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Black Jewish Kantors


Subdeacon Joe

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I hadn't thought that there was any sizeable Black Jewish community in the US at that time.

 

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But LaRue was the real thing, according to musicologist Henry Sapoznik, who recently spoke with The Times of Israel about the little-known history of Black cantors. Sapoznik related that LaRue was hardly the only Black cantor or Yiddish theater performers of that era. There were at least a dozen, including one woman.

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‘The greatest wonder in the world/The famous Black cantor who has astounded all America in a concert of folk songs of Rosenblatt, Kwartin, Rovner and others in all languages/Toyve the Black Cantor.’ (Courtesy of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)

The proof of LaRue’s cantorial and Yiddish singing chops rests with what can be heard on a recently rediscovered 78 RPM record that he made in 1923. So far, it is the only known early 20th century recording of an African-American singing cantorial music.

An avid discographer, Sapoznik had been searching for this record for 45 years, and finally located it this past July. Ironically, Sapoznik recovered the disc at the sound archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, which he himself founded and directed from 1982 to 1995.

“From time to time I would put out calls to my network asking if anyone had seen the record, but I would never get any answers. At a certain point I thought, ‘This is crazy. I’m not going to ever find it,'” an amazed Sapoznik told The Times of Israel in a video interview from his home in New York.

 

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