Reb Duvid Werdyger, z”l

BROOKLYN

Pioneering Chazan and Composer

Having risen to the peak of musical legendry while remaining the same self-effacing spirit as when he sang in prewar Gur as a child, Reb Duvid Werdyger was niftar Wednesday morning, bequeathing the Jewish world its unique musical flavor for much of the latter part of the 20th century. He was 94.

His Lo Seivoshi will always remain a classic at hundreds of shuls worldwide on Friday nights. He will always be remembered for his captivating Yismichu B’malchusecha. His Yibaneh Hamikdash will forever warm hearts at kumzitzen and Chassidic gatherings. The nearly 30 albums produced by Reb Duvid Werdyger over the past half century represent the modern quenching of the Jewish yen for authentic music, a record unspoiled in the faddish interim.

For his family and those who knew him, Reb Duvid symbolized the Chassidishe Yid, with a wit and a glint that stood the test of his 94 years, the loss of nearly his entire family in the Holocaust, and numerous personal troubles.

“He had a certain fire in himself,” said Yisroel Werdyger, a grandson who has followed Reb Duvid’s musical path. “He always had a simchas hachaim. He was always saying, ‘Leibidig! leibidig!’”

In his book documenting his Holocaust experiences, Songs of Hope, published in 1993 by CIS Publications, Reb Duvid wrote that his natural simchah was the impetus for the career path he chose.

Simchah was the guiding light in my hours of agony and torment, and, of course, in my moments of blissful joy,” he wrote, “And through my singing, I have tried to share my simchah with others and give them spiritual pleasure.”

Reb Duvid Werdyger, surrounded by his sons (L-R) Reb Chaim, Reb Yisroel Arye, Reb Mendy and Reb Mordechai.
Reb Duvid Werdyger, surrounded by his sons (L-R) Reb Chaim, Reb Yisroel Arye, Reb Mendy and Reb Mordechai.

Born in 1919 to Reb Yisroel Arye and Gittel Werdyger, Duvid was the youngest of eight siblings in a Cracow family of devoted Gerrer Chassidim, warmed by accounts of the occasional trips to the Imrei Emes, zt”l, for Shabbos his father made and the niggunim he brought back.

Duvid’s musical talent was already apparent from a young age as Reb Yisrael Arye, a well-to-do herring merchant and dry goods retailer, would return from Gur with the latest marches and songs. After hearing them twice, Duvid was able to repeat them flawlessly.

As a 6-year-old, he became the star soloist at the famed Eizek Yekeles shul in Cracow, a position his father allowed the Chassidic boy to take after the chazzan there, a relative, promised to keep an eye on.

The watershed moment in his life came when he was about 11, when the famed Reb Yankel Talmud, z”l, Gur’s most prolific composer and choir conductor, overheard him singing by a tisch during his first visit to Gur. Reb Yankel then invited him to sing the solo at the beis medrash in Gur on Yamim Nora’im, for Unesaneh Tokef.

“While I sang,” he told Hamodia in an interview in 2008, “I gazed at the holy tzaddik, the Imrei Emes, who was deeply absorbed in his tefillos. Suddenly, the Rebbe turned around and threw me a quick look. I was so filled with awe that I faltered for one second before regaining control and resuming my singing.”

Reb Duvid Werdyger in the 1950s.
Reb Duvid Werdyger in the 1950s.

In his memoirs, Duvid wrote that the brachah he received from the Rebbe that day kept him through the harshest of war years.

When the Germans overran Cracow in 1939, Duvid’s life changed forever. When all Jews were ordered expelled from the city, the Werdygers went to live with a married daughter in a different town. His parents smuggled themselves out to a different city and he was never to see them again.

Meanwhile, Duvid was taken from the ghetto and sent to the nearby Plaszow concentration camp to be shot by firing squad. Standing in line, he was accosted by the infamous Nazi commandant Amon Goth.

