What would have been the 50th Jubilee year of Dr. Paul Brody of Great Neck chanting Megillat Esther (the Scroll of Esther), and completing 20 years of Dr. Brody instructing students of the North Shore Hebrew Academy (NSHA) Middle School in Great Neck, in a program he instituted in 2002 – when he observed that no young people knew how to read the Megillah – took a strange “twist” when he, unfortunately, had to undergo complex orthopedic surgery.
Dr. Brody has instructed approximately 400 seventh and eighth-graders, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, who have chanted Megillat Esther in a unique student-led service (see photo) for their schoolmates, faculty and families, on Purim Day, even if Purim landed on a Sunday! COVID-19 stalled the 20th Anniversary of this unique Yeshiva program last year.
Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Kobrin, Head of School, proclaimed that “NSHA will be publicly recognizing Dr. Brody this year for his 20 years of dedication to the school, its students, and teaching them how to expertly read the Megillah.”
Purim is the annual celebration of the salvation of the Jewish People by the Persian Queen Esther, who was Jewish, who beseeched her husband King Achashverosh (Xerxes), at the behest of her uncle Mordechai, to nullify the evil decree of his Prime Minister Haman, who had planned to annihilate all the Jews. The holiday, which this year is celebrated on Wednesday evening, March 16 and Thursday, March 17, is particularly significant on the Great Neck peninsula, which has one of the largest concentrations of Persian Jews in the world.
Fortunately, Dr. Brody‘s “break,” occurred after the “Yeshiva Break” week, on February 1st, and he was able to conduct “probas” (tryouts) for the eligible students – which this year including a high of 36 participants – make the recordings of the individual parts for the Ashkenazic students, and arrange for Rabbi Adam Acobas, Middle School Principal to make the Sephardic recordings. He began listening to, guiding and “fine-tuning” each student in their Megillah portion. Rabbi Acobas and Cantor Yitzy Spinner of the Great Neck Synagogue are completing the task.
The North Shore Hebrew Academy was established in 1954 – by Rabbi Dr. Ephraim R. Wolf, of blessed memory (obm), who was also the Rabbi of the Great Neck Synagogue, and acknowledged to be the force behind establishing Orthodox Judaism on the Great Neck Peninsula – with a current enrollment of over 1000 students from Kindergarten through High School.
The Middle School students at the NSHA have been instructed by Dr. Paul Brody, a resident of Great Neck, in the fine art of cantillation and the meticulous notes and melody of chanting the Megillah.
Brody’s maternal grandfather, Rabbi Jacob Brown, obm, convinced him to read the “gantze [entire] Megillah,” after Brody learned the initial Megillah trope at the Cantorial Training Institute (CTI), – now the Belz School of Jewish Music – of Yeshiva University, from Rabbi Solomon Berl obm.
Dr. Brody and his wife Drora donated the “Megillah Reader” portion of a stained-glass window at the Great Neck Synagogue, where he has chanted the Megillah for the past 25 years, to show “Hakarat HaTov” (Recognition of a good deed) to his “Zayde (Grandfather).”
Dr. Brody wears his grandfather’s century-old tallit (Prayer Shawl) when he chants the Megillah, and so do his Ashkenazic students. (Sephardic students wear their own Prayer Shawls even before they are married). The Megillah Scroll that the students read from has special significance, as it was presented to Dr. Brody and his wife by a renowned holy Rabbi of Migdal Ha’Emek, in the Northern Galilee in Israel, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Grossman, recipient of the prestigious “Israel Prize,” whose organization Migdal Ohr (“Tower of Light”) nurtures many thousands of disadvantaged children. Dr. Brody is one of four Members of Migdal Ohr’s Founders’ Board.
The program was introduced by Brody, a dermatologist by profession, in 2002. He often “davened” (prayed) with the NSHA Middle School students, where his daughters attended and realized that none of the young men had any knowledge of how to chant Megillat Esther. Dr. Brody broached the idea that he would volunteer to instruct the students how to chant the Megillah with Rabbi Dr. Michael Reichel, then principal of the Middle School, and Executive Director Arnie Flatow, who heartily acquiesced, with the approbation of now Dean Emeritus, Rabbi Yeshayahu Greenfeld. It has since become integral in NSHA’s curriculum – and unique among Yeshivot (Jewish Day Schools) – even gracefully conducted when Purim Day falls out on a Sunday. Students are enabled to read the Megillah at various Synagogues, hospitals, nursing homes and private homes, for those unable to attend public readings – especially relevant for this year’s pandemic.
Rabbi Greenfeld reminisced, “It was twenty years ago when Dr. Paul Brody, a most devoted NSHA parent and a devout community member, approached Rabbi Reichel and myself, with an inspiring Purim Megillah Reading project, volunteering to teach our middle school students to read the Megillah at a special minyan (quorum), turning this one of the five Purim mitzvot (commandments) into a very exciting spiritual and learning experience. Due to Dr. Brody’s initiative, students – along with their siblings, parents and grandparents, and even faculty members – have been reporting to the Academy’s Cherry Lane Synagogue for the past two decades to enjoy a meaningful and most inspiring Purim Day.”
