Emmy Award-winning producer and Pace University professor Allen Oren’s 40-minute documentary, 18 Voices Sing Kol Nidre, will be screened 3 p.m. CDT Sunday, Sept. 25 on TPT LIFE Channel 2.3 (check local listings).
The documentary explores how a prayer that doesn’t mention God became so sacred. It also shows how the Kol Nidre became a Jewish anthem and, as it turned out, an object of intense interest for non-Jews as well.
The film features 18 storytellers sharing knowledge, tales and anecdotes of the prayer, including a Hasidic rabbi who tells of an illiterate stable boy who can’t read the Kol Nidre prayer and in frustration lets his shepherd’s flute fill the synagogue with spirit; African-American author Julius Lester, a convert to Judaism, who recalls practicing the melody on piano; and a film critic who shows how the prayer burst onto the general pop scene with the first talking film, The Jazz Singer, in 1927.
The DVD is also available for sale at: www.18voices.com.
Below is the film’s trailer:
Neil Diamond did it is his Jazz Singer, too.