The Jazz Singer and Kol Nidrei

Opening Kol Nidrei Eve 5785

Rabbi Sam Cohon, Congregation Beit Simcha, Tucson, AZ

“Dear God, so far today, I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or over-indulgent.

“Thank you, God, for lending me the strength to do that.

“But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to need a lot more help, because I’m getting out of bed…”

Ah, the challenge of teshuvah, the difficulty we each face trying to change.  Returning to being the best person that you can be isn’t as easy as you would like.  Once we interact with other people, it’s infinitely more difficult to maintain our repentance, isn’t it?  Perhaps you have discovered that fact already in the nine days of this 5785 year. 

But Kol Nidrei is here to help.  And here’s a story about that.

On October 6, 1927, 97 years ago this week, on the day before Yom Kippur, a magical film premier took place in New York. “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson electrified the audience as the first feature-length film to contain a sound score, sound effects – and actual dialogue.  Mind you, the dialogue amounted to less than three minutes of on-screen “talking”; the rest was shown on the usual silent film caption cards. But six songs were sung aloud.  5 jazz tunes, and… Kol Nidrei.

If you don’t already know, the movie “The Jazz Singer” dealt with Jewish assimilation and culminated on Yom Kippur. 

On April 25, 1917, Samson Raphaelson, who was from New York City's Lower East Side and was a student at the University of Illinois, attended the musical “Robinson Crusoe, Jr.” which starred Al Jolson, a Russian-born Jew.  Samson Raphaelson said he only experienced this level of emotional intensity among synagogue cantors.

Five years later, Raphaelson wrote a short story called “The Day of Atonement” based on Al Jolson’s life. He adapted it into a stage play called “The Jazz Singer” that premiered in 1925 starring Georgie Jessel. It was a hit, and Warner Brothers bought the film rights. As a result of contract issues—including how much money he wanted to be in the picture—Jessel did not star in the movie. The studio offered the role to Eddie Cantor, who turned it down, and then finally to Al Jolson—ironically, who the story was originally written about. Jolson was at the height of his huge popularity, but he hadn’t yet made a film. Jolson took the part, signing a $75,000 deal (about a million dollars today) in 1927.

This was the era of silent films.  In the Jazz Singer the audience, for the first time, could both see and hear Jolson. And what they heard was his rich voice, shuffling feet, and the sobs punctuating his high notes that reverberated with a fervor never before imagined on screen. The effect was thrilling.

The audience was mesmerized in a way that forever changed filmmaking. Even Jolson was so overcome at the premiere he couldn’t say his signature line: “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”  The Jazz Singer was responsible for ending silent films, and beginning the era of talkies.

But there was much more to it. The story, which reaches its climax during Yom Kippur services, took on the issue of assimilation in America. The timing of the premier was intentional. Yom Kippur, of course, is our holiest day of the year, when we ask God for atonement from our sins. It demands introspection. At the film’s core lies the dilemma of maintaining Jewish identity in a changing world. Jolson’s character, Jakie Rabinowitz, son of a cantor, descended from generations of cantors, wrestles with honoring the traditions of his ancestors or grabbling hold of modern American life as a jazz singer, the rockstars of the day. The plot reflected the views and experiences of the four Jewish Warner brothers and its Jewish star, Al Jolson—born Asa Yoelson.

“The Jazz Singer” tells the story Jakie, the youngest Rabinowitz, American born, groomed from birth by his Orthodox father to devote his life to carrying on Judaism and the spirit and music of his ancestors.  Jakie’s passion, however, beats to the rhythm of American jazz. Instead of learning chazzones, his chants, he’s in cafes singing jazz tunes.

His heartsick father finds out and on Yom Kippur, Cantor Rabinowitz mournfully says, "My son was to stand at my side and sing tonight – but now I have no son." Jakie leaves home and forges a successful career with his jazz singing, taking on the name Jack Robins.

The dramatic climax occurs years later on Yom Kippur Eve. His cantor father is dying and calls his son to come back to shul the same night Jakie is supposed to make a critical appearance in a new Broadway show. His mother Sara wants him to take his father’s place at Kol Nidrei Eve services, to sing Kol Nidrei. His girlfriend warns Jakie that failing to appear opening night will ruin his career.

At first Jakie refuses his mother. But then, unable to deny what’s in his heart, he rushes to his father.  Jakie kneels at his father's bedside and the two finally talk with passion and affection. His father says: "My son–I love you." What will he do? Sacrifice his American music career or his responsibility to his father and Judaism?

Jakie sings Kol Nidre in his father's place and the Broadway opening is delayed. His father listens from his deathbed and speaks his last, forgiving words: "Mama, we have our son again." His girlfriend is there, too, and sees how Jack has reconciled the division in his soul: "A jazz singer – singing to his God."

The risk taken on by the Warner Brothers was rewarded. “The Jazz Singer” was a hit. The film that cost the studio $422,000, a fortune back then, made a huge profit, and won its producer an Honorary Academy Award at the very first Oscars.

Now the date this pioneering film debuted was not an accident.  Its premier was October 6, 1927, 97 years ago.  That year, Kol Nidrei Eve was October 7, 1927.  October 7th, a date we know for other reasons now.  Warner Brothers premiered the first talking—and singing—motion picture the night before Yom Kippur began, with the singing of Kol Nidrei included.  No doubt they wanted to attract the Jewish audience, although the film soon became an international sensation, drawing people of all ethnicities and nationalities. Being Jewish—at least ethnically so—the Warner Brothers, like Al Jolson, certainly knew when Yom Kippur was. What could be more of a tug at the heart than to have the prodigal son, as it were, come back and chant Kol Nidrei on Yom Kippur Eve while his dying cantor father listens?  And to do it the day before the real Yom Kippur Eve?  The Jazz Singer isn’t called “The Kol Nidrei Chanter”; it’s about American assimilation, yes, but with a Jewish soul still very much in evidence.

I don’t know if tonight’s chantings of Kol Nidrei will bring you back to that Jewish soul within you, that pintele Yid, that yiddisheh neshomah, as they say in Yiddish.  But I do know that it has that power.

My friends, there is something about this melody that has always tugged at Jewish hearts.  It’s called, in Jewish musicology, a miSinai tune, unchanged since Moses climbed down from Mount Sinai.  That’s not literally true; the text itself first appears in machzors around the sixth century, the melody perhaps appears in the Middle Ages.  But hearing it chanted three times, as Jewish legal formulas are required to be, brings the power and beauty of this melody a unique prominence in Jewish music.  It’s remarkable combination of sweetness, depth, and power can wash over you in ways that no other composition can.  Kol Nidrei is designed to capture your soul.

Only one night a year can you hear Kol Nidrei.  Tonight.  Here.  Now.