As we approach the High Holiday season, we are pleased to share with you a selection of some of our wonderful music from our past High Holiday services. See this link:
High Holiday Prayers - The Habonim Choir https://on.soundcloud.com/e5hDAckQurpaJzd99
Most of the songs are performed by the Habonim Choir, conducted by Rabbi Cantor Aviva Rajsky and accompanied by Tom Bellman. There are also a few selections featuring Rabbi Cantor Aviva Rajsky and Cantor Kim Kowarsky Doron.
The melodies featured are among the most popular pieces of liturgy performed at the High Holidays - so please enjoy listening to them and be prepared to sing along with these beautiful melodies during our upcoming services in October.
In addition, we are sending you the link to earlier recordings from the Habonim Youth Choir from the 1990s, when it was conducted by our much beloved Cantor, Esther Ghan Firestone of blessed memory, the first female cantor in Canada.
(One of the Habonim Youth Choir members from the 1990s era, Elisa Goldman, is also currently a member of the Habonim Choir along with her 9 year old daughter, Dani.)
Please see this link:
Habonim Youth Choir
https://on.soundcloud.com/3FJDJCxA6RGTE4ro6
Shabbat Shalom
---------------------------------------------
The Habonim Youth Choir (from Wikipedia)
The Habonim Youth Choir was founded in 1990 by Habonim's cantor Esther Ghan Firestone and Eli Rubenstein. The choir's recording of the peace song Lay Down Your Arms has received international exposure, and some of its recordings have been featured in historical documentaries.
The choir's current conductor is Rabbi Cantor Aviva Rajsky, and its accompanist is Tom Bellman. The choir, which presently also includes adults, is now called, "The Habonim Choir.”
The choir's rendition of Lay Down Your Arms was featured on Fern Levitt's documentary, Gorbachev's Revolution. Their recording of the Holocaust song, "Eli, Eli” ("Halicha L'Caesaria”) and "The Song of the Vilna Partisans" (Zog Nit Keyn Mol) appeared on David Kaufman's 2003 documentary, From Despair to Defiance, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Eli also appeared on the short documentary "To Live and Die with Honor" commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
On May 22, 2014, the Habonim Youth Choir opened up for the legendary Puerto Rican virtuoso blind guitarist & singer, Jose Feliciano, at a Benefit Concert for the Canadian Friends of the Israel Guide Dog Centre for the Blind at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, the Habonim Youth Choir and the March of the Living Children's Choir, recorded a new version of "Lay Down Your Arms". Rabbi Cantor Aviva Rajsky and guitarist Tom Bellman - from Toronto's Congregation Habonim - composed a new arrangement for the song. It was first performed on Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the 2015 March of the Living ceremony in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
