“On the Wings of Aesthetic Beauty Toward the Radiant Spheres of the Infinite”: Music and Jewish Reformers in Nineteenth-Century Warsaw

Abstract

In an 1875 issue of Izraelita, the weekly of Warsaw’s Jewish reformers, the author of a lengthy article concerning music’s role in Jewish liturgy passionately argued: In the magnificent Tabernacle, let exalted hymns resound, and let the singing of choirs and the organ echo the words of God’s glory … . Such ritual, where the idea carries the spirit on the wings of aesthetic beauty toward the radiant spheres of the Infinite, uplifts everybody, and for youthful souls has a solemn attraction that puts down its roots deeply and indelibly.1 The article, presumably written by Samuel Henryk Peltyn, the editor of Izraelita, was one in a series of essays that appeared in the journal during 1875, arguing for and against the use of the organ in synagogue service. The debate regarding the use of the organ to accompany Jewish liturgy was not new: the issue had been argued elsewhere throughout the nineteenth century, most notably in Germany and France, where some communities introduced sweeping changes to liturgical music.2 But the musical concerns of Warsaw’s so-called progressive congregations, unlike debates in other locales, have not yet received scholarly scrutiny. My goal is to place these discussions within a broader context of musical activities undertaken by Warsaw’s “progressive Jews” and to explore the intersections of their musical, spiritual, political, and intellectual concerns.3 Ultimately, this music-historical inquiry offers a new window into Jewish reformist endeavors in nineteenth-century Warsaw and the reformists’ vision of what would constitute modern Jewish culture.