Zemiros Shabbos with Reb Berish Vishever - Sampler

With great סייעתא דשמיא we are finally releasing this precious project that we began over 10 years ago.

The album is part of a new series called “Yossi Green Vistory.”

"Vistory," stands for “Vintage Music History” and marks the beginning of a new endeavor on our part to produce, present and thereby preserve some of the most precious and beautiful songs of the previous generations, so that they be readily available for our generation, as well as for future generations to come, IY”H. The songs on this project were composed by Reb Berish Horowitz הי"ד known to all as Reb Berish Vishever and consists of 9 songs “Composed by a Tzaddik for Tzaddikim,” a Yid from the previous generation and one whose life and the lives of most of his family were brutally wiped out by the Nazis Y”S, in 1944!

We have BH succeeded in involving a host of musical professionals in the Vistory project. Each song was carefully matched up to an individual arranger as well as a great singer that would best be able to communicate the essence of the song. The general choir vocals on the songs are done by the Vishever Voices (Yossi, Shhhhhh) paired masterfully with a stunning string section that we call the Vishever Violins.

Reb Berish Vishever was so known on account of his having been the שוחט in the region known as Oiber-Vishova in what was then Hungary. R’ Berish was one of the most well-known composers of Chassidic music in Eastern Europe before World War II. There are many stories and legends told about him. One of these is that R’ Berish, (some say that he could have been a Rebbe in his own right) after meeting and getting to know a Rebbe for the first time, would sense and understand the unique nuances of his דרך and עבודה which enabled him to then compose a song representing and reflecting this individuality. He would then have it written up (obviously, there were no recording devices at the time) and sent to the individual Rebbe. It is further related that R’ Berish would develop a very close connection and relationship with these Tzaddikim who would then ask him to compose songs for specific times and occasions throughout the years.

The הייליגער סאטמער רבי - דברי יואל, as well as the ווישניצער רבי - אהבת ישראל, are just two of the great Rebbes who Reb Berish had an extremely close relationship with. These songs would go on to become those that the Chassidim, and eventually the rest of the Chassidic world, would learn and sing everywhere.

It was the music and songs of this “Zeidy Berish,” which I heard at my father’s Shabbos table and in the Shuls I attended as a young impressionable child, that created within me the drive and stimulation that would later inspire me to begin to compose my own music.

Tragically, in 1944 at Auschwitz toward the end of World War II, R’ Dov Berish Halevi Horowitz perished together with almost all of his children as well as most of the Ainiklach R"L as well as most of the other Yidden in his city, Oiber-Vishova HY"D

Yossi Green: Zemiros Shabbos with Reb Berish Vishever is in stores now and distributed by Nigun Music.

It is also available for streaming and digital download.