The story of Leonard Cohen’s great masterpiece, Hallelujah, now told in a children’s book

By Irena Karshenbaum, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(AJNews) – Over a chance conversation last July about my upcoming trip to Montreal, I was advised that I “must” visit the city’s Shaar Hashomayim synagogue for Shabbat services to hear the congregations’s amazing cantor. Some days later, I found myself in that very synagogue on Shabbat, in an airy and bright chapel that seemed to sparkle in clouds of gold where I was told that their talented cantor was away, but this was the synagogue of Leonard Cohen.

The singer, songwriter, poet and novelist was not at Shabbat services that morning either, having passed away almost a decade earlier, but his spirit lingered not only over the country’s oldest Ashkenazi synagogue, founded in 1846, but over the city as well.

I needed no further evidence of the profound mark Leonard Cohen left on Montreal when I was walking along Crescent Street where I looked up and was greeted by the mural of the artist presiding over the city like an emperor. With his hand resting on his heart and casting his serene Mona-Lisa-like smile, Leonard Cohen was gazing at me. It was the mastery of the mural, painted perfectly, like that other masterpiece in the Louvre, that had the effect as if Cohen himself was watching over all the pedestrians, even me, hurrying along Montreal’s busy streets.

The mural was a grand tribute to a man who did much to enrich Montreal’s cultural landscape with such novels as, Beautiful Losers, and songs like, Suzanne and Closing Time. But it is Cohen’s song, Hallelujah, which took him ten years to write, that today is considered iconic.

Hallelujah burns with passion from the heat of a consuming love between David and his beloved, and explores themes of desire, love, and religious faith. The repetition of the single ancient word, Hallelujah, that is used in both Jewish and Christian prayer, sung like a guttural cry  to God has the power to crack open the heart of any listener with its metaphorical battle axe.

With these mature themes, the song is an unconventional work to inspire an illustrated children’s book, especially one for readers so young. And yet, it is a work that first-time children’s book author, Alicia Jo Rabins, weaves skillfully given her other calling, as a poet, which guides her poetic prose.

Hallelujah! The Story of Leonard Cohen, written for ages 5 to 8, tells the story of Cohen growing up in Montreal. The pages pull the reader through the boy’s childhood that is a medley of music. He listens to his mother sing folk songs in Yiddish and Russian and his grandfather sing in the Byzantine-Revival-style sanctuary of their synagogue, the Shaar Hashomaiym congregation. One day, the young Leonard meets a man who plays the Spanish guitar and asks the musician to teach him to play. Plucking the guitar strings, Rabins writes, “Sounded dark, like a rainy day with thunder… and sweet as a bowl of mint chip ice cream. A rainbow of music flow out of his guitar.”

Leonard writes songs until he has enough to perform a concert. His performances grow in number and his music, “Opened people’s hearts.”

But there is one song, as the story continues, that is dwelling inside of the young man that only he feels he can write. Draft upon draft, years pass and finally the words pour out onto the page that feel right to the songwriter. Completing his masterpiece, Cohen’s struggle does not end there, as his record company does not recognize the song’s brilliance and refuse to produce it. The young musician has only one option. He can share this piece with his audiences, at his live concerts.

Hallelujah was eventually released in 1984 through Cohen’s studio album, Various Positions, and was overlooked until a cover version was released by Jeff Buckley, in 1994. That cover then inspired hundreds of covers by various artists and in numerous languages including Hebrew, Japanese and even, Arabic.

Hallelujah! The Story of Leonard Cohen is a story of perseverance, professional as well as personal. The book presents many mature themes written in a language a child can understand, and leaves the adult reader to ponder these same themes again for themselves through the raw power of the deceptively simple story.

The book was illustrated by Gene Pendon who, in 2013, proposed an idea to the City of Montreal to create a mural to honour Leonard Cohen’s vast contributions to the city. Pendon’s hope was to complete the project in time for Cohen’s 80th birthday in 2014. The 21-storey mural, based on a photograph his daughter, Lorca, took of the artist in 2008 while he was on a tour in Europe, was painted by Pendon and fourteen other artists. It was unveiled in 2017, a year after Cohen’s passing. The mural, looking over Crescent Street where Cohen is believed to have spent much of his time, has become a Montreal landmark, and appears, naturally, in Hallelujah! The Story of Leonard Cohen.

Published in 2025 by Apples & Honey Press, an imprint of Behrman House, which is a regular supplier of books to the PJ Library program that mails free Jewish-themed books to children, Hallelujah! The Story of Leonard Cohen is not available, yet, through the program. This writer sincerely hopes this moving book will soon arrive in mail boxes of PJ Library subscribers.  

Irena Karshenbaum writes in Calgary. She can be reached at irenakarshenbaum.com