Chad Gadya from Hazzan Israel Eliyahu Maroko

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@n.aronson3165 3 жыл бұрын

There is a history behind this song. Whilst a schoolboy, my father, the late Mr Aron Aronson became friendly with the two sons (Herman, who was the same age as my father & Simon who was 4 years younger) of the Chazzan of the Amsterdam Great Synagogue, Israel Eliyahu Maroko (born 1896 in Poland), who had arrived in 1926 in Amsterdam, after he had been the Chazzan in Bratislava where he had taken over the position of Yossele Rosenblatt when the latter left for Hamburg. My father became a frequent visitor in the house of the Chazan (who gave him voice training) and also regularly went to listen to his prayers. When in 1941, nearly a year after the outbreak of the war, my father was asked to lead the Seder in the Jewish old-age home. He asked the Chazan to teach some tunes which he did, including the tune of Chad Gadya he had composed. He actually gave my father the hand-written notes of Chad Gadya and our family still sing this beautiful tune every Seder night. In 1942 my father with his father and brother escaped from Holland and after many open miracles managed to get to Switzerland. Before they left, my father had hidden many of his books and papers, including the notes of Chad Gadya, with a non-Jewish neighbour and after the war he got them back. Unfortunately the Chazan, his wife and 3 of their children were killed in the war, and only Simon survived. When my father heard that only Simon survived, my father felt that it would be wrong that he would have nothing left of his father whilst my father had the handwritten notes. He therefore had the two sheets photographed (no Xerox machines in those days) for himself and gave the originals to Simon. Shortly afterwards Simon left for America and that was the last my father heard from him. Fast forward to Pesach 2013. My father came, like he had done for many years, to Jerusalem to spend Pesach with my sister and her family. Jerusalem had another visitor at the time: President Obama. Amongst the places the President visited was Yad Vashem. As is done at such occasions they had to give him a gift to commemorate his visit. The year before they had made an appeal for documents of people who hadn’t survived the war and it was the copy of one of those documents they decided to present to the President. Apparently because of the time of the year, they were looking for a Pesach-related document and, as it was related widely in the media at the time, they chose to give him the copy of 2 sheets of hand-written notes of a composition on Chad Gadya written by the Dutch Chazan ישראל אליהו Maroko ! They had been donated by the Chazan’s daughter-in-law, Mrs Ruth Maroko of Detroit, who had found them among the papers of her late husband, Mr Simon Maroko. I managed to trace the e-mail address of a son of Mrs Maroko and wrote him about my father and within a day I received an e-mail back from his mother all excited to have finally discovered how the document survived. Their family also sings that tune at their seder (probably also thinking that they are the only ones who do so!) and each member of her family has a copy of the notes hanging on the wall of their homes. This is the first time I heard it performed professionally.

@IsidoroAbramowicz 3 жыл бұрын

This is a breath taking story, thanks for sharing it here. I am glad to hear the tune is done in so many sedarim. It is an honour to perform it under the project Lebensmelodien, which revive also for the broad audience, hidden gems of our tradition. I wish you Chag Pessach Kasher v'Sameach and hope for the day we can meet and listen and share this and other stories.