Wednesday, July 4, 2012

God Bless America: A Jewish Gift to Our Nation


In 1918 a 30-year-old Russian Jewish immigrant named Israel Isidore Baline wrote a song for a musical show but pulled it before the show opened. It sat on a shelf for twenty years before the songwriter, now named Irving Berlin, decided to revise it. That year it was introduced to the American public by singer Kate Smith on her radio show.

The song, God Bless America, written as a solemn prayer, became an instant hit. The introductory verses, sung by Kate Smith in 1938, are seldom heard today. They are:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

One of Berlin's revisions was to replace the original line "Stand beside her and guide her to the right with a light from above" with "Stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above." The story goes that Berlin was concerned that the original lyrics might be construed as a call to the political right. 

Today the Jewish immigrant's song will probably be heard "from sea to shining sea," to borrow a phrase from America the Beautiful, another American hymn which will be sung together with The Star Spangled Banner" to round out Independence Day tributes to what writer and talk show host Michael Medved calls "the greatest nation on God's green earth."

In the video below, we show Kate Smith introducing "God Bless America" on her 1938 radio show.  Enjoy!

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)

18 comments:

  1. Can this be posted on Facebook for more people to see?

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    1. It's on my Facebook page. All of my posts go immediately to Facebook and Twitter. http://www.facebook.com/al.kustanowitz/posts/3861438930639

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    2. thanks for this link i m gonna share it on my fb wall .

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  2. I agree with you Laura T Strauss.

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  3. The perfect post for July 4th. Loved it and esp. the story about the lyrics.

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  4. This song is enormously great!!! So many American Jews did so many and very important things for America!!! What a shame that THIS presidency in so many ways, if not in precise words, became THE traitor of Israel!!!

    Adela

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  5. How can I add an avatar here? Thanks.

    Adela

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Thgis was so very nostalgic bringing back memories from my childhood. We heard and sang this song so often during my school fears, 1939-1951. I especially remember the principal of our school teaching us to sing "Gaht benchet America", i.e. in Yiddish.

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  8. Please correct my spelling in the last comment. I meant school years, not school fears.

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  9. The light of a Jew shines and impacts the world in the most amazing and diverse ways - and Yes May God Bless America, Israel and all of Humanity!!

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  10. I don't know if this is true or not, but I read somewhere that Irving Berlin composed all of his songs in the pentatonic scale (the black notes of the piano) so that the melodies would resolve neatly, then transposed them to more reasonable keys.

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    1. We have heard this before. Possibly because he couldn't read music.

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  11. The GOOSE BUMPS come... even after all these years. Just a wonderful clip.

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  12. Who were the actors in the clip?

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    1. The clip was from the 1942 movie "This is the Army" with a cast including Ronald Reagan, George Murphy, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Alan Hale, Charles Butterworth, Dolores Costello, Una Merkel, Stanley Ridges, Rosemary De Camp, Ruth Donnelly, Irving Berlin.

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    2. thanks for all this information . its nice to know about the whole star cast of this movie .

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