Change Agents of the Liberal Cantorate: In Celebration of the DFSSM’s 75th Anniversary: Introduction

History wasn’t my favorite subject at HUC nor that of most of my fellow students. We’d sooner attempt to sing a ringing high C or work out the intricacies of a complicated melisma in a recitative than discuss the origins of the cantorate. We were all about change but without much of an understanding of what brought our profession to where and why it was within the larger framework of the Jewish world.

 We were blessed with an outstanding faculty when I was a student in the late sixties and early seventies. Unbeknownst to us, several had played a significant role in fulfilling the age-old dream of establishing a formal academic program devoted to the training of cantors and the flourishing of Jewish music. I fear we did not appreciate how fortunate we were to have studied with these luminaries nor did we have a deep enough appreciation of the evolution and growth of the liberal cantorate. I lament that shortsightedness and have devoted much of my cantorate to making sure that my students and colleagues remember the teaching of Akavya ben Mahalalel – “know from where you came, to where you go, and before Whom you are destined to give an account and reckoning.” Quite simply, understanding history is the first step to making sense of the present and giving you direction and purpose to meet the future. And so it is with the cantorate.

 Much has been written about the origins and growth of the liberal American cantorate beginning with the earliest recorded hazzanim who appeared in the 17th century and continuing through this century. Arguably, many notable individuals have played a significant role in shaping the arc and navigating the peaks and valleys of the unfolding of our sacred calling.

However, it was the seminal event of the establishment of this country’s first formal academic institution for the training of cantors that dramatically changed the landscape of the profession. In 1948, at the urging of Dr. Eric Werner, the Board of Governors of HUC-JIR voted to establish a School of Sacred Music, fulfilling a dream that began with a proposal by Salomon Sulzer at the so-called first Leipzig Israelite Synod in 1869

 Happily, this year, we mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of HUC-JIR’s Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. So many outstanding individuals have made major contributions to the cantorate over these past 75 years. They all deserve recognition and our gratitude.

 Over the next several months, I will be sharing biographical sketches and personal recollections of seven individuals who served on our faculty and who, in their own way, have been change agents for the cantorate and altered the landscape of the liberal American cantorate.

 Admittedly, my choices are subjective and meant to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. For the purposes of these articles, I have consciously focused only on those individuals who are deceased and those with whom I have had a direct or indirect relationship. I will share some biographical information and my personal recollections to illustrate how the cantorate today is in a better place because of them. While acknowledging that there were many other cantorial giants who opened our eyes to the riches of nusach ha-tefillah, chazzanut, and traditional liturgy, for the scope of these biographical sketches I have focused on those individuals who have had a direct impact primarily on the reform cantorate.

 Not all the individuals I have selected were cantors, but each one moved the dial, advancing the cantorate spiritually, musically, artistically, academically, and professionally, restoring the cantorate to the stature it had once achieved, so that the old canards about cantors and the cantorate fell by the wayside and things we had dreamed about become realities - most especially, the universal acknowledgment of cantors as clergy, ordination, the awarding of master’s degrees, the first-year in Israel program open to cantors, the awarding of honorary doctorates to alumni, and the ongoing efforts to  promote salutary relationships between rabbis and cantors.

I look forward to introducing you to and sharing the invaluable contributions of Eric Werner, Walter Davidson, Gershon Ephros, A.W. Binder, William Sharlin, Arthur Wolfson, and Debbie Friedman. I hope, through these biographical sketches and personal recollections, you too will get to know and appreciate these cantorial pioneers and see just how each has played a pivotal role in the shaping of the liberal