I'd like to portray and honest, unbiased and balanced profile of the late, "Sweet singer of Israel". I met him when I was 15 and used to travel with him playing the guitar. You might also want to check out my review of the book "Holy Brother" on amazon.com - I kind of overdid it but I had a very warm relationship with the singing rabbi.
Shlomo gave ordination to women years before it was common. And he was a person who encouraged people to realize their dreams. I used to play guitar with him and he used to stand sideways on stage so I could see his fingers dart around the guitar's neck and fret board.
Currently, I have business dealings with his daughters, Neshama and Nedara Carlebach. They licensed me to do a limited run of 3 CDs so I can test the waters and see if anyone wants to hear what I have to offer.
The article in Lillith magazine some years ago accused him of sexual impropriety with women and even with little girls. I can honestly say I never saw him abuse a minor or even an adult although one time I saw him have sexual contact with a woman and it was very shocking.
Shlomo supported the State of Israel and he was big potatoes there. He also supported many people financially and emotionally and spirituallly. I lived at his Chasidim's Moshav Meor Modi'in for almost a year and my experience there was generally very positive except for people who took exception to my weightlifting. More on this later.
My deep seated belief is that Shlomo's music and teachings are going to be used to reenergize Judaism for a lot time into the future. Now that the establishment doesn't have to deal with his negative side, it's going to be easier to to that. A friend of mine at Moshav Modi'in once told me that it was sad but Shlomo was probably not going to be appreciated until he was gone. But, that was largely his fault because of the sexual contact he had with women.

