POPPA AND THE CANTORS

One of my favorite stories concerns my father, Morris Turkewitz, who grew up as a Stolin-Karliner “chassid”, a particular sect of Orthodox Jews who believed that God was not interested in the words people spoke, only the passion with which they sang and danced. Whenever Poppa heard that there was an especially gifted chazan (cantor) singing in a synagogue in Brooklyn, he would race to the synagogue, listen to the cantor, and then wait outside the back of the synagogue and wait for the cantor to come out. He would then ask the cantor if he could walk home with him and learn the melodies the cantor had sung. They would continue walking until my father could sing all of the melodies, at which point he would run home excitedly to share the melodies with my mother.
One day, my father heard that a fabulous cantor was singing in Manhattan. It was a little further away than usual so he made an outing of it and took my sister, aged 12, and me, aged 7. We sat upstairs with the other women and waved to Papa down below. The cantor was magnificent and my father was transported by the passion of the music. After the service, he ran around the back to catch the cantor coming out of the synagogue. He asked if he could walk the cantor home and sing with him until he learned his melodies. My father then thanked the cantor, raced to the subway and rode the train back to Brooklyn, intoxicated by how beautifully these melodies would speak to God. At home he woke my mother and sang the melodies to her. “They’re lovely,” she said sleepily, “and the children? Did they have a good time?”
Papa went pale.
“Oy gott!” my mother screamed, “the children! Where are the children?!”
With no money, my sister and I had quite the adventure climbing under the turnstyles in the subway and finding our way home on our own.