Mosaic Voices marks Yom Kippur with powerful new song and video

The a cappella choir Mosaic Voices has released a beautiful and moving video for their new song ‘Omnam Kein’ ('It is indeed true'), to mark the Jewish High Holy day of Yom Kippur. ‘Omnam Kein’ is a key prayer at the Kol Nidre service that takes place on the eve of Yom Kippur, beginning the festival’s 25-hour fast. The prayer has been given a musical setting by the ensemble's composer in residence, Benjamin Till.

In its accompanying notes, Mosaic Voices explains that the prayer is the only piece in the Orthodox liturgy to be written by an English rabbi – Rabbi Yom Tov of Joigny – the 12th-century leader of the York Jewish community. In 1190, virtually the entire York community was imprisoned in the city’s Clifford Tower and massacred by an angry mob. The rabbi, along with all the members of his congregation, were among those who died in the attack.

The stunning harmonies of ‘Omnam Kein’ are given an additional poignancy by its accompanying video, which was filmed at Clifford’s Tower. The song pivots on the recurring Hebrew word ‘salachti’, which means ‘I have forgiven’ but can also mean ‘send away’ and implies the ‘sending away’ of sins.

In stark contrast, there is a key part of the Yom Kippur liturgy that lists, almost forensically, some of the ways in which death may come to humankind, the words and thoughts that inspired Leonard Cohen’s song, ‘Who by Fire’. Cohen was an observant and learned Jew brought up in the Orthodox tradition and would have been familiar with these words, read and repeated each Yom Kippur. Here are the first few lines of Cohen’s song:

"And who by fire, who by water,
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial…"

I also found myself reflecting on these various expressions of lament in the light of Jonathan Freedland’s play Jews. In Their Own Words. at the Royal Court Theatre – an incisive and defiant dissection of antisemitism. I write this as the Autumn issue of JR is printed, featuring a special section on the Lithuanian Jewish community, which is finding its voice again after a history of great cultural flowering and horrendous persecution over the centuries.

The community’s defiance in the face of persecution by the Nazis was also vividly recalled at the Additional Service in the Progressive Community’s Yom Kippur liturgy, as we sang in Yiddish ‘The Song of the Partisans’, the stirring call to resistance in the words of the young Lithuanian poet Hirsh Glick: "Zog nit kainmol az du geist den letzn veg…" ("Never say that you now walk the final way…"), written in 1943 when he was imprisoned in the ghetto in Vilna, the city of his birth. He escaped to join the partisans in the nearby forests and, although he and all his comrades were caught and killed by the Nazis in 1944, his song soon spread through the forests and prison camps to become the partisans’ anthem. Soon after the war, the great Paul Robeson sang the anthem in Yiddish in concert in Moscow.

Finally, I can’t help but note the name of the York rabbi, Yom Tov, an expression of greeting used on Jewish festival days – words that literally mean ‘good day’. Perhaps that, too, is a sign of hope and resilience.

By Judi Herman

‘Omnam Kein’ by Mosaic Voices is out now. mosaicvoices.co.uk