Shlock Rock hits Mobile!

Lenny Solomon of the Jewish music group Shlock Rock stepped off a plane in Mobile, Ala., on Monday to perform in the city for the first time. In 1987, he released the song “Minyan Man,” which is set in the city.

“Of all the things left for Shlock Rock to do, this was one of them,” said Solomon, who lives in Israel. “I had played Birmingham, I had played Montgomery, but I had never played Mobile.”

The song, which found a cult following at Jewish summer camps in the 1990s, is told from the perspective of a Jew, who “stepped off the bus in Mobile, Ala.” when “Shabbos was an hour away.”

The man wanders the town and finds a fellow Jew, who invites him to be the 10th man in a minyan.

Solomon told JNS that when he arrived in Mobile, he started crying, thinking of the song’s lyric, “When I make this trip through Mobile once every year, I remember the men who prayed here.”

Robin Meyerson, founder and director of the Shabbat Project Arizona and the Meis Mitzvah Project, which works to ensure Jews opt for burials instead of cremation, invited him.

Meyerson, who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., told JNS that she was searching for her uncle, Donald, 90, because he “went off the grid, and the family lost touch with him.”

The family located him in a Jewish-owned nursing home in Mobile. “I told my kids where I found him, and my daughter-in-law started singing ‘Minyan Man’,” she said.

“What are you singing?” Meyerson asked. Her daughter-in-law told her, “Well, we always used to sing this song in camp every Friday before Shabbat would come in.”

Meyerson was inspired to invite Solomon to play for the residents of the nursing home. “His music touches the soul,” she said.

On Monday, Solomon played for nearly two hours.

“My uncle remembered all of the Jewish songs from when he was a little boy,” Meyerson said. “It all came back to him.”

She brought her uncle a kiddush cup and a tallit.

Meyerson told JNS that after she located her uncle, she contacted a local Chabad rabbi, who began visiting him, bringing him challah and helping him put on tefillin.

“One mitzvah ripples,” she told JNS. “I was trying to find my uncle, and now he’s reconnected with his family. He’s putting on tefillin. He’s saying prayers.”

FROM ‘MINYAN MAN’

I asked the man I saw, “How many Jews in this town?” He said to me, “There used to be a minyan around. But one of us passed away and we’ve been feeling down. Yet now it seems as though another Jew has been found. Won’t you stay with us for Shabbos, minyan man?”

I stepped off the bus in Mobile, Alabama

The sun was slowly setting on the bay

It was 6 o’clock on a summer Friday afternoon,

Shabbos was an hour away.

I walked around the town wondering what to do

’Cause Shabbos is no time to be feeling blue 

Then I saw a man who looked the same way too

I was quite relieved to find a fellow Jew.

I asked the man I saw, “How many Jews in this town?” He said to me, “There used to be a minyan around. But one of us passed away and we’ve been feeling down. Yet now it seems as though another Jew has been found. Won’t you stay with us for Shabbos, minyan man?”

We walked down Winston Avenue, a block then two more

And went into a shop that read ‘Closed’ on the door. There was a minyan in the back of a hardware store, Nine men waiting for one more.

We ushered in the Shabbos with a beautiful song. The Chazan had a voice that was clear and strong. We sang out as one all Shabbos long

Then Maariv came again; I had to be moving on.

I asked the man I saw, “How many Jews in this town?” He said to me, “There used to be a minyan around. But one of us passed away and we’ve been feeling down. Yet now it seems as though another Jew has been found. Won’t you stay with us for Shabbos, minyan man?”

Now that was 20 years ago, but the vision is clear

And I think about it now and then

’cuz the place is still dear

And when I make this trip through Mobile once every year

I remember the men who prayed here.

Now the Minyan is gone, a few died, some moved on

But the back of the store still remembers this song.

The nine men who waited, till one came along …

How Shabbos was carried on a song.

I asked the man I saw, “How many Jews in this town?” He said to me, “There used to be a minyan around. But one of us passed away and we’ve been feeling down. Yet now it seems as though another Jew has been found. Won’t you stay with us for Shabbos, minyan man?”