At Beth Tfiloh Congregation, Zionism is something that the community takes very seriously.
That manifests in many forms, but a recent idea the shul had is especially novel and topical: welcoming in the Israel Defense Forces a cappella group to sing at their High Holiday services.
“Beth Tfiloh is extremely supportive of Israel, and that goes not just in material support but that’s also in spiritual and emotional support,” said Chazzan Yoni Rose, who serves as the cantor at the synagogue.
The IDF a cappella group checked several boxes. It showed support for Israel at a time when the country especially needs it, forged connections between American Jews and Israeli Jews, and also provided a nice musical switch up for the synagogue’s most-attended services of the year.
“Hopefully this connection that Beth Tfiloh has played a small part in, and this support that Jewish people around the world have played some small role in, accomplishes a successful return to regular life for the Israeli and Jewish people,” Rose said. “We obviously need to pray for continued peace in the land of Israel and to continue to strengthen our connection with the Jewish and Israeli people with these kinds of programs.”
At both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the IDF a cappella group brought songs old and new to the stage in their trademark voices-only style. The Beth Tfiloh community was thrilled with the addition to the services.
“It was the warmest reception and most enthusiastic reception I’ve ever experienced,” Rose said. “People seemed to be really, really moved by it.”
What made the inclusion of the group so special is its unique mix of classic liturgical music and modern tunes. This mix kept people excited and engaged in worship.
“We were able to really craft a service that seizes not only the tradition of what’s come before us and connect with some of the tunes and styles that maybe some people are more comfortable with, but also start to modernize more popular tunes that are much more contemporary, not just in the tune, but in the sound that we use to present them. So that’s kind of one of the things that people really responded to,” Rose said.
The Beth Tfiloh team worked together to come up with arrangements before sending them to the group. Rose, who serves in a reserve capacity with the IDF, was actually in Israel while helping craft this process. While it may sound like it made his life easier to be in the same country as the group, he said he may as well have been “on the moon” in terms of his ability to communicate with them and those back in Baltimore.
“I actually would send WhatsApp recordings from the back of patrol Jeeps as we did various operations. And so I’d be muttering into my phone quietly in the back while the radio was going off, because I’m a radio man, so in one hand, I’d have the radio receiver and the other had my phone, and we did a lot of communication that way,” he said.
The inclusion of the IDF a cappella group was such a success that the synagogue decided they didn’t want their involvement to end there: The group is joining the congregants and clergy at Beth Tfiloh again for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. Having Israelis at this holiday is especially poignant because it was two years ago on Simchat Torah that Israel was attacked by Hamas, igniting the most recent and deadly iteration of their decades-long conflict.
As the community rallies for another holiday, Beth Tfiloh leadership is happy to have members of the IDF joining them. For Rose, it just makes perfect sense. He said that some folks at the synagogue commented to the clergy that their risk in including the group paid off.
“Rabbi [Chai] Posner said, ‘I don’t think we took a risk, because I was sure it was going to work,’” Rose said.
