An upcoming pre-Passover Seder at the Gershman Y will feature an acclaimed Yiddish gospel singer whose background is as fascinating as the music he sings.
Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell is a black, gay and Jewish-by-choice former opera singer from Oakland, Calif.
During the March 15 Seder, Russell will lead an important part of the dinner called the Four Questions. He will also help chronicle the narrative of the exile of the Israelites from Egypt by singing in traditional Yiddish.
The event will mark the first time Russell has visited Philadelphia, as well as his first time cohosting a Seder.
“The narrative that the Seder creates through the story of the Israelites is very close to my African-American heart,” Russell said. “I get to embody both sides.”
Russell is no stranger to performing for crowds: He has graced the stages of New York’s Symphony Space, The Ideacity Conference in Toronto and the Montreal and Berkley Jewish Music festivals.
Russell, 35, grew up in a very religious Christian family in Vallejo, Calif., and was enthralled by stories in the Bible, especially from the Old Testament, at an early age.
“I was a very religiously minded child,” said Russell. “I read the Bible avidly. I was in love with the narratives, the conflict and the drama of it.”
After his parents went through a divorce, it became hard for Russell to take certain parts of the scripture seriously, he said.
“It became obvious that principles like ‘marriages were made in heaven’ were not the case,” he said. “The divorce played out in front of me. I stopped going to church.”
But he never stopped believing in God.
“I felt that all of my religious teachings had betrayed me,” Russell said.
Then maturity and adulthood came and made that even more of a reality for him, Russell said. Still, the passion for telling stories persisted, and he made his way to opera.
“I don’t think it was strange that I became an opera singer,” said Russell. “The narratives work on a similar scale to those I loved in the Old Testament.”
Russell turned back to religion when, as fate would have it, he began dating a rabbi.
“I had been in contact with a man named Michael Rauthbaum who lived in New York, before I ended up landing a role in a Mozart opera there,” said Russell. “I texted him the minute I landed it and we ended up going to a Mets game.”
The two fell in love that summer. When the relationship became serious, Russell said Rauthbaum expressed how important his faith was to him and asked if Russell was interested in converting to Judaism.
“I said yes,” Russell said. “I knew that, in some way, connecting with Judaism would allow me to connect with a part of myself that I had put away.”
(Side note: The couple is tying the knot this summer after seven years together.)
As Russell’s interest in his newfound faith flourished, he began to realize the constraints opera had on him as an artist.
“I had a couple defining, bad experiences in opera. I am a bass singer, the lowest part of the vocal range. Bassists play these very cardboard roles. I would constantly get pushed down and told I was singing too emotively for the part. I wanted to emote, to tell a story through my voice.”
Eventually he discovered the music of Sidor Belarsky, a Ukrainian-American Yiddish singer in the early 1900s. Belarsky was also a bass opera singer before switching to Yiddish.
Russell selected 10 songs from a songbook by Belarsky and, in 2012, performed in Yiddish for the first time at a synagogue in upstate New York before 1,500 people.
“I’ve been singing in Yiddish ever since,” Russell said. “I finally found the vehicle for telling stories that I was looking for.”
Russell said he knew from the crowd’s emotional reaction to his first performance that this was the right medium for him.
He now performs all over the country and Canada and just joined a newly formed Yiddish quartet called Julias, another member of which is gay.
“There’s something about Yiddish that attracts queerness,” said Russell. “It is a very welcoming space. There are amazing queer and queer-positive people in the Yiddish world.”
Russell said he has never encountered any kind of negativity from the Jewish community because of his sexuality or race.
“The conservative sect is extremely welcoming and LGBT-friendly,” he said.
As a kid, Russell never doubted his sexuality, despite his religious upbringing.
“I’ve always known who I was. God made me this way,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate to never have a conflict between my spirituality and sexuality.”
Russell said he came to Judaism as he was, and has been creating and establishing his unique identity as a proud African -American, gay and Jewish person with much support from the community.
For more information on the Seder at the Gershman Y, visit www.gershmany.org. To learn more about Russell and his music, visit www.anthonyrussellbass.com.