Departures of note

Yaakov Dov (Yankel) Talmud, a Hasidic composer with no formal musical training who could not read music, wrote over 1,500 melodies for the Gerrer Rebbes, earning him the nickname “the Beethoven of the Gerrer Rebbes.” Born in Warsaw in 1885, he was orphaned young and raised by Kotzk Hasidim. As a child, he sneaked into the main Ger synagogue to hear the choir rehearse; at age 12, choirmaster Yisrael Eckstein tested his voice and admitted him to the choir the next Shabbat. He later became choirmaster under the fourth Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter, leading a choir of 20 boys under bar mitzvah age and composing hundreds of melodies for every part of the prayer service, including marches, waltzes, and dance tunes.

Talmud reserved his compositions exclusively for the Gerrer Rebbes and their Hasidim, declining requests from other choirs. His melodies became so popular that thousands of Gerrer Hasidim reportedly sang them in Nazi death camps; Yehuda Meir Abramowicz, a Gerrer Hasid and later Israeli Knesset member, told Talmud this after the Holocaust, and Talmud responded, “This is my portion from all my toil. This is my comfort in my sorrow.” In 1933, Talmud immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, working as a kashrut supervisor at Assaf Harofeh Hospital. When the Imrei Emes arrived in 1940, he encouraged Talmud to keep composing, and Talmud produced 20 new pieces each year for Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Purim, and Shavuot until his death.

Talmud never studied music and relied on professional musicians, including his son Chaim, to write down his tunes. In 1955, the Israeli government recognized him for his 1,000th composition. His rousing “Shir Hamaalos” march remains popular at weddings, and “Lo Sevoshi” is sung in Hasidic shtiebels. Cantor David Werdyger, who sang as a soloist in Talmud’s choir at age 12, later recorded hundreds of his compositions through Aderet Records. Talmud suffered a heart attack in his later years and underwent surgery in 1963; after leading the Ger choir in Jerusalem for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur 1965, he fell ill and died during the Sukkot holiday, with the Beis Yisrael leading his funeral.