Shlomo Carlebach Movement an Overview

I was on the periphery of the Carlebach movement for many years and I was a member of the Carlebach Shul in 1994. After being involved in a church that went bad and became a cult - in the mid to late '70s - (I met Shlomo when a number of us from the cult went to see him in concert together), Shlomo invited me to come and stay at Moshav Me'or Modi'in, the settlement near Lod airport where his Chasidim live.
I found most of the people to be loving and tolerant and sincere in their efforts to learn more about spirituality from the Jewish perspective without becoming overly legalistic. Many of the Chasidim who were there during my first stay at Modi'in are still there.
Shlomo used to make frequent trips to the Moshav and he used to spend summers there and people flew in from all over the world to be with us. Shlomo was much bigger in Israel than in America.
I also used to play guitar and tour with him all over Israel, a fact which made my father's brother extremeley "jealous" of me. It was really high times. (I was also on TV with him and was seen by friends of my parents). My uncle didn't realize that there was a bad mosquito infestation in Modi'in and the heat was unbearable during the summer in my house and the moshav had a skin sore going around. My body used to open up and thin clear ooze used to come out. It also became muddy in the winter and it was a very unstructured environment. It was very hard to live at Modi'in.
Shlomo's charisma in Israel was mindbending. He had the tremendous reputation of being one of the few rabbis with real clout who loved and supported the State of Israel and he was a religious Zionist and a great friend of Ariel Sharon. Every time the Arabs attacked Israel, Shlomo used to fly to Israel to sing and inspire the troops to fight back.
One day, a Sabbath to be exact, an elderly Jewish man driving a car stopped his car in the middle of the street to run out, quite like a meshuggeneh, and hug and kiss Shlomo. Shlomo made it his business to try and see the good in everyone.
I'm an avid weight lifter and I had over 400 lbs. of weights at Modi'in, some of which are still there from my '78 - '79 trip there.
I infuriated someone who lived on the Moshav because Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Chasidism), wrote a book called "Tales of the 7 Beggars" which contained a story called "The Master of Prayer". The story details 7 paths in life, 6 false ones of which one was the path of the "bodybuilder." The only good path is the one of the "master of prayer". Shlomo used to teach extensively from "Likutei Mohoran" which is the main book that Reb Nachman wrote.
I was repeatedly attacked by one of the moshavnicks but paradoxically when I left Modi'in in late '79 her husband inherited my bench press and some of my weights. By the way, I read the story and my personal habits don't reflect what the story said "bodybuilder" are all about. Actually, the story was really about the old time strongmen and not bodybuilders in the modern sense of the word. I also corresponded with Breslov over the problems I had. They said that weight lifting per se isn't the problem, just when it becomes a substitute for religion. I had to weight lift because of all the bullies I went to school with.
Shlomo used to call me, "Reuven the Holy Weightlifter", showing how he can see the good in everyone. I was miserable as a child because of the problems I had with anti-Semites in my public school and friction between myself and my father. The only thing that seemed to make me feel better was listening to Shlomo's recordings. He really wrote some beautiful music and as the "Jewish Catalog" says, "the world of Jewish music owes a great debt to Shlomo" for all the music he wrote.
One time, Shlomo saw that I was in a bad mood in a concert and smiling at me, he adjusted the capo on his guitar and said, "Hey brother, the moshiach is coming to redeem you!" Years later, I wonder if he had messianic pretensions.
Today, a lot of Carlebach minyanim are popping up all over the place and I wonder how well many of them knew him. Without having to deal with him and his negative side, the Jewish establishment is in the process of deifying him.
I was at the Carlebach Shul a few times in the last several years but everytime I go someone tries to put a "trip over on my head". The last time I was there some guy was all over me to get me married off again. "We're going to get you mawwied", is the way he put it. After my dismal marriage through Chabad Lubavitch, I never sought a second wife.
My father's criticisms of the movement included the fact that it was a "one man movement". No one like Shlomo can take over and he had no sons. During one of the Yahrzeit commemorations, I heard someone say, "We are now in the generation of the Magid of Mezritch. " Meaning that a new player would step up to the plate in the second generation, but as of now I don't know who this is. Shlomo's grand nephew, Rabbi Naftali Citron, took over the Carlebach Shul, but he's no Shlomo.
My father also criticized the fact that on a number of occasions, I started out with the Carlebach movement and then wound up in the clutches of the Chabad movement and the results were always terrible. Most of the Carlebach people either own their own businesses, are on yeshiva subsidies or are on Israeli welfare. I don't know any of them who work in a major company in Israel like Tadiran or Scitex or even Dead Sea Works.
I have a piece of the Carlebach movement because Shlomo's daughters, Neshama and Nedara, are being gracious enough to license me to produce 3 CDs with a limited run per CD to see if anyone wants to hear what I have to offer. I'm grateful that they are giving me this shot. (My father asked me about Neshama "Does she have a beard?)"
Some people won't play Shlomo's music because they believe that his errant sexuality is actually embedded in his music. IE, the music is "tainted".
I also know that Shlomo passed on in a very bad head space. He gave a lecture one time right before he passed on about how "It's absolutely heart breaking but the nations of the world are trying to make up homeless again". His focus as a teacher was on bringing world peace and the "coming of the Messiah". Events which never happened and peace looks very far off.
Teaching about the coming of the Messiah, was one of his really big agendas. Shlomo was a firm believer that the world was going to be rebuilt and the messiah would spearhead the teaching of spirituality and even bring sight to the blind.
I lost my last job contract right around the time of his passing and I went to Israel to live with some of his Chasidim, but I couldn't establish myself in Israel. I said Psalms over Shlomo's kever (grave) for many hours. I considered it to be a great honor and privilege to know him and he helped me out quite a bit.
The world of Jewish music will never be the same without him and I miss him very much. I was in danger because of that cult I got suckered into and it was Shlomo's influence that enabled me to reintegrate myself back into Judaism so I could live with my parents again and go through my university studies.
Now the question remains, "what is someone to think of all those Shlomo stories?" and also, "is the Carlebach movement itself a cult?" Those are 2 hard questions because one man's religion is often another's cult. What works for some people doesn't work for everyone.
One Shlomo story revolved around a wealthy person who acted like a miser but was actually giving a lot of charity in secret. The chevra kadisha, the burial society, told him that if he didn't give charity just once they wouldn' t bury him. He'd have to bury himself. So he didn't give charity openly and as it were he actually buried himself. I can't take that literally. Did Shlomo actually believe in these stories? I don't know but I hope not.
As far as the cult question, I think it revolves around the individual. For some people, involvement in the movement is tantamount to being in a cult. Some of Shlomo's beliefs or at least his stories as mentioned, were outlandish. Some people are afraid of being cast as being in a cult.
Originally, I was only involved with the movement because of Shlomo's invite to come to Modi'in in the late 70's. I really wasn't part of his group. Later on, I tried to become one of his chasidim but it didn't take.
I outgrew my attachment to Shlomo and the movement and
I actually didn't see him much from 1980 to 1994 with a brief stay in Jerusalem at the home of some of his Chasidim when I was looking for work after I got my Master of Science in Management degree in '86 and a stay in Jerusalem in '95 at the same Chasidim's house after I lost my last job contract. Someone who I had a job interview with knew the family I was staying with and guilt by association, I had as much chance of landing a job with them as a snow ball has in hell.
I really wanted to distance myself from the whole thing and only managed to do so recently, but I like his music and decided to try coming out with my own CDs of his music. Where this will go, I don't know. I'll keep everyone posted.

The Carlebach Family's Reaction to the Lillith Magazine Article



Neila Carlebach, Shlomo's widow, said that she didn't want to deal with the people who complained about Shlomo's abherrant sexual behavior because they were "just trying to hurt" his legacy. I believe that this was not a proper response. Neilah cited how much lag time there was in trying to resolve the issues. Quite frankly, Shlomo's presence was so overwhelming that it probably took years for many women to come to the forefront on all of this.
Lillith magazine set up their own hotline to field the women who needed to air out what was ailing them. That, I believe, was a proper response. Around the time the article was printed, I was in NYC at the Carlebach Shul, where one of the higher ups complained to me about how some "feminazi" magazine slandered Shlomo. I told the person that based on 2 incidents that I personally witnessed, it was not inconceivable that Shlomo had done what he was accused of especially considering the number of complaints that were lodged.
When it comes to Rabbi Carlebach, some love him, some hate him but rarely does someone sit on the fence. Personally, I loved him because he helped me out alot and made a lot of connections for me.

