Tonight is the second yahrzeit of my father Mr. Manny Meyer. Dad z’l was an active member, and an avid fan of, the Breuers Choir. He made it his business to record their regular performances such as their concerts and appearances at the Yeshivah dinner. He also recorded many of the choir practices and would listen to his recordings while driving in the car or working on his photography equipment at home. 

Sometimes after a choir concert, people would ask him for a copy of the tape. So I know he wasn’t the only one who had this type of attachment to our music and our unique way of performing it. 

When his voice was no longer fit for the choir, the members made him a farewell breakfast. At the end of the breakfast, he was gifted a beautiful Kiddush cup purchased at Michael Strauss Silversmiths. He then requested, like some final request, that the choir sing the Shir Hamalos Psalm 128 which is known to be sung at the Shabbos table of many German Jews. Of course, he had a tape recorder with him and he wanted that familiar tune to be recorded with the voice of the shul choir. 

 Many years earlier there was a breakfast upon the retirement of the choir leader Mr. Nathan Weiss ZL. At that breakfast, the choir performed along with both chazanim and concluded by singing “Shir Hamalos” to the tune of Chazen Frankel’s “Kel Adon”, a tune he brought from Hamburg. I have that recording somewhere though I couldn’t find it in time for the launching of the website. 

I don’t know if my father ever had a plan for the scores of tapes that he had stored in boxes. But it is time for them to be shared.  

Tonight, with G-d’s help, I launch this website where people can finally hear what sat in boxes for several decades. Of course, they didn’t literally sit in boxes, because I had listened to much of this growing up and gained a certain familiarity with it. In fact, the musical tradition is one of the most important things my father gave me. When you share with someone some art or the beauty in nature and when you connect with someone over song and religious expression, you have given them something that no one can take away from them. I don’t know if in heaven a website is considered a good thing, but I know that in his life my father would have been thrilled that his music, in the company of other collected music, would be given a space in the public forum. 

Yehi Zichro Baruch