"Oy v’avoy if we don’t change from corona. I thank Hashem because He cleaned me and I came out as a new person”
If Mona Rosenblum composed Italian opera instead of Jewish masterpieces, the musical version of his own dramatic last few months would test the most skillful tenor.
February 2020 found the legendary arranger and composer from Bnei Brak on a whirlwind tour of Tel Aviv, London, and New York for a series of dazzling performances in honor of Dirshu’s Siyum HaShas. Roshei yeshivah, chassidic rebbes, and tens of thousands of others focused on his diminutive form and dancing baton as he conducted dozens of instruments and singers through a masterpiece that he’d labored over for two years.
A month later, nobody would get near him.
As the first wave of coronavirus hit Bnei Brak just after Purim, elevated temperature and breathing difficulties sent him to the hospital, into a world of panicked doctors and gasping patients. “The staff was so scared that they wouldn’t take my ID. I was told to walk on my own to an isolated ward, where a disembodied voice directed me to ‘turn right, then left… don’t touch the button!’” he says. “I’ll never forget bed number 13. I felt so alone. I said Shema and Vidui — I felt that I was finished.”
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