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Yakov Botoshansky

In 1922, he served as literary secretary of the Vilnius Free Jewish Folk Stage, which at that time toured the length and breadth of Bessarabia.

This troupe, headed by the Russian Jewish actor H. Paul Barasov, played only from the selected repertoire and achieved great success only in Kishinev.

“Throughout the winter”, writes Botoshansky, “we performed the play by Peretz Hirschbein, David Pinsky, and another play by Max Nordau. The greatest success came from a part of Shay Wick's play, “Rags.” In the province, there were only a few exceptional individuals who knew how to stand up to the quality of our repertoire. The masses asked for a theater with singing and dancing.

I remember that when we arrived on a cold winter day at the entrance to Bălţi, the community welcomed us with musical accompaniment. (But we left without musical accompaniment.)

Our performances were enjoyed mainly by those amateurs who from time to time would present fine plays themselves. As well as the teachers and the intelligentsia who could not afford to pay for a ticket and who nevertheless made efforts and paid”.

Maurice Brown (Mendel Bernstein), born in Bălţi in 1901. In 1918 he began as a professional actor. He played first in Romania and then in Russia. He collaborated with the famous actors Meierson, Licht and others. In the late 1920s he settled in Argentina and from there he migrated to Mexico where he fought for the existence of a Jewish theater. Leon Gold, born in Bălţi in 1900. In 1918 he appeared as an actor in Romania and from there sailed to Western Europe. He played in Antwerp and Paris, but soon sailed to New York and became popular as a principal singer at the Yiddish Operetta Theater.

Recently he became a cantor.

Singer Iza Komar was born in Bălţi in 1887. The daughter of a wealthy merchant, she studied singing in Italy and Milan. She was 27 when she appeared in the opera in Odessa. She studied in Italy with Prof. Rekci (Milan). She appeared in operas in Italy. She returned

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to Odessa in 1927. The peak of her career was her appearance in Moscow and then in Berlin at a party for Bialik with the participation of Albert Einstein. In 1921 she even appeared before the Sultan. She married the publicist Israel Hefetz. In 1922 she came to the United States and stayed there for 16 years. She remarried to Gregory Bergman. She died in Cordoba, Argentina in 1956. Her famous Yiddish poem is “Lomir Zich Iberbeten”.

Yitzhak Chavis

Born in Bălţi (Bessarabia) on January 16, 1910 and died in Tel Aviv on May 8, 1991. Yitzhak was the son of Tossia and Tova Chavis. He graduated from the Hebrew Gymnasium and also studied singing at the music school of Professor Deh la Pergola. He began his career as an actor in 1940 at the State Yiddish Theater of Kishinev alongside the great actress Dina Kenig - his wife, O.B.M. [of blessed memory.] He was among the first to be invited as a soloist (tenor) to the Odessa State Operetta.

During World War II he joined the Moldovan State Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Shiko Aranov.

After the war he returned to Bucharest and was accepted as a senior actor at the State Yiddish Theater, where he played main roles from the classical Jewish and international repertoire.

For his many successes, the Romanian government awarded him the title of “Artist Emeritus”. In 1964, after the death of his beloved and admired wife, Dina Kenig - he immigrated to Israel to his daughter Lia Kenig.

In Israel, he also played countless roles in Yiddish and Hebrew theater, as well as on radio, television and films. In 1991 - May 8, after a serious illness, he passed away.

Yitzhak Habis, the Yiddish actor

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A sculpture by the artist Lazar Dubinovsky, a painting teacher at the Hebrew Gymnasium in Bălţi

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The Chabad synagogue in Bălţi

Cantor Yisrael - Isser HaCohen		Cantor Nissan Spivak (Nissi Belzer)

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According to Yeshayahu Vinitzky's article: “The Cantorial Art in Bessarabia” (Book “Judaism in Bessarabia,” p. 426), Bessarabia served as a school for cantorial art and a nursery for renowned cantors, and it even imprinted its own character on the art of cantorship.

In the second half of the 19th century, a new generation of creative cantors arose, who dedicated themselves to finding a synthesis of the traditional “routine” folk cantorship drawn from the treasury of Eastern music, and the reformed synagogue cantorship in the West. Thus, was created modern cantorship based on a fusion of the old and the new. It has the holiness and honor of artistic cantorship to glory, and it served as a model and example for all synagogues and shuls in the Diaspora throughout the world. In Eastern Europe, cantorship was concentrated mainly in Russia, especially in the vicinity of Wohlin, Ukraine, and Bessarabia. These areas were imbued with the spirit of Hasidism which placed religious worship above the Torah. Music was recognized as one of the most important means of worship.

The beginning of cantorial art in Bălţi was in the numerous synagogues and shuls in the lower part of the city around the bathhouse, the House of “Moed Le'kol Chai [significant Jewish site]” (Dos Toite Shtibel [The Little Prayer House]), the stronghold of the Chabad Hasidim. Another center was near the “Charatz” synagogue, the “Shul of the Rabbi” and around the central large synagogue of the Jewish community on Nikolayevsky Street. In recent years, when the modern “Shar'ei Zion” synagogue was built on Dvaryanska Street, famous cantors who came from outside Bălţi began to appear in Bălţi to serve as prayer leaders on holidays and festivals, especially on the High Holy Days. They were members of the generation of modern cantors both in performance and in style, usually accompanied by a choir of professional singers.

