David Roitman

When the striking figure of Chazzan David Roitman first appeared in New York five years after the Russian Revolution the world of American Jewry discovered a new giant of song one whose voice was as unusual as his powerful face with its thick dark beard and great piercing eyes, whose cantorial style was as captivatingly expressive as his personality. He was one of the few cantors who had mastered both aspects of the cantorial art: singing, or vocal artistry, and improvisation zogen, the spontaneous expression of the thought contained in the prayer. Consequently he had a rare style in which his every phrase was a song, and every song had the clarity of a spoken sentence. Roitman was one of the few great cantors who composed his own music and did not have to rely on others for his material. In his chazzanut Roitman was a thinker and a philosopher. One could sense, as he chanted before the amud (lectern) that he was reflecting deeply on the meaning of each word he sang. He was an architect of song, whose every composition was a skillfully balanced construction.

Roitman's voice was a flexible Iyric tenor with a wide range, an exceptional coloratura and a pure pianissimo from which he was able to pass directly into the forte voice.

According to an autobiographical work Roitman wrote when he arrived in New York provided an insight into his life in Europe:

He was born in the village of Derezinke, Province of Podolia. When he was two, his parents left the village for the nearby town of Lidvinke, where they spent the rest of their days. Even at the age of two he deeply loved to sing and that many a time they had found him sitting with the poor Russian beggars on market days, listening to their songs and singing along with them. Whenever there was a wedding in the village, He would run to hear the musicians and would later mimic their instruments with his voice. His early fascination with the clarinet remained with him for years and contributed greatly to his skill in employing the mezzo-voce.

"By the age of twelve I was an assistant to the town cantor for he High Holidays. The ambition to become a chazzan had already awakened in me. After cheder each Friday it was a half day of school I would gather my classmates together in the synagogue, don an old prayer shawl and stand before the lectern making them my choir and paying no attention to the angry sexton, whose Sabbath preparations I was interrupting. I would repeat the performance weekly. When he could bear to no longer, he went complaining one Friday to my father demanding that he come to see how little David and his 'gang' were turning things upside down in the synagogue. Arriving there, my father and the fathers of the others boys were astounded. I was standing before the lectern, chanting the prayers, and the gang' was giving me choral support. Wrath turned into laughter and from then on every one began to regard my singing more seriously."

At this time he became an apprentice to the Chazzan Yankel Soroker, was city chazzan in Uman. "For a half year I sang with Chazzan Soroker, after which I was taken from him by Chazzan Leib Shapiro. Later another Chazzan, Moshe Guberman, practically stole me from Shapiro". A short time thereafter he was apprenticed to the famous Zeidel Rovner who Roitman stayed with throughout his 'teens.

At the age of twenty he was accepted as cantor in a little synagogue in Elisavetgrad called 'The Bluc Synagogue. Two years later he became the chazzan in the port city of Petrovsk; from Petrovsk he went onto Bachmut in the Caucasus. A year later whilst passing through Vilna, he chanted the Sabbath service there and was engaged as Vilna City chazzan, where he stayed for 4 years. From Vilna he travelled to St. Petersburg the largest and most intellectual Jewish community of Russia. During this period, he was occupied in writing recitatives and compositions, which the phonograph companies were buying, and was both materially and spiritually satisfied when the Bolshevik revolution broke out in 1917 and the St. Petersburg Jewish community was completely destroyed.

"From St. Petersburg I went to Odessa, where the ravages of revolution had not as yet been felt. I hoped for a peaceful day when it would be possible to return to St. Petersburg. That peaceful day never came. Jewish life in all Russia was completely destroyed. Odessa filled up with unfortunate Jewish refugees from the entire Ukraine. The material situation became worse with time. For three years I remained in Odessa; not a single ray of light could be seen in the future. Then my wife and I agreed to risk our lives and to cross the border into Bessarabia. For a year and a half we lived in Bessarabia, during which time I made a concert tour of Rumania. Finally I determined to emigrate to golden America."

The American consul at Bucharest was so impressed by Roitman's artistry that he granted him an American visa for the entire family. Arriving in America in 1920, Roitman served for two years at Ohef Sholom of Brooklyn, and then accepted the post at Shaare Zedek Synagogue of New York. There he remained, with a two-year interruption, for eighteen years. During that time Roitman made extensive concert tours of Europe and South America. In 1943, at the age of 59, he died in New York City.

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