מקהלת החזנים הירושלמית - סיכום מסע ההופעות ברומניה

THE SLOGAN for Interflora is "Say it with flowers," but local choirs have discovered that you can influence people and win even more friends with music. After the success in England of Ramatayim choir, and that in Poland of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue Choir, comes the success in Romania of the Jerusalem Cantors Choir, under the musical direction of Cantor Binyamin Glickman, and managed by Yair Plesser. Singing their way through the Jewish communities of Bucharest, Brashov and Oradea, they performed to full houses in the great synagogues of Bucharest and Brashov, and in the Philharmonia Hall of Oradea. There were also television appearances in each city, including interviews and filming of the concerts.

The Bucharest concert, in the presence of Chief Rabbi Sorin Shlomo Rosen, was hosted by the new community president Erwin Simsensohn.

In Brashov, the second largest city in Romania, the choir was hosted by influential Jewish community president Tibi Roth, who is Romania's representative to the World Jewish Congress.

Among the highlights of the tour was the Shabbat service and a concert on the following day in Oradea, where Rabbi Asher Ehrenfeld of Debrecen, Hungary, came to celebrate the jubilee of his bar mitzva in the same synagogue where he had read his Torah portion 50 years earlier. It was an emotional occasion for everyone present. Ehrenfeld had hosted the choir in Debrecen in 2008.

On the return flight, a group of Israeli senior citizens of Romanian origin, who had been at the concert in Oradea, excitedly surrounded Glickman, and told him how meaningful it had been for them to hear Israeli songs and to join in singing "Hatikva" in the very place from which Jews were sent to the death camps some 65 years previously.

The Jerusalem Cantors Choir has been in existence for almost 40 years, and has recorded 14 CDs and DVDs of concerts with many of the most famous cantors in the world. Among its 30 members from Jerusalem and the surrounding area is renowned physicist Prof. Joseph Bodenheimer, president emeritus of the Jerusalem College of Technology. After completing his 16 years of tenure last year, Bodenheimer discovered that there is life after academia and returned to the choir where he had last sung 20 years earlier. The choir's piano accompanist is Rita Feldman, a Russian immigrant who arrived 20 years ago, not knowing a word of Hebrew. Glickman gave Feldman her first job here

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