The Story of Survival Behind One of Modern Judaism’s Best-Known Melodies

As the Torah is returned to the ark at synagogues all over the world, one can hear a familiar melody accompanying verses from Proverbs and Lamentations. While often assumed to be a traditional melody, it was in fact composed in the 1970s by Tanchum Portnoy, who died on the first day of Rosh Hashanah at the age of seventy-five. Menachem Butler tells the story of how the melody became both ubiquitous and anonymous. Before he died, Tanchum had preserved the remarkable story of his father, Rabbi Eliezer Portnoy, and the role he played in securing the escape of students of the Mir Yeshiva—originally located in modern-day Belarus—from destruction.