Cantor Remembered

An 87-year-old World War II veteran is achieving fame on YouTube for an historical sabbath service he helped perform on a German battlefield 65 years ago, reports The New York Times.

Max Fuchs was the cantor on the first Jewish religious service performed in Germany since the advent of Adolf Hitler. It was broadcast on NBC radio on Oct. 29, 1944. The historically-significant service was well-known in its time, but had faded into obscurity until it was resurrected and posted on YouTube in 2006. It has since received over 314,000 hits (with many more likely to click as word of its existence spreads).

Artillery fire could be heard not far in the distance as the 10-minute service, held in an open field in Aachen, Germany "beneath a cloudless grey sky," aired. The group was not far from the front lines of battle. Fuchs was just 22.

Fuchs had been studying to become a cantor when the war broke out and he was drafted. His participation is all the more poignant because of his family's history with the Nazis: several of his relatives were killed after the German invasion of Poland. He himself had emigrated to the US when he was 12.

The recording of the service was lost until the American Jewish Committee, which had helped organize the radio event all those years ago, started to put together a documentary about it. Fuchs' role in the service went uncredited until one of his daughters came across the YouTube video.

Now the rabbi at Fuchs' synegogue, Congregation Ramath Orah on West 100th Street, wants him to sing at Rosh Hashana services on Saturday. Now that's what we call a full-circle moment. We can't think of a better way to mark the start of the Jewish High Holidays than with a celebration of freedom of religion.

Watch the documentary posted to YouTube, below. You can hear Fuchs sign 4:05 minutes into the video. In the pictures, he is the one with the artillery helmet, standing to the rabbi's right:

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.