At the 2014 Oscars, the 75thanniversary of the release of the film, “Wizard of Oz,” was celebrated by Pink singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” metatube/en/videos/225424/Oscars-2014-Pink-performance-Somewhere-over-the-rainbow/ But what few people realized, while listening to Pink, is that the music is deeply embedded in the Jewish experience. And the song is perhaps the most poignant to emerge from the mass exodus from Europe. Yip Harburg, the youngest of four children born to Russian Jewish immigrants, wrote the lyrics. Harold Arlen, a cantor’s son from Lithuania, wrote the music. The Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts voted their collaboration the 20th centurys number one song. In composing the song, the two men reached deep into their immigrant Jewish consciousness – framed by the pogroms of the past and the Holocaust about to happen – and created an unforgettable melody set to prophetic words. In listening to the lyrics in their Jewish context, the words are no longer about Oz, but about Jewish survival. The Europe’s Jews could not fly, nor escape beyond the rainbow. It is ironic that for 2,000 years the land that the Jews heard of “once in a lullaby” was not America, but Israel. It is remarkable that less than 10 years after the song appeared, the exile would be over and the State of Israel would be reborn. The “dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” Thank you, Eileen Ain, for sending this to me.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 07:06:58 +0000
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