When I came back from Moshav Modi'in in late '79, a rabbi who Shlomo introduced me to opened up a shteibel (small temple) in his houses' basement. My father was attending this shteibel. The rabbi, whose father used to write a column for the Jewish Press, used to act as a go between interceding for me in relationship to my father. Life became bearable again.
The rabbi and I were both big fans of Shlomo and his music and he even had a copy of a long out of print record called "Wake Up World", whose hebrew title was "Shifchi K'mayim Leibech" or "Pour Out Your Soul Unto the L-rd". Back when I was involved with the orthodoxy, I used to spend Shabbosim with the rabbi. He was very warm and friendly and my father used to really like him. I still talk to him because I have his phone number.

Shlomo hated being called the rock and roll rabbi. Someone once called him the "Jewish Elvis Presley" to which he responded "the day they call Elvis the goyishe Shlomo Carlebach (I run the risk of being politically incorrect here, sorry) is the day they can call me the Jewish Elvis Presley". I know he said this because he told me about it all personally and it's on a video put out by Aderet.
Shlomo said on the vidoe that he was doing Chasidishe melodies and it "hung very bad on him ...." when people said he was doing rock music. He did one record with Shimon "C" Lanzbom's guitar work, notably "Haneshama Shel Shlomo" which also featured Shlomo's daughter, Neshama Carlebach, on it. Lanzbom is the lead guitarist for Soulfarm and he also has solo albums out. Haneshama contains some VERY rock and roll licks. I'm sort of jealous of him because I play the guitar too. His guitar work is stunning. The recording is a play on words because "Neshama" means "soul" or more accurately "divine soul" in Hebrew and in Kabbalah.

The Carlebach family is an ancient Jewish dyanasty supposedly tracing its roots all the way back to King David himself. I was in Israel in the late 70s and they had a reunion of the family and over 200 members showed up.
The singing rabbi had a cousin with the same name and a woman approached the cousin when he was a little boy saying to him "You look like a nice little boy, what's your name?" To which the cousin replied "My name is Shloimee Carlebach." The woman thought the kid was pulling her leg and replied, "Yeah, right! And my name is Elizabeth Taylor"!

The nigun Adir Hu talks about how G-d is a mighty king and how he's going to rebuild his temple, "speedily and soon". Lanzbom did a rendition of it on his "Get Your Shinebox" recording which sounds like a heavy metal version of the song. One of my friends heard the recording and he said "what is this, the Jewish Grateful Dead?" I'm not sure if Shlomo would have approved of this rendition.

A Jewish Explanation of Shlomo Carlebach's "Shadow Side"


According to the Jewish tradition, King David had a very big mission (Heb. "tafkid") and therefore was given a very big "yetzer hara" or "evil inclination". This was to test his mettle and also the yetzer hara is a necessary component of most people as without it people wouldn't be driven to marry or go after a career. The Talmud actually states that the yetzer hara is a very good thing because of that. In his day, King David was called the messiah and again according to the Jewish tradition, the ultimate redeemer was to come from King David's lineage.
King David did a number of things that were definitely not good or normal as in sending someone to the war front in order to take his wife after he'd get killed. So the king had a very big "shadow side" too. And according to the Jewish religion, a person's faults are never hidden or dismissed but are discussed openly.
Similarly Shlomo had a big mission. He supported many people emotionally, spiritually and even financially. He was a very big talent in the Jewish music industry and he was very powerful in Israel. He was very good friends with Ariel Sharon and he came to Israel every time the Arabs attacked the country to sing to the troups and make them fight back. As I mentioned elsewhere I believe that his music and teachings are going to be used to energize Judaism for a long time. Perhaps as long as there are Jews. The number of Shlomo minyanim is growing steadily.
I think what happened was that Shlomo thought he was a doctor of sorts and just as a doctor can do certain things that a regular person can't that he could too. But he wasn't as purified a saint as he thought. While he may have started off on the right foot, sometime later he wound up messing up.
Shlomo wasnt' just anyone: he was a very big Jewish talent from birth. He was an unusually gifted young Talmud scholar, finishing or as they say "being over Shas" around the age of his bar mitzvah. He lived in a "ben bayis" or "son of the house" arrangement so that he could be cared for by the absolute best family available to him. There was a sage called the "Shtadler Gaon" who wanted to take Shlomo under his wing but Shlomo's parents felt he was too young to leave home at that point in time.
It was clear that he was leadership material from his youth up and he even got into Lakewood Yeshiva at the tender age of 15.
This is not to say what he did was right with or to those women, it wasn't but people who are leaders often have very big drives including big sex drives. And this isn't limited to cult leaders. I never saw Shlomo abuse a woman and especially not a child. But so many people came to the forefront of that Lillith magazine article that evidentally he was doing all of this.
Now that he's gone, the establishment doesn't have to put up with his negativity. On one of the videos he put out he said "I'm glad that the establishment doesn't understand what I'm doing because the Talmud says that 'G-d's blessing isn't on something unless its meaning is hidden away from the world'". It seems that he couldn't own up to his abusing people. It also seems that his family and synagogue wouldn't take ownership of these problems.

[www.theawarenesscenter.org]