaust Jewish record in America – “Songs of Bobover Chassidim, Vols 1 and 2” in the early 60’s, and he particularly loved Shlomo, who was just then bursting on the scene. I accompanied my father to all of Shlomo’s concerts – the legendary ones held at the Village Gate, Town Hall, etc. — and he made a huge impression on me. Shlomo befriended my father then, and came to pay me a shiva call when my father was niftar in 1986.

When Shlomo was niftar, I felt that an enormous light had gone out of the world. He had many different types of audiences throughout his musical career, at first appealing to the secular Jews whom he mekareved, then the modern orthodox, and so on. But during his last years, I noticed a constantly growing number of hassidim sitting separately in the back of the shul, and it seemed as if the “frum” world was finally beginning to really appreciate him. About two years before his death, I decided I wanted to do a film about him; somehow I started to worry that he wasn’t going to live that much longer, and I felt an intensity to secure his legacy. I asked Sammy Intrator, then his “gabbai” if I could do a film about Shlomo, and he laughed: “Everyone wants to do a film about Shlomo!” I hired a video person and got him to trail after Shlomo, but nothing ever came of it. When Shlomo was niftar, I was sure that someone from his inner circle would do a book, but no one stepped forward. I kept calling Sammy Intrator and asking, “Is someone writing a book?” and he kept saying no. Finally, I decided: If no one else was going to do it, somebody had to do it, and I would have to be that somebody. I had been writing for newspapers and magazines since I was eight years old, but I had never written a book before. Writing “Holy Brother” changed my life.

VIN: How?

Yitta: First of all, I came to realize that when you want to do something really badly, you can stretch and do things you never thought you were capable of doing. But much more importantly, writing the book put me in touch with hundreds of amazing, awesome people who had been friends and disciples of Shlomo, and were, like Shlomo would say, “high neshomas.” It would have been enough just to interact with these people; they were so filled with light. But then, to have the zchus to learn their personal stories of encounters with Shlomo, the extraordinary things they watched him say and do, I felt as if my soul was sprouting wings and I was going places I hadn’t gone before. I feel that by writing the book I didn’t do Shlomo a favor; I did one for myself. The mussar haskels that I learned by doing the book were invaluable and I feel that I am not the same person I was before I wrote the book.

VIN: People say they have a hard time finding Holy Brother. Where can they buy it?

Yitta: Jason Aronson went out of business in 2003, and sold their list to a company called Rowman & Wakefield. I have begged the company to let me buy back my rights, so that I can control distribution and also price. I am very upset that they charge $30 for each book. I keep telling them that most of the people who need the book can’t afford such a price, but they have not been responsive. Their distribution is awful. Right now, the best place people can buy the book is from amazon.com.

VIN: One more thing. Why is the title of your book different in Hebrew?

Yitta: Dovid Hillel felt that “Holy Brother” wouldn’t work in Hebrew; he felt it might be viewed as having Christian connotations.
Eveyone in America knew that “Holy Brother” was Shlomo’s standard salutation in English, but apparently not in Hebrew!

VIN: Here’s a sample story from “Holy Brother.”

In 1966, when Rabbi Saul Berman was spiritual leader of Beth Israel Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation in Berkeley, California, he met Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach for the first time.

“He knocked on my door one Friday morning and introduced himself, ” Rabbi Berman reminisces. “He said that he was going to be performing at the massive Berkeley Folk Festival on Saturday night and was looking for an Orthodox family with whom he could share Shabbos. Someone in town had directed him to my home. Of course, I immediately invited him to spend Shabbos with us and he gratefully accepted, exclaiming effusively, ‘Oh, my sweetest friend,
you are mamesh doing me the biggest favor of my life.; We spoke for a while and then, after several minutes of animated discussion, he bid me farewell and turned to leave. As he strode down the path, he called over his shoulder, ‘Just in case I find a couple of lonely Jews who also want to taste Shabbos, would it be OK if I bring them with me?’
‘Gladly!’ I responded and went into the kitchen to advise my wife to prepare a little bit more than usual.

“The way the Festival organizers had structured the concert,” Rabbi Berman recalls, “was that on the Friday preceding the event, all the performers were scheduled to do ten-minute gigs out on Sproul Plaza of the Berkeley
campus as a kind of preview to what they would be doing the following night. From the moment Shlomo began
singing, he had the crowd mesmerized. No performer before him had elicited the response that he did. He had them singing, clapping, and dancing in a way that was unbelievable. Everyone came to hear him, and before the ten-minute gig was over, he was playing to a mob of several thousand people.

“When the gig was over, Shlomo thanked the crowd and said in his characteristic expansive way: ‘Anyone who is interested in continuing this experience and also would like to taste Shabbos is invited tonight to the home of Rabbi Saul Berman,’ and he announced my address.

“Friday night, 400 people showed up at my door. Needless to say, my wife hadn’t prepared for quite that many, and she ran to our next door neighbor, fortunately also kosher, for help. We pooled all our Shabbos food and chopped it into teeny little pieces and distributed it all around.

“There wasn’t much food and there certainly wasn’t much room, but nobody seemed to notice or care, because what we did have in abundance was lots of ruach and love to match.

“This Shabbos marked Shlomo’s formal introduction to the Berkeley hippie community, and developed within him a sense of connectedness to these people. One year later he opened the House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco,
where he was mekarev thousands of ‘holy hipplach.'”

From Holy Brother: Inspiring Stories and Enchanted Tales About Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach

Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum is the author of Small Miracles of the Holocaust: Extraordinary Coincidences of Faith, Hope and Survival” and is the wife of MASBIA founder Mordechai Mandelbaum