Reverberations of the Reform Jewish Service in Synagogue Music of Northern Croatia from the 1880s to the 1950s

The Jewish Reform Movement which developed under the influence of Haskalah and European Enlightenment thought brought about major changes in the synagogue service and the accompanying music performance. Instruments, choir and organ were reintroduced into the service. In the latter part of the 19th century in the territory of northern Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, synagogues accommodating the reform Jewish service were built (neological direction). Each of them had an organ and a choir which participated in the service together with the cantor (hazzan). Croatian composer and violinist Antun Schwarz (1823-1891) studied cantorial singing at the school of Salomon Sulzer (1804-1890) in Vienna. Following his return to his native Zagreb he brought the spirit of reform Judaism to the Zagreb Jewish community and to Croatian culture of the day. In Croatia, some collections of synagogue music have been preserved, such as the collections of cantors Joseph Weissman (1872-1941), Isak Hendel (1883-1944), Bernard Grüner (1888-1955) and David Meisel (1885-1941). Those collections testify to the existence of reformed service music in Croatian synagogues before the beginning of the World War II, which is when most of the cantors, synagogues and music sheets disappeared in the Holocaust.