The young man’s sweet tenor voice fills the room, beginning “God Bless America” with its seldom-heard introductory verse:
While the storm clouds gather
Far across the sea,
Let us pledge allegiance
To a land that’s free.
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer—
The familiar refrain then soars and caresses the gathering, among them New Jersey senator Cory Booker. But in the end, the singer makes a switch. He repeats the refrain in Yiddish. You feel the onlookers catch their breath as they go up a communal emotional notch.
“Gawt bensch America,” the young man sings, now joined in the refrain by a chorus of other Haredi black-suited, black-hatted Hasidic men.
For this is Shulem Lemmer—known to his fans as “Shulem”—the first artist raised Hasidic to sign with a major record label.
At the time, Decca Records U.S. president Graham Parker, himself an observant Jew, first saw Shulem on a YouTube video singing the Aramaic Passover Seder song, “Chad Gadya,” and decided to sign him.
“It was the combination of his spectacular voice, his personality and being a man of deep faith that made him a compelling person to meet,” he said. “Signing Shulem was a fairly bold move. My goal is to see if Shulem, through his voice, his music and his message of faith, can reach beyond the Jewish community and appeal far more broadly to audiences of all faiths and traditions.”
Shulem had no formal vocal training, but he learned as he went along from YouTube and from watching other artists perform.
On the challenges of performing while keeping true to his traditions, he says, “There will be limitations and challenges. Of course, I’m not going to perform on Shabbos [Jewish Sabbath], but there also will be issues that aren’t necessarily that black and white. I would ask my rabbi, based on the situation. I have it in my contract that I can say no to anything that isn’t OK with me religiously. I won’t perform a duet with a woman, for example. They wanted me to do that for the theme song for the movie “Quezon’s Game” [about Philippines President Manuel Quezon’s plan to shelter German and Austrian Jews during World War II]. I said no, so they let me do a solo version.”
Shulem’s rich, soulful sound is steeped in his Orthodox roots, which stem from the Haredi Belz community in early 19th-century Poland. He also worked as a cantor during the High Holidays at Ahavath Torah congregation in New Jersey. He still makes the rounds as a guest cantor at various synagogues.
Raised in Brooklyn, the youngest of eight, he and his brother Yanky—a highly regarded cantor at the Orthodox Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan—are the family’s singers. The other eight family members can’t carry a tune.
“My father jokes that all the talent comes from him and that he gave it all away and kept none of it for himself,” Shulem says.
He began singing publicly at family events at age ten at the urging of his 13-year-old sister, Tzippy. “At my brother’s wedding, she pushed me on stage,” he remembered. “And at that moment, I was in a happy place. I was a shy kid, and that was kind of an awakening.”
Though Shulem identifies specifically and emphatically as a Haredi Hasidic Jew, his choice of songs and venues are eclectic. He mixes cantorial standards with Rogers and Hammerstein staples and Hebrew and Yiddish folk songs with Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey hits.
When asked what success means for him, he answers that it is “being able to reach out and inspire as many people as possible. Music is a universal language, a way to start a dialogue, sending a message of unity, of positivity and hope. I want to spread a message of love between human beings through music.”
Image credits: Haredi Jewish men gather to inspect Lulav by Aallen. CC BY-SA 3.0.
