After a midday service that used to be held once a week at the historic Protestant Fortkerk and in which different spiritual leaders were invited to lead services, he was approached by our then Rabbi Yossi Feintuch, asking him if he might be interested to be a back-up for Snoa’s organist Stanley de Castro, and “the rest is history”.

Erich played the organ while Rabbis Feintuch, Blackman, Zelermeyer, Tayvah, and Hazzanim Swerling, Marx, and Tracht – and not to be forgotten a variety of lay leaders – conducted services and he continues to do so today. His recollections of accompanying each are by and of themselves exciting, and if you meet Erich, do ask him about his long-time experience with music in the Snoa and with each religious leader.

Erich believes that as organist you must have the ability to become part of the atmosphere and religious beliefs for which you provide the musical accompaniment. And when he was first asked to be a backup for and later take over after the death of organist De Castro, Erich says he was ‘illiterate about Judaism.’ In fact, when he was handed the music of the Kol Nidre service just one week before his first High Holy Days, he had never heard of it nor had he ever attended a Yom Kippur service. He did not let that remain so. He has followed correspondence courses in Judaism and reading Hebrew. He has attended Hebrew lessons with our rabbis. And he has been eager to learn about our music especially from Rabbis Tayvah and Hazzanim Swerling and Tracht. He enthusiastically guided and assisted our Congregation to reintroduce the music of the centuries-old organ after its renovation in 2002 and he has loved participating on the organ during Snoa concerts with such musical luminaries as Cantor Alberto Mizrahi, Harold Martina, Tania Kross and others.