{"id":47557,"date":"2019-03-07T21:19:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T03:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=47557"},"modified":"2019-03-07T21:20:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T03:20:26","slug":"neshama-carlebach-is-figuring-out-how-to-both-love-and-not-love-her-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/neshama-carlebach-is-figuring-out-how-to-both-love-and-not-love-her-father\/","title":{"rendered":"Neshama Carlebach is figuring out how \u2018to both love and not love\u2019 her father"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By JOSEFIN DOLSTEN<\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK (JTA) \u2014 Neshama Carlebach says she is figuring out how \u201cto both love and not love\u201d her father.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach,&nbsp;a spiritual leader and musician whose soulful melodies penetrated the hearts of people across the religious spectrum, is the man who made her into who she is today. A singer and composer in her own right, Neshama, 44, first shared a stage with him at the age of 15. She refers to him having been her \u201cbest friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But something has changed since the rabbi died in 1994 at 69.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_47558\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47558\" class=\"wp-image-47558 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-768x1154.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-681x1024.jpg 681w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 200px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 200\/300;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47558\" class=\"wp-image-47558 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-768x1154.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach-681x1024.jpg 681w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-47558\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Neshama Carlebach says &#8220;I want to live for this moment, for today, and I want my children to know joy.\u201d (Michael Albany)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Shlomo Carlebach was once revered as a prophet of sorts, and his melodies are still regularly heard in synagogues, but allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse have dogged his legacy for decades. Amid the #MeToo movement, as victims of abuse came forward, those allegations emerged again. His most ardent supporters have denied the alleged wrongdoings \u2014 that Carlebach harassed and in some cases molested women and teenage girls. But others go as far as insisting that synagogues should stop using his melodies.<br \/>\nHis daughter was mostly silent until a little over a year ago, when she addressed the claims articles in The Forward and&nbsp;The Times of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI accept the fullness of who my father was, flaws and all,\u201d she wrote in the Times of Israel. \u201cI am angry with him. And I refuse to see his faults as the totality of who he was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With a new album slated for release on March 29, Neshama Carlebach wants to turn a new page. For the first time, the New York-based singer is creating her original music, and she did so with the help of two women \u2014 executive director Jackie Tepper and songwriter and music producer Beth Styles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing shift in my life that I am surrounded at this moment with powerful women,\u201d she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Wednesday in a phone interview. \u201cIt\u2019s just an opening moment where women are around me, and I feel very blessed and uplifted by that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The album, titled \u201cBelieve,\u201d combines Jewish folk and soul music and features a gospel choir led by Pastor Milton Vann. On the album, Carlebach sings in Hebrew and English.<\/p>\n<p>Among the songs are \u201cBelieve,\u201d a ballad about building a better world; \u201cHear Our Prayer,\u201d which asks for healing; and \u201cDon\u2019t Let Me Go,\u201d with words that come from a psalm in which King David pleads for mercy from God after he has sex with Bathsheba.<\/p>\n<p>With its upcoming release, she wants to be judged on her own merit, not against her father\u2019s music or actions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would encourage people to see me for me,\u201d Carlebach said. \u201cTo see me for the person that I am, for the woman that I am, for the mother that I am, for the artist that I am, and not only as someone who is connected to my father because that\u2019s not a very straight road.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said her album was inspired by her grappling with the allegations against her father.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_47559\" style=\"width: 238px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47559\" class=\"wp-image-47559 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-228x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-768x1010.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-779x1024.jpg 779w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 228px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 228\/300;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-47559\" class=\"wp-image-47559 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-228x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-228x300.jpg 228w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-768x1010.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/3-7-19-carlebach2-779x1024.jpg 779w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-47559\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach is pictured in 1989. (Dave Buresh\/The Denver Post via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe record came from this moment and I\u2019m so grateful for it, to be alive, to be awake, to be me and to continue to find a way to hear people in pain, to hear from my own pain, to both love and not love my dad in his place far away, and to sing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>But Carlebach doesn\u2019t appear ready to sever the connection to her father. In two songs on the album, she samples her father\u2019s melodies. She says she understands that some people may find it \u201cpainful\u201d to hear his music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand, I hear and never in life would I ever want anyone to put themselves in a place where they feel sad,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s face it, this is not mandatory, you don\u2019t have to hear this music. If people choose to hear me, it\u2019s because I bring them joy, period. If I am not, if he is not, then of course, hear something else, sing something else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Until now Carlebach has spent most of her career singing her father\u2019s music. She feels his songs belong to her, too, in a way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have had own career for 25 years \u2014 it\u2019s not a short period of time,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe in the work that I have offered. I believe in the message of my heart. I believe in my very clean, real, whole reputation. I believe in what I have offered to audiences in the world. I believe in myself, the songs that I put, the tiny little chunks of my dad\u2019s songs \u2014 those are mine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For many years, Carlebach did not address the allegations against her father, many of which date back to the 1960s, when he&nbsp;began to move away from Lubavitch Hasidism and write religious folk and liturgical music for an emerging Jewish counterculture. The allegations broke into the open after his death, when&nbsp;Lilith magazine in 1998 published accounts by women who said he had abused or molested them.<br \/>\n\u201cI had never spoken publicly about it and there are many reasons for that, but mostly it was very hard for me to comment,\u201d she said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t even born when these stories were in the world, there was nothing for me to say because it wasn\u2019t mine. Unfortunately this year it became mine and I ate it at every meal.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Neshama Carlebach in New Orleans\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LVEr4LySKds?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>(&#8220;Kiva Moed&#8221; captured by Alan Smason at Touro Synagogue in 2009)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think in the end my speaking was my way of really owning the fact that it was both painful for me, redemptive for me, frightening for me, and sharing my viewpoint was my way of joining hands and hearts with every woman in the world who was not heard and not believed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In her piece for The Times of Israel, Carlebach also shared her own painful #MeToo experience: That she was molested by one of her father\u2019s friends when she was 9.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe reason I disclosed it \u2014 and I stand by this for whatever it\u2019s worth \u2014 I have had this gift of being heard in the world,\u201d she said. \u201cI want everyone in the world to know that no matter how powerful you are, no matter what anyone in the world thinks of you, we are all made of the same stuff at the end. We are all finding our voices, we are all struggling with our own childhoods, with our own pain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The past year has brought more than just new music into Carlebach\u2019s life. In the summer&nbsp;she married Menachem Creditor, a Conservative rabbi and social justice activist. It was the second marriage for both, and the couple are now raising five kids together ranging in age from 8 to 16.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy life both imploded and became whole at the same moment this past year. It\u2019s been a crazy year,\u201d she said. \u201cI was a single mother of two \u2014 now I\u2019m a married mother to five. It\u2019s just extraordinary and such a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s another reason Carlebach wants to turn a new leaf.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just want to be happy,\u201d she said. \u201cI just want to look at myself, I want to feel proud of who I am. I don\u2019t want to close my eyes to what I\u2019ve been through and what my family has been through, but I want to live for this moment, for today, and I want my children to know joy.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Neshama%20Carlebach%20is%20figuring%20out%20how%20%E2%80%98to%20both%20love%20and%20not%20love%E2%80%99%20her%20father\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7137],"tags":[8790,8795,661,8788,660],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47557"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47561,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47557\/revisions\/47561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}