“What kind of work do you do?” asked Goth, a sadistic murderer who was hanged after the war after being convicted as a war criminal.

“I am a professional singer, and I have a trained soprano voice,” Duvid responded. “Would you like to hear something?”

Taken aback, Goth replied, “Sing the song you Jews chant when you bury your dead.”

With hundreds of eyes of his fellow Jews trained on him, Duvid began reciting Kel Molei Rachamim.

“Seized with emotion,” Duvid recalled years later in his memoirs, “I sang with a vibrancy and fullness I did not know I possessed. Never before had I felt the meaning of a tefillah with such immediacy.”

He said later that a spark of humanity appeared briefly in Goth’s eyes. He was dismissed and ordered to go back to the barracks, one of only 40 to survive to live another day.

Years later, Reb Duvid was a staple at the Siyumei haShas, reciting the Keil Molei Rachamim to commemorate the memories of the six million Kedoshim.

Reb Duvid Werdyger with his grandson, Yisroel Werdyger.
Reb Duvid Werdyger with his grandson, Yisroel Werdyger.

Duvid survived the war and found two other siblings alive, his oldest brother and youngest sister. Traveling to Makava, Hungary, for his brother’s second postwar chasunah, he was introduced to Malka Godinger, whom he married shortly afterward. The couple had four children, all sons, together. She passed away in 1980.

Arriving in the United States in 1950, he turned down several cantorial job offers since they were in places he would not want his children to enter or in cities with few opportunities for yeshivos. He eventually opened a travel agency, Werdyger Travel, in Boro Park, while supplementing his income with occasional cantorial work and a steady output of albums.

His compositions took the then-fledgling American Orthodox world by storm. Along with, ybl”c, Benzion Schenker, a new genre of music was born, one which wrapped the traditional heartfelt neginah into the faster American tempo.

“As I listened to the tunes of the popular singers and bands,” he wrote in his autobiography, “I was struck by the thought that there still existed a vast, untapped resource of genuine Jewish music.”

His was an image of an erlicher luminary, who did not allow his celebrity status to get in the way of his children’s chinuch or interfere with his chassidishe roots. His nightly Daf Yomi shiur was as steady as his tenor voice, and he was from the first American parents to send their children to learn in Eretz Yisrael in the 1960s.

Reb Duvid was particularly proud of having brought to the broader public the marches of Gur, the compositions of Skulen and Melitz, the niggunim of Bobov, Sadiger, Satmar and Boyan.

“People who had never heard of the Gerrer Chassidus, and had no idea what it stood for,” he wrote, “now davened, marched and learned to the beautiful niggunim that it had produced. … Parents were now able to satisfy their children’s thirst for music by offering them meaningful songs in the place of the decadent music the secular world provided.”

Reb Duvid became so renowned that in the 1970s, when his son Mordechai began his own career, his debut was as a soloist on his father’s album and he chose the name Mordechai ben David — or as he was later known, MBD — to attach himself to his father’s stardom.

Reb Duvid’s last major appearance was at the Siyum HaShas in 1997, when he sang the Kel Molei Rachamim.

He steadily weakened over the past few years, although he still held court in the Regency assisted living home for the many acquaintances and fans who came to visit. He would regale them with stories of his childhood in Gur or deliver a commanding, if weakened, rendition of Rosh Chodesh bentching.

Reb Duvid was hospitalized about a week ago with water in his lungs and was niftar on Wednesday morning.

Maspidim at the levayah in Boro Park included Harav Dovid Olewski, Rosh Mesivta of Bais Yisroel D’Gur, his son Reb Mordechai and grandson Reb Meir Werdyger.

Kevurah was in the Pupa beis hachaim in Dean, N.J.

Reb Duvid is survived by his sons, Reb Yisroel Arye, Reb Mordechai, Reb Chaim, and Reb Mendy, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Shivah will be observed at 1447 48th Street until Tuesday morning.

Yehi zichro baruch.

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