Ladino Orchestra: A beacon of hope, healing in throughout Israel

Before making aliyah I lived in Gibraltar for 15 years and attended a synagogue, dating back to 1800, called Nefusot Yehudah, commonly known as the Esnoga Flamenca because of its marble columns, imported from the land of the Flemish. It was similar in design and name to the 1639 first post-Inquisition synagogue Esnoga (short for the Spanish word sinagoga), founded in Amsterdam – where crypto-Jews who had fled untenable conditions in Iberia (Spain and Portugal) were able to renew their faith and identity in freedom. Not being a native “Gibbo,” I am not naturally biased towards it. Nevertheless, in my opinion, it is the most beautiful synagogue in the world.

Not least of its attractions are the tunes and tones of the family of cantors who lead the services, the Benisos.

A member of this family, who carries within him a musical DNA that hails directly from pre-Inquisition Spain, is guitarist and composer Ariel Lazarus, musical director and co-founder of the world-class Jerusalem-based Ladino Orchestra (started five years ago with the assistance of Renanot Jewish Music Institute). Overnight, it has become a healing mobile music unit available to all who call upon it across the country.

A mobile music unit available throughout Israel

I MET Lazarus earlier this year after being approached by Mediterranean medieval music expert Mara Aranda who, wanting to organize a Sephardi music conference at the Centre Internacional de Música Medieval in Valencia, Spain, which she directs, requested my assistance in connecting her with the best in the field in Israel. Inquiries led me to Lazarus, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he is the grandson of Abraham, the first Beniso cantor I had known; nephew to the second, Isaac; and cousin of the current incumbents, Abi and Eli. In parallel, his paternal great-grandfather is Mordechai “Max” Lazarus, the last cantor in Westphalia before the Holocaust. As it happens, great-grandson Lazarus recently performed in that part of Germany, singing the songs of his ancestor.

“I am also named Mordechai after him,” he said, adding that “I am in music for self-expression but mainly because I always felt I had a bigger story to tell.”

Lazarus was awarded the 2021 Yitzhak Navon Prize for outstanding work in the field of musical traditions. He has performed by invitation in Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, and Spain, as well as France, Luxembourg, Hungary, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. His symphonic works have been premiered by the Israeli Andalucian Orchestra, Ashdod, and the Ra’anana Symphony Orchestra. The Ladino Orchestra, under his direction, represented Israel at the UN global cultural forum conference in Fez, Morocco.

Additionally, Lazarus is music lecturer and ensemble director at the School of Music at Ono Academic College, at Givat Washington Academic College, and at the Rimon School of Music in Ramat Hasharon.​

IT WAS only a few days ago, however, when I discovered that Lazarus and his internationally renowned Ladino Orchestra had begun volunteering to give concerts to families and evacuees in shelters across the country and basically to whomever is in need of an hour or so of relief from the present situation through Sephardi music. 

“At this time, when this war against the forces of evil was forced upon us, musicians have to become leaders of light and hope for their communities and their country,” Lazarus told me.

“I am fortunate to direct this amazing group of Israeli musicians, together with our remarkable vocalists, Shir Ifrah and Yair Harari. We are all united in our desire to perform, to lift the country’s morale and provide a ‘musical hug’ to communities in need of therapy, and a rapprochement to the souls that have been broken by the atrocities of October 7.”

Music, explained Lazarus, “has always played a very important role in Jewish life, and the ancient Ladino songs we play, echoing our people’s long journey and our yearning for peace and tranquility, have additional meaning these days.”

With three members of The Ladino Orchestra having been called up to serve in the IDF – oud player Elior Peretz, drummer Niv Atias, and qanun player Yaron Menashe – Lazarus said that “at these concerts, we pray and sing for their safety and well-being, along with that of all of our soldiers.”

Last week, they performed as part of the lluminated Shelters Project in Rehovot, a city “like many in Israel’s South where, with schools and most businesses closed, bomb shelters are the only places that offer an opportunity for a much-needed social get-together for children and adults alike,” he said.

The Ladino Orchestra members participating in these concerts with Lazarus are vocalists Shir Ifrah and Yair Harari, flutist Keren Golan, clarinetist Shachar Tenenbaum, violinists Tanya Beltzer and Eva Yefremov, cellist Alisa Goldenber, bass player Yakir Sasson, percussionist Michal Amar, and pianist Asaf Karaso.

LAST WEEK Lazarus, on his own, performed a Ladino children’s concert in Jerusalem’s German Colony at the invitation of Jerusalem-based musician and concert organizer Niki Forman. It was for new immigrant families whose fathers have just been recruited and, in his words, “for the first time in their young lives are experiencing the complex realities of being Israeli.”

“An hour of music, dance, and laughter can be magical for the children,” he said. 

