The Magic of Malki's Song

Cantor Carol Chesler

There are many advantages to being Jewish and living in the New York Metropolitan area. To name a few, there are great kosher restaurants and a wealth of places to buy all kinds of kosher products. Incredible cultural choices abound, from Yiddish theater to comedy to all sorts of topname Israeli entertainers who perform here annually. There are more synagogues and Jewish houses of learning than could fit in the phonebook. For me, it’s the sheer number of cantorial colleagues and friends I can call who are close by, available for support, advice, and best of all, musical suggestions and performance opportunities. This past fall I participated in a concert honoring a friend in Massapequa, who was celebrating his “Bar Mitzvah” year of service to his shul. This month, another friend and colleague, Cantor Moshe Bear, is hosting a concert at his shul, in which I will participate along with a number of youngsters from the HJC, as well as approximately three dozen other cantors and youth choirs from around the New York area. Sunday evening, March 13 promises to be a phenomenal evening of entertainment at our neighboring Dix Hills Jewish Center, at 7:00 p.m.

My friend, Moshe, asked me to choose a song for our kids to sing during the concert, and I chose a piece I learned last summer at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, titled “Shir Lismoach,” or “Malki’s Song.” I first heard it on a new CD, called “Voices for Israel,” while driving to the Catskills for a Cantors Assembly Convention last spring. The tune is upbeat and joyous, and it was written by a teenage Australian Olah, named Malka Chana Roth. Simply put in the refrain, “You’re alive, breathing, moving­that’s a good beginning.” Here is a message of honest and sincere gratitude, the fact that being alive is something to be noted and appreciated. Tragically, however, Malki was killed in the suicide bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in the heart of Jerusalem in August, 2001. She had written this song, hoping to enter it into a contest the previous winter, but submitted it too late. She was just 15 when she was killed. During the Shiva period following her burial, some of her friends shared her song with Malki’s family. “In a spontaneous expression of sympathy and sadness, Malki’s friends fanned out across Israel during that mourning week in the summer holidays of August, 2001, and taught Malki’s song to hundreds of children and teenagers attending the Ezra youth group summer camp and in other summer youth camps throughout Israel. Since then, the words and music of this lovely creation have continued to be passed along via an informal network of teenagers in Israel and beyond.” (from the Malki Foundation website).

Some time later, the song was given some air time on a radio show, during which Malki’s father, Arnold Roth was interviewed. The producer of the “Voices for Israel” CD heard this show, called “Jewish Moments in the Morning” (JM in the AM) and secured permission to record this song, even using two of Malki’s favorite performers to sing it.

I have been helping run the camp-wide Zimriah, or song festival at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires since 2000. All 700+ people gather in one building to sing and dance and celebrate together through Jewish music. Each year, Mara, the music director of the camp, chooses one song that everyone will learn and sing together at this event, and then throughout the summer. To put it bluntly, the song has to be a winner, a keeper, from the moment you first hear it. “Malki’s Song” was that song last summer. Later on in August, well past the Zimriah, a professional recording was made of 13 of the favorite hits of camp, including this selection. I would urge you to hear it for yourself, both on March 13, at this extraordinary concert, and also on line, at www.kerenmalki.org. (a foundation created in memory of Malki, to assist families caring for the severely disabled).

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This article was originally published in the March 2005 edition of The Cantor's Voice by Cantor Carol Chesler