Inside the Heart of Steal a Pencil for Me: A Q&A with Cantor Gerald Cohen

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is thrilled to present a special Q&A with HUC-JIR faculty member Cantor Gerald Cohen, the composer of Steal a Pencil for Me, an opera in two acts that captures one of the Holocaust's most poignant love stories. Created by Cantor Cohen and librettist Deborah Brevoort, the opera is set against the harrowing backdrop of WWII concentration camps and tells the true story of Jaap and Ina Polak, who fell in love as prisoners at Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen. Through secret love letters and an unbreakable bond, they helped each other survive the unimaginable.

Based on Jaap and Ina's love letters, Steal a Pencil for Me transcends the epic horrors of the Holocaust, focusing on intimate moments of hope, resilience, and the indestructible human spirit. The opera premiered in 2018 by Opera Colorado, and now a studio recording of the production is available.

Cantor Cohen's deep personal connection with Jaap and Ina, having known them for over 25 years, inspired him to bring their story to the stage. He collaborated closely with Brevoort, meeting with Jaap and Ina to ensure their journey was authentically captured in the opera. The work dramatizes their love amid great adversity, revealing the power of human connection even in the darkest of times.

Cantor Cohen joined us to discuss the opera, its origins, themes, and the profound impact of Jaap and Ina's story on his work.

[HUC-JIR] Balancing the intimate personal drama with the epic tragedy of the Holocaust is a delicate task. How did you approach composing music that captures both the love and the intense suffering in the story?

[Cantor Cohen] Besides the important fact that I knew Jaap and Ina Polak very well, it was the sense that this story could beautifully balance an "intimate personal drama with the epic tragedy of the Holocaust." Librettist Deborah Brevoort and I, in planning the scenario for how to tell the story on stage, were always thinking about that balance-of creating an opera that, by containing a complex love story within the tale of suffering and eventual liberation, could draw the audience in emotionally. In terms of my music, there are specific themes associated with the love story, and specific ones associated with the life in the camps, the Nazis, and the fear of the prisoners. These get used throughout the opera, and in their development and juxtaposition, help to create the arc of the opera's emotional story.

[HUC-JIR] The theme of resilience and the "indestructibility of the life spirit" is central to this opera. How did you musically express that enduring hope in the face of unimaginable adversity?

[CC] Librettist Deborah Brevoort and I approached this theme in several ways throughout the opera. One is in the characters of Jaap and Ina themselves-especially Jaap, who in real life and in the opera, had a powerful optimistic and determined spirit that I think helped in their survival. In one of his letters to Ina while in the camp, he speaks to her of the importance of thinking about the simple things that they will be able to do when they leave the hell of the concentration camp-of an ordinary breakfast, taking a shower, sleeping in a bed. Deborah and I turned that into a duet which is both a declaration of their love and of the vital importance of such hope, music that then is heard at many points throughout the opera. Another example is the Passover scene [described below], where the words of the Haggadah, sung by Jaap and the chorus to Torah trope and contrasting with the brutish commands of the Nazis, act as a call to hope and freedom at their time of desperation and imprisonment.

[HUC-JIR] How has your experience as a cantor and your deep engagement with Jewish liturgical music influenced your compositional style in this opera, especially when dealing with such a profound narrative?

[CC] I am often asked what the influence of Jewish music is on my pieces that are not specifically on liturgical texts. I have been a cantor for so many years, and that has affected all my music in two essential ways:

First of all, the fact of being a singer who gets to sing in front of and with a congregation every week means that I think of music in terms of vocal lines. I try to write music that is grateful for performers to sing-and that uses their voices, as well of the instruments of the orchestra to tell the story in as powerful a way as possible.

Secondly, the Jewish music I sing is so much in my soul and my bones that it makes its way into all that I compose, whether consciously or unconsciously.

