Marsha Dubrow is the cantor and religious leader of the Congregation B’nai Jacob in Jersey City. She is also a scholar of both sacred and secular Jewish traditions, especially the music. Sukkos is a weeklong festival celebrated with special prayers and meals. For the exhibition, Marsha and the State Museum staff recreated a Sukkah, the temporary outdoor structure used for meals during Sukkos. It was a chance for her “to communicate to the Jewish and non-Jewish communities of New Jersey the beauty and joys of Jewish rituals.”
Singer of Jewish Songs.
Marsha Dubrow describes her deep connection with Jewish music, both through her work as the Cantor of Congregation B’nai Jacob in Jersey City and through her scholarly studies. In addition, Marsha is a composer of contemporary Jewish sacred music. She has a Ph.D. in musicology from Princeton University and has received four grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Folk Arts Apprenticeship program. This is the fourth podcast in an 8-part series.
Three songs sung and composed by Marsha Dubrow Mah Tovu (2:01). Text from the Torah sung by a Jewish cantor as a welcoming piece sung to acknowledge the assembled community in the temple: “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel.”
Shachar Avakeshcha (2:38).
A piyyut, or Jewish liturgical poem, written by Ibn Gabirol in the 11th century: “At dawn I seek your refuge, Rock sublime… If music should be sweet to you in mortal key, then your praises shall I sing so long as breath is in me.”
Ki mi’Tzion (1:42).
Words recited when the Torah is taken from the ark during the Torah service: “Out of Zion came the Torah, and the word of God from Jerusalem.”
The walls of a sukkah can be made of any material, but the roof must be made of plants, such as branches or bamboo, so that you can see the sky and the rain can enter.
Marsha Dubrow has received four Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grants. She spent two years studying traditional cantorial hazanut with Cantors Perry Fine and Naomi Hirsh, and two years with the renowned singer of Yiddish songs, Adrienne Cooper. Marsha, who holds a doctorate in music from Princeton University, also serves as a resident scholar at the Center for Jewish Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her vision is to build a world-class resource in Jewish music, research, and performance. According to Marsha, “Such a center does not exist anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.”
A Sukkah, like the one in the “Culture in Context” exhibition, serves as a backdrop for the rituals and songs that take place there. Marsha says that one contemporary Jewish feminist development is that groups of women will gather in the temporary structures, and invite people that they admire for lively discussions.