Rabbi Reichel, commenting from Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), where he and his family emigrated several years ago, said “Dr. Brody’s concept of instructing Middle School students to chant the Megillah, has allowed NSHA students and their extended families to enjoy a TOTAL Purim experience – not only on Purim night.”
Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Kobrin (previous photo of 2020 Megillah Readers), NSHA Head of School, and Rabbi Adam Acobas (next to him), the Middle School principal – and Rabbis Greenfeld and Reichel, during their tenure – have facilitated the students’ hectic schedules to enable adequate review time with Brody. Rabbi Acobas has made the initial recording for the Sephardic students, who have subsequently reviewed their parts with Dr. Brody, until last year, when he himself did the review.
Rabbi Dr. Kobrin exclaimed, “This wonderful tradition, established at the North Shore Hebrew Academy twenty years ago under Dr. Brody’s expert tutelage, has enabled generations of our students to learn a life skill: they will be able to perform the mitzvah of reading the Megillah for years to come.” “Dr. Brody is a teacher committed to his craft and holds his students to a consistently high standard. That’s a very important lesson, and one our kids don’t quickly forget,” said Rabbi Acobas.
Brody has read the Megillah for almost 50 years. He first chanted it in 1973 at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills (YIKGH), in Queens, under the tutelage of Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld obm, reading it there and at Kehillas Aderes Eliyahu (Synagogue of Rabbi Teitz’s obm) through 1993, when he and his family moved to Great Neck. He has chanted Megillat Esther at the Great Neck Synagogue ever since.
Dr. Irvin Spira, who has a lifetime interest in musical cantillation and Nusach, stated “I extremely enjoy Dr. Brody‘s creative Megillah laining (chanting) because he modulates his voice for the various personages in the Megillah, employs special tunes at dramatic moments, and utilizes several props to keep his listeners’ interest. I try to never miss his unique rendition.”
In 2019 and 2020, Dr. Brody additionally recruited and coordinated a group of his alumni students – reviewing their respective portions with them – to lain at the Great Neck Synagogue (GNS) on Purim night. It was “near-miraculous” that the young men were able to conduct the chanting of the “Gantze Megillah,” last year, just a few days before GNS entered COVID-19 lockdown mode. Several of Dr. Brody’s students have actually lained the whole Megillah by themselves, or shared the reading with one or two other alumni, at various shuls (synagogues), nursing homes or private individuals’ homes. Last year, one of Dr. Brody’s students, Russel Mendelson, Esq., M.B.A. (NSHA ’07), (see photo) lained in a simultaneous service at GNS. His brother Eli (NSHA ’09) read the “Gantze Megillah” there 2 years ago.
Dr. Elie Flatow (‘07), son of NSHA Executive Director Emeritus Arnie Flatow – who was involved when the Megillah Readers Program was launched in 2002 – has read for several years for his fellow medical students and Residents at several Medical Schools and Hospitals. “When I hear about that, I kvell and ‘shep Nachat,’ (‘Burst with pride’) exclaimed Brody.”
Two extraordinary experiences stand out in Dr. Brody’s mind. On Purim day 2011, several of his former students read for him and his family at St. Francis Hospital in Port Washington, LI. “This was the first and only time in the hospital’s long history that it granted a large meeting room for a Megillah reading. All of the room’s religious articles at the Catholic Hospital were covered over,” according to Cardiology Vice Chairman, Dr. Meyer Abittan, Dr. Brody’s cardiologist and close friend, who arranged the room for this special reading the day before Brody underwent successful by-pass surgery.
It was very emotional for Dr. Brody and his family to have several of his former students chant the Megillah for him. In addition to Eli Flatow (photo, center) and the Mendelson brothers (at left), the other 3 students included (at right) brothers Adam (‘08) and Josh Hecht (‘11) and (at center) Bailey Greszes (‘11), whose fathers Joey and Isaac (back row, center), respectively, conceived the idea. Dr. Brody was strong enough to fill in for some of the chapters, and even lained (chanted) the “Gantze Megillah” the night before for several inpatients!
The most exciting, but dangerous, Megillah reading experience of all for Dr. Brody occurred during a three-person mission in 1985 to smuggle in Judaica objects and meet with many Jewish Refuseniks. Brody illegally chanted the Megillah in the majestic Great Synagogue of Leningrad, which was prohibited by the Communist Soviet government. He could have been imprisoned or deported from the country. Dr. Brody was told that several of the “Gabbaim” (Sextons) were actually members of the KGB. ” Better READ than dead!!” he figured.