In this opera there is not much music that is specifically Jewish, except for one centrally important scene: In the middle of Act 2, the prisoners at Bergen-Belsen are trying to hold a makeshift Passover Seder, and Jaap sings the verses of the Haggadah (quoting Exodus) using Torah Trope, and specifically Dutch Torah Trope (which Josée Woolf of our faculty was kind enough to record for me). Eventually this becomes the key idea of the developing scene, as the Nazis force the Jews into another endless Roll Call, and the prisoners keep on singing to themselves the words of freedom from the Haggadah as an inspiration to lift their spirits.

[HUC-JIR] Opera is a unique medium for storytelling. What do you believe opera can convey about historical events like the Holocaust that other art forms might struggle to express?

[CC] Music, for me, even after so many years of studying, performing and composing, still has a mystery to it-somehow, profoundly reaching our emotions and our souls in ways that words sometimes cannot.

Opera-storytelling on stage with music-has the potential of conveying the story, the characters, the world that is created, with particular emotional power. In speaking of the events of the Holocaust, it is certainly true that telling a story in words, very simply, can be deeply moving; and yet doing so on stage with music creates a different, multi-sensory way of reaching into our beings as we watch the opera.

The album of the opera, just released, of course does not reflect one special aspect of opera-the visual and visceral experience of being in the theater as the work is performed, as it was so beautifully at the 2018 Opera Colorado premiere. But I hope that this superb, recorded performance can still give listeners the experience of the essence of the opera and its way of telling this powerful story.

[HUC-JIR] Reflecting on your experience at HUC-JIR to now, what specific teachings or experiences do you still draw upon when creating compositions that bridge historical narratives with contemporary audiences?

[CC] I have now written pieces related to the Shoah in three different media: This opera Steal a Pencil for Me, the song cycle they burn the fires of the night, and the string quartet Playing for our lives, which is a tribute to the music and musicians of Terezín. All of these are conceived as emotional musical experiences for the audience, and also as an opportunity to open a conversation about the particular history involved in relation to the piece, and in turn the larger history of the Shoah. Since my grandmother and other relatives were killed by the Nazis, and my parents were both refugees from Europe, I feel a particular mission to make sure that the stories of that history are told in an emotionally resonant way, to help keep the memory alive, and to do my small part in trying to make sure that such horror is not perpetrated on human beings again in the future.

[HUC-JIR] How did your role on the faculty at HUC-JIR shape your understanding of Jewish music, and in what ways has it influenced your approach to composing for opera?

[CC] I of course had been composing for many years, including other operas, before I became part of the faculty at HUC-JIR. My teaching at HUC-JIR has focused on working with cantorial students on their compositions, and I have cherished seeing the talent and adventurous musical spirit of the future cantors that I have worked with-and see that as boding very well for the future of Jewish music. Several recent students [Iris Karlin, Isaac Sonett-Assor and Justin Callis] have composed large-scale works-an opera, a song cycle, and a cantata-for their senior recital projects. I am so delighted that I can play a part in helping the next generation of Jewish musical leaders find their voices as composers. And working with so many wonderful faculty colleagues has of course been important to my appreciating what other creative Jewish musicians are bringing to the world of Jewish music. I am also very appreciative of the support I and my music have received from HUC, including being the venue of the premiere in 2023 of another Holocaust composition of mine, They burn, the fires of the night: lamentations from the ashes, to poems of Menachem Rosensaft.

[HUC-JIR] As this year's recipient of the Dr. Jack Gottlieb Yovel Award for Jewish Music Composition, how do you see your work continuing the legacy of Jewish musical innovation and tradition?

[CC] I was so honored and moved to receive the Dr. Jack Gottlieb Yovel Award from HUC-JIR, especially since I knew Jack Gottlieb quite well. Since the beginning of my composing life, I have felt the pull of two intersecting worlds-the classical or concert music tradition, and the Jewish musical and textual tradition. I love both deeply, and both have permeated all that I create. I have attempted in my music to work in that intersection-to create concert music and opera that draws deeply on Jewish music, texts and ideas, and to create Jewish music that has important elements that I love of the concert and operatic music tradition.

For more information, to stream or download the opera, and to view the album booklet and opera libretto: https://www.geraldcohenmusic.com/recordings/steal-a-pencil-for-me/

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