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The Hungarian Boy
Who Loved Music

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSOCIATE EDITOR

antor Israel Fuchs' wife is spent day after day digging the
convinced music is in her land before he told himself,
"Chaim-Yisroel, you have to do
husband's blood.
He sings it; he writes it. something else."
He took a job as a bookkeeper
In fact, since the age of 4, Cantor
Fuchs, who for 25 years served at at Tel Aviv City Hall and served
Congregation Beth Abraham, has in the Haganah defense force be-
been able to easily master com- fore returning to his first love,
music.
plicated tunes.
For 21 years, he conducted
The cantor's melodies recent-
ly were published under the title, choirs and taught chazzanut and
The Music of Cantor Israel Fuchs. worked with some of Israel's
It was the culmination of a career finest cantors.
While at a cafe in Tel Aviv,
that began at the turn of the cen-
tury in Ternovo, part of the Aus- Cantor Fuchs met a young
tro-Hungarian Empire (which, woman named Ayala who would
after World War I, became part become his wife. She married
him, she says, "because I liked his
of Czechoslovakia).
Moshe and Hentzi Fuchs were knowledge."
One of Cantor Fuchs' col-
Chasidic Jews who lived in a
home surrounded by gardens. leagues in Israel was Cantor
Moshe was a successful busi- Shabtai Ackerman, who in the
nessman who came from a fami- 1950s accepted a job at Congre-
ly of talmudic scholars. His wife gation Beth Abraham in Detroit.
was an excellent cook whose fish When he became ill and could no
and knaidlach her son still re- longer continue the work, Cantor
Ackerman called his friend and
members as incomparable.
The couple's first baby, Chaim- encouraged him to take over the
Yisroel, was born in November position.
Though initially hesitant to
1910 and from an early age
evinced an interest in music.
He was singing, often com-
plicated melodies, when still a
toddler.
After becoming bar mitzvah,
Chaim-Yisroel was enrolled at
the Wisheve Yeshiva in Transyl-
vania. Far from home, he was
glad when he became acquaint-
ed with a family who invited him
for meals. He especially loved lis-
tening to the family's gramo-
phone, where they often played
recordings of the famed Yosele
Rosenblatt.
Chaim-Yisroel always re-
turned home for the holidays, and
on one such visit his parents
commented, with much distress,
on their boy's weight loss. They
decided that he should stay home
for a year and study with Hersh
Fogel (today Reb Fogel is one of
New York's leading talmudic
scholars). While back at home, Cantor Israel Fuchs
Chaim-Yisroel also learned to
read and write music — from the
leave Israel, Cantor Fuchs even-
local kosher butcher.
Cantor Fuchs took his first job tually agreed to take a position
in Munkatch, where he sang with with the 500-member congrega-
the choir, then in 1936 left for Is- tion on Seven Mile in Detroit.
Cantor Fuchs' decision to try
rael.
It took him little time to find out Detroit turned into a 25-year
work directing a synagogue choir career. He even retired twice,
in Tel Aviv. But Cantor Fuchs only to return after two different
wasn't content. He had come to successors came and went.
Cantor Fuchs also taught bar
Israel to be a chalutz, a pioneer.
"I felt guilty that I wasn't work- mitzvah preparation at United
ing the land," he says. "So I went Hebrew Schools. Among the
to Rehovot to be with my chaver- pieces included in his new book
is "Keren Arni," which he wrote
im."
He was with his comrades, but with former UHS Principal
the work was insufferable. He Michael Michlin. Cl

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