WHO WILL LIVE? WHO WILL DIE?

In 1999, Rabbi Dunner invited thousands of single and married young professionals to join him for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur at the legendary Saatchi Synagogue, which he had launched the year before to cater for disaffiliated Jewish Gen-X’ers based in London.

As part of the campaign to attract this notoriously difficult demographic, Rabbi Dunner sent out a recording of some of the tunes that he would be singing as part of the services over Yamim Noraim. Included among them was this haunting melody, taken from the Unetaneh Tokef prayer that Ashkenazim recite during the Mussaf repetition.

That year, and for many years after in London, Rabbi Dunner led prayers at Saatch and in other communities, using this same melody and many others, to inspire the community on these very special days.