Song: Ani Ma’amin
Album: Ani Ma’amin (Pirchei Choir III)
Composers: Itzy Weisberg and Motty Parnes
Year: 1968
I It was 1968 and the message was old but new. “Ani Ma’amin” had been sung by the lager Yidden a declaration of resolute faith on the lips of martyrs and survivors in the shadow of gas chambers and crematoria. Now a new and powerful setting of “Ani Ma’amim” symbolized all that was idealistic among frum American youth of the 1960s.
The cover of the third Pirchei Choir record titled Ani Ma’amin in honor of this song read: “Today’s ‘Ani Ma’amin’ has a special message to the Jew caught up in the maelstrom of modern-day affluence …You still need this eternal faith in the coming of Mashiach to withstand the moral ravages faced by a generation that worships man’s own power over the power of G-d… This Pirchei record is dedicated toward imbuing this ani ma’amin spirit in the masses… to help build a flourishing Klal Yisrael equipped to march forward toward the coming of Mashiach.”
The composers of “Ani Ma’amin” are listed as Itzy Weisberg and Motty Parnes while the names on the Pirchei record cover are a nostalgic who’s who of early Jewish music: Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum a”h Motty Parnes a”h Rabbi Baruch Chait Yisroel Lamm and his brothers Dovid Nulman and Rabbi Eliyahu Klang.
“Most of those musicians played at my wedding in Chicago” says Mr. Itzy Weisberg who lives in Detroit today. “It was 1967 and definitely the first time Chicago had heard a band like that.” Mr. Weisberg retired from an education career in 2010 after 40 years teaching English literature and writing in public school — “with a yarmulke ” he comments. He also taught afternoon Hebrew school and notes that “some of those students have frum grandchildren today. A lot of our impact was through Jewish song and davening.”
