Change Agents of the Liberal Cantorate: In Celebration of the DFSSM’s 75th Anniversary: A.W. Binder

A.W. Binder

(1895-1966)

Of the seven so-called change agents about whom I have chosen to write, A.W. Binder is the only one I did not know personally. Binder had died in October of 1966, yet his memory was very much alive when I entered HUC less than a year after his passing. The faculty spoke about “Abe” with affection and admiration, and the student body spoke of “Dr. Binder” with reverence and  respect, and everyone identified a real void in the world of Jewish music that could not easily be filled. 

Abraham Wolf Binder was born at the conclusion of the 19th century on the Lower East Side, the son of  a baal tefillah who had been and a cantor in Galicia. Young Abe began to sing in his father’s High Holy Day choir at the tender age of four. When he turned seven, he joined Cantor Abraham Frachtenberg’s choir as alto soloist until his voice changed at the age of fourteen. Frachtenberg had been a meshorer with the renowned cantor, Yeruchom Hakoton in Berditchev and Binder was deeply influenced by Frachtenberg’s chazzanut and choral compositions. 

Jewish music was part of Binder’s DNA and, as a teenager, in addition to singing in local synagogue choirs, he managed to secure positions as an organist and choir director in various synagogues in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx.

In 1916, at the age of 21, he became director of a choral society for the newly formed Hadassah organization where he introduced Zionist songs with his own modern harmonizations. In 1917, he founded the music department at the 92nd Street Y and became Religious School music director at Temple Emanu-El of the City of New York. 

In many ways, Binder was a precocious young musician, but he really came into his own and began his zealous path as a change agent when, in 1921,  Rabbi Stephen S. Wise invited him to serve on the faculty of the newly established Jewish Institute of Religion and, a year later, to serve as his choirmaster at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. Wise had met Binder at a concert at the 92nd Street Y and was taken not only with Binder’s musical prowess but also his passion for Zionism.

Binder was appointed full Professor of Jewish Liturgical Music at the JIR in 1937 and held that position until his passing in 1966. What is particularly interesting is that Binder’s class on cantillation, was required of all JIR rabbinic students. It is important to note that the reform movement had basically abandoned the chanting of Torah and Haftarah until Binder began to teach and advocate for its understanding and usage in the synagogue. 

The CCAR chose Binder to serve as musical editor of the  third edition of the Union Hymnal (published in 1932). The first edition of the Hymnal, published in 1897, was edited by Cantors Alois Kaiser and William Sparger (who were, incidentally, uncredited).  The music selected for the first edition, despite Kaiser’s disapproval, were, as Neil Levin observed, drawn “largely (from) second-rate hymns, mostly in English, and many adaptations from non-Jewish sources such as opera, classical lieder and oratorio, and Western folksong. It contained very little in the way of tradition.”

The second edition of the Hymnal, published in 1914, reflected the CCAR ‘s mandate for a greater representation of Jewish literary and musical sources, but there were still only a few melodies by or attributed to Jewish liturgical composers.

Binder, however, carefully rethought the entire purpose and aesthetic of the Hymnal and thoroughly revised it to include many established misinai tunes and melodies by Sulzer, Lewandowski, Naumbourg, and Gerowitch, as well as by contemporary composers including Schalit, Weinberg, Achron, Beimel and Ephros. As Levin points out, “The Union Hymnal thus constituted a watershed event in the musical development of the Reform movement, giving it (or restoring) its musical roots; and it also had a ripple effect among American Jewry in general.”

Binder was among the first, if not the first composer for the American liberal synagogue to consistently embrace and infuse nusach into his liturgical compositions as clearly seen in the publication of his first complete sabbath evening service Hibbath Shabbath (1928) and his subsequent liturgical services for Shabbat, the Festivals, and the High Holy Days. Binder’s vast canon of music was donated to, archived by, and available as part of the HUC-JIR library holdings.

He was one of the founders of the influential Jewish Music Forum and the Society for the Advancement of Jewish Liturgical Music. It was there, as early as 1940, that discussion began among its members about establishing a school for cantorial study on a formal academic basis, similar to the rabbinic seminaries. 

In Binder’s own words: 

With a few notable exceptions, the cantorate in America had descended to very low standards. Congregations engaged cantors for their voices, not for the knowledge of their profession, their scholarship or piety…. There had been a great deal of talk about (a school for training cantors) for a half-century but nothing concrete had been done. So, the Society for the Advancement of Jewish Liturgical Music was organized and through its members, headed by Dr. Eric Werner and the writer, convinced the authorities of the Hebrew Union College to start the School of Sacred Music.

Today,  sadly, A.W. Binder may very well be remembered primarily for his settings of the Shabbat and Chanukah candle blessings (Kabbalath Shabbath, published 1940), yet his contributions to the liberal synagogue and to the cantorate go so much farther and deeper. It was he, who, in so many ways, was responsible for a revitalization and a renaissance of Jewish music.

His farsighted words still resonate with us: 

I consider my most important contribution to synagogue music to be my association with the return to nusach ha-tefillah…and my efforts to purify it and perpetuate it. I have endeavored to use it skillfully and tastefully in all the services, not only for what it has meant to our (forebears), and to the religious services of the ages past, but also significantly, for what it can do for the synagogue services of today and into the future.

I suspect Binder would want each of us to embrace the sacred liturgical music heritage entrusted to us and, following in his footsteps, strive to revitalize tradition and re-shape it to be relevant, innovative, and authentic as today we imagine and embark upon the next renaissance of Jewish music. I wonder who will be the next change agent and catalyst to follow Binder’s inspiring example?