Vered Baron, organizer of the Illuminated Shelter project in Rehovot, heard of the Ladino Orchestra’s offer to perform and invited them to appear at the Weizmann Elementary School shelter on October 19.

 “It was an amazing show,” said Baron. “Each of the musicians and singers is really a huge talent, and together they were simply wonderful. Their willingness to perform together for us as the Ladino Orchestra warmed our hearts, and we enjoyed every moment of the concert. The audience covered the entire spectrum from adults to toddlers. We received countless thanks and compliments, which I passed on to Ariel and his wonderful orchestra. Kudos to them for embodying the spirit of volunteering in these days.”

Efrat Sade is a volunteer at the shelters whose husband has been called up. It is not easy for her, she said, with her “other half” away fighting for his country.

“Today was exciting,” she said, after the orchestra’s concert, the first in the Illuminated Shelter series that she is helping to coordinate. “I was very scared today, and I almost didn’t come, out of fear, to this exciting concert by the magical Ariel Lazarus and the wonderful musicians and singers of the Ladino Orchestra – which today has a quarter of its members recruited for combat – that managed to connect with the wounded and aching hearts for an hour and a half of music that penetrated the heart and soul, and wrapped them in a delicate layer of tenderness. That’s all the heart asks for these days, tenderness and delicacy.”

Sade, from Buenos Aires, said that the performance “reminded me a little of home with Ladino poetry in Spanish, including a song from Buenos Aires that gave me a few minutes of deep inner connection and deep healing.” She also wanted to thank “a lovely guy named Gil Bracha for bringing a sophisticated amplification system to make this happen.”

“So,” she concluded, “there is an Illuminated Shelter, thanks to the Lord and to the Community Resilience Unit of the Rehovot Municipality.” Yaniv Markowitz, Rehovot’s deputy mayor, was also in attendance at the concert.

 Daniel Behar, a member of the youth movement HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (The Working and Studying Youth), is another volunteer coordinator for Rehovot’s Illuminated Shelters. He welcomed the orchestra to the Shita School shelter on Friday, October 20.

“In these difficult times, we have managed to create a bright spot on Fridays when bands and singers can visit our shelters to perform for our communities. Last Friday, Ariel Lazarus and his Ladino Orchestra came and enabled us to immerse ourselves in music and beauty for a moment. Children, youth, adults, and the veterans of the community came together, uniting around the music and experiencing the pleasure of community bonding. This experience has imbued us with renewed strength,” he said, while also giving a shout-out to Hanoch Rahimi, “who volunteered to be our tech man at the concerts.”

At each of the Rehovot shelter concerts, Lazarus estimates, the audiences comprised some 40 to 60 people, made up of children and adults, “since the shelters have limited capacity.”

AND THAT was just the start. Next week, the Ladino Orchestra will be joined by viola player Sophi Keren (who had to be evacuated with her family from the Sderot area), cellist Yana Donichev, and santoor player Ophir Cohen as they head to the Dead Sea. There, Lazarus explained, there are “people from the Gaza envelope communities that are being sheltered in hotels, refugees in their own country.”

A major concert for 1,000 evacuees from Sderot (many of them Sephardim who are very attached to Ladino and piyut music, Lazarus said) is slated for Sunday, October 29, at the Vert Dead Sea Hotel. Due to additional requests for concerts at the Dead Sea, they will be giving three additional performances there to audiences of several hundred guests each. There are also plans to play at hotels for evacuees in the North, at hospitals, for members of the security forces, and at a care center for the elderly in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem.

“I am getting countless requests from hospitals and other communities in need of musical activities,” he said. The first stop will be Ichilov (Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center) to play for seriously wounded patients – Lazarus believes that the orchestra will focus the event as “more of a musical therapy session,” but they are still figuring it out.

“We are taking a deep breath and beginning to understand that we have a long way to go and an obligation as people of the arts to help rebuild Israeli society after this collective trauma.

“We will mobilize everywhere that we feel that our music is needed. We will be there, and by doing so we are helping to illuminate these dark times both for our audiences and ourselves,” he said.

When I told Lazarus that I was beginning this article by mentioning his connection to Gibraltar, he told me that it was oddly appropriate, since the title of his PhD thesis (written under the mentorship of Hebrew University’s Jewish Music Center head Prof. Edwin Seroussi and presented at Bar-Ilan University), which includes a “rare repertoire” of Spanish and Portuguese kinot (dirges), was “From Destruction to Rebuilding in the Iberian Peninsula – Dirges from the Ninth of Av at the Nefusot Yehuda Synagogue in Gibraltar.”

Comparisons to the disasters that befell the Jewish people on Tisha B’av have not been lacking in regard to recent events. However, the Ladino Orchestra is already working hard to help repair the heart and spirit of the Jewish people, thus assisting in the rebuilding of the nation.❖