Bălţi was a well-established community, where many wealthy and well-off Jews could afford to pay for an entrance ticket to the synagogue on the High Holy Days, which cost a considerable amount of money, depending on the seat (location). This enabled the synagogue's leaders to hire famous cantors, young men with wonderful voices whose “El Harina VeHatefila” [to song and prayer] were a special pleasure.

Famous cantors in Bălţi were: Margolis and Gershon Sirota. The cantors also held liturgical concerts, with their repertoire of melodies including cantata episodes as well as Yiddish songs, folk songs, folklore, etc., which attracted a large audience of religious and secular Jews who were fans of cantorial art and religious music. Performances of this type were intended for a certain class of enthusiasts and continued even after the advent of the cinema era.

Among the cantors in Bălţi who officiated before the ark in the synagogues and shuls throughout the year, Cantor Aharon Homanyuk stood out in particular.

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Homanyuk was not only a cantor and prayer leader at the “Charatz” synagogue. He excelled in organizing choirs and performances in Hebrew schools on holidays such as Purim balls and Hanukkah parties. He also organized concerts of religious music accompanied by a choir and a military orchestra. He was proficient in writing and reading notes and was a master of original arrangements of prayer texts, some structured in the format of Western liturgy and some in the tone of the melancholic music of the Moldovan shepherds. Had the liturgical and musical works of Homanyuk been collected and preserved, they would have constituted a treasure trove of magnificent and extremely rare modern religious music.

Among the cantors who came to Bălţi from other places and stayed here for several years, several famous cantors are known. Some of them emigrated to America and became renowned there. Among these, the cantors Moshe Kaiserman, Ben Zion Scheinblatt, who was a cantor in the Great Synagogue, Zvi Weintraub and Kalman Kalarasher should be mentioned. The cantors Meir Dov Seltzer, born in Markuleszt, [Mărculeşti] and Avraham Padova, born in Hancăşti, [Hînceşti] Chisinau Province, also stayed in Bălţi. Padova was a cantor in the Great Beit Midrash. He was killed by the Nazis. Cantor Mordechai Kibilevitz served as cantor in the Great Synagogue for several years. He lived from 1895 to 1960. He began as a cantor at the Talmud Torah synagogue. He was born in the city of Bălţi and studied cantorial art with the cantors of his city.

Nissan Spivak, called Belzer, was the chief cantor in Bălţi. He excelled from his childhood. Yisrael Isser HaCohen, who lived from 1895 to 1961, served as chief cantor in Bălţi, first in the municipal synagogue, then in the Rabbi's Shul and then in the Great Synagogue. Since he served in Bălţi, he was later also known by his name Yisrael Isser Balzer.

Hershel, a student of Nissi Belzer, was a cantor in the Rabbi's shul in Bălţi for about forty years. Vinitzky writes about Nissi Belzer's cantorship:

Along his compositions for almost all the prayer services, Nissi also engaged in further training in general music and the theory of harmony. His works were saturated with Lithuanian erudition and Hasidic enthusiasm. With the magic of their performance, he captivated the hearts of the audience and brought them to admiration and excitement to the point of tears. Even though Nissi lost his voice in his youth, Belzer was like fire during his prayers, his eyes like lamps, listening and feeling every beat and nuance from anyone in the choir. He earned himself a name as the greatest cantor in Russia. Nissi's power was great in performance and conducting, and he surpassed his rabbi Yerucham in these. His compositions were famous throughout Russia. During Nissi's forty years as a cantor, singers were educated in his choir who later became famous as cantors, musicians, and composers.

Among the Bălţi immigrants who came to America and excelled in cantorship, we should mention Chaim Siker, born in 1899, to his father Nechemiah Socher. Nechemiah was a handsome Jew with a beautiful red beard, a pleasant demeanor, a learned Jew, well-versed in the Gemara. He lived in the Kozniczny (blacksmiths) neighborhood and was a prayer leader in the shoemakers' synagogue. He earned his living mainly by teaching the Jewish people the Haftarah and the laws of Bar Mitzvah. Chaim changed his name from Socher to Siker in America.

In Bălţi, he specialized as a “singer” in choirs by several Bălţi cantors. Among these cantors, we should mention Yaakov Rieman, who excelled in choirs, Avigdor Tucker - choir accompaniment, Moshe Kaiserman - concert with choir and orchestra accompaniment and Aharon Homanyuk, Isaac Schein, from whom Chaim learned the basics of traditional cantorship.

For many years, Ben Zion Scheinblatt served as chief cantor at the Great Synagogue. A very popular cantor, some of whose compositions and melodies were recorded by Moshe Possman. He began in Chisinau and then moved to Bălţi. he moved to Czernowitz. He perished in the Holocaust. He was known as the tailors' cantor. A popular cantor in the late thirties who often visited Bălţi to officiate during the High Holy Days at the “Shar'ei Zion” synagogue was Cantor Margolis. Ephraim (Froike) Shlepak, chief cantor at the Great Synagogue in Bălţi, emigrated to Canada (Montreal). David Roitman - 1884-1940 was also a famous cantor in the 1920s.

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