A Historical Look at Jewish Women Sacred Singers

I

n celebration of fifty years since the first institutional investiture of a woman as a cantor, we take note of a long history and tradition of women singers of sacred Jewish music. Prior to Barbara Ostfeld’s graduation from HUC-JIR (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion) in June 1975, many women had served congregations in the United States both formally and informally as sacred singers, cantorial soloists and cantors. However, as with much Ashkenazi history, the true story of Jewish women in synagogue music is complicated. Current narratives developed by some scholars maintain that women’s participation in sacred music is only a recent development attributed to American social and liberation movements. Missing from this narrative is the evidence that Jewish women have, as Judah M. Cohen states it, “actually served in musical leadership roles continuously, if marginally, despite their erasure from Jewish music scholarship.” Jewish women have a long history singing, leading, and teaching sacred Jewish music. The roles women perform today as cantors and singers of sacred music often have direct antecedents in the past.

Part I: Jewish Women as Sacred Singers Before 1975

Roles of Women as Prayer Leaders

The vocal leadership of Jewish women in synagogue practice dates back at least to the 12th century, despite the proscriptions of kol isha (lit. voice of a woman) that prohibited men listening to the voice of a woman during prayer. These roles for women in vocal leadership are often considered a result of gendered worship spaces in European synagogues. In various locales around Western and Central Europe there were separate rooms or attached buildings (called di vayber shul or di vaybershe shul) where women held their own services. The architectural separations may have come later or were added to Eastern European synagogues built earlier in the medieval period. Overall, within the main synagogue buildings were spaces—either in galleries, slightly separate rooms or separated by partitions—that made it difficult for women to follow or hear the service. Some scholars theorize that the architectural addition of balconies, such as in the Spanish-Portuguese Esnoga in Amsterdam in the 17th century was to enable women to better hear and see the main service. However, poor acoustics predominated for centuries, giving rise to women who led the liturgy aloud, and occasionally translated it into Yiddish to facilitate better understanding. Women who were sufficiently educated could lead the women’s sections during prayer, reciting aloud the liturgy along with the male cantor or ba’al t'fillah so it could be more easily heard in the women’s section or gallery. Some of these women were employed by their congregations. Early on these women probably recited by heart or by following the men. With the advent of printing, a copy of the prayerbook may have provided access to the liturgical texts. A woman who fulfilled this role in the women’s section was known as a zogerin (also called firzogerin, zogerke, or sagerin).

These unheralded women committed to synagogue attendance and led other women in their separate spaces over hundreds of years in the lands of Ashkenaz, with at least one scholar finding the practices of the firzogerin reaches back a thousand years. These women’s commitment to attendance contrasted with common practice in many locales, since it was the norm that women did not regularly attend worship services but came only for holidays or were excused from time-regulated mitzvot for family duties. Additionally, since Hebrew education for girls did not become common until the era of the Haskalah, women who knew Hebrew were often daughters or wives of rabbis or other learned men. Some firzogerin used the vernacular, Yiddish, to help women understand the prayers. Unfortunately, only a few of their names are known. Rivke Tiktiner, who lived in the early 16th century, was well known and wrote a hymn—Simkhes toyre lid—that was sung frequently. One of the most famous was a 17th-century zogerin named Sarah Bas Tovim.

The gravestone of one woman, Urania of Worms, a cantor’s daughter who lived in the 13th century, states that she “chanted piyyutim and supplications for the women.” Scholars conclude she acted, in fact, as a female cantor. Local accounts alternately describe the recitations of a zogerin as using a sing-song voice, or often, a stylized weeping or ritualized speech pattern, to create emotional reactions. These types of comments and descriptions raise the question whether the role of a zogerin may have had parallels to women who acted as professional mourners and whose recitations were described with similar characteristics.

While the role of zogerin was widely known and written about in scholarly literature, it was generally not equated with the advanced musical styles of hazzanut that developed in Europe and were practiced by men. The role of zogerin was still widely practiced until the late nineteenth and early 20th century when it declined. Potential reasons for its decline include the advent of mixed seating in Reform congregations, migration to America, and the increasing professionalization of the cantorate.

Nineteenth-Century America

Nevertheless, the ancient role of the zogerin was brought to the United States. Nineteenth century Jewish newspaper accounts describe a “Chazanta” in the South Bronx in New York in 1896. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906 noted that the custom was still followed in Eastern European congregations in the United States. Women singing sacred and paraliturgical music was captured in a stylized way in the late 19th century by dramatic productions for the Yiddish theater. Jewish women leading liturgy-based prayer and spiritual songs were presented on the Yiddish stage. Nineteenth century American Jewish audiences were not shocked by these portrayals because they were already familiar with the role of zogerin, as well as hearing them in many synagogues.

As the Yiddish American theater developed, these musical roles rose to new heights by having extraordinary singers performing solo roles of religious hymns and liturgical chants, and by the creation of new music of spiritual significance. For example, Sophie Karp (née Sara Segal, 1861–1906) introduced a Yiddish ballad written especially for her by Peretz Sandler in the production Brokhoh, entitled Eli, Eli (My God, My God), with text material derived from Psalm 22 and other Jewish prayers. The song became a favorite solo of many other female performers of that day, including the renowned actor Bertha Kalich (1874-1939) and opera singers Sophie Braslau (1892-1935) and Rosa-Raisa (1893-1963). 

In the 19th century, American Jewish men and women participated in large choral events and were often part of Jewish and secular choral societies. Hence, Jewish women singing outside the synagogue in community events, such as dedications of a synagogue or in large American music festivals was widely accepted. In these events, members of both Reform and traditional congregations often sang together, so that as early as the 19th century, it was only within worship in traditional synagogues that the separation of the sexes was maintained.

In American synagogues, adaptations to American life were occurring rapidly. In the late 19th century, an internationally famous opera singer, Julie Eichberg Rosewald (1847-1906), was called upon to lead services at the Reform Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco. While not the first female soloist at a Reform synagogue, she was the first woman known to have an official cantorial role, serving for nine years (1884–1893) as “Cantor Soprano” in that congregation. Rosewald sang the solo parts normally reserved for a cantor, chose the music and brought in new selections, directed the choir, collaborated with the organist, and directed the music of the synagogue. As such, she fulfilled many of the roles of a modern cantor.

Julie Rosewald (left) and Josephine Jacoby (right)

While Rosewald’s function was often seen as unique, a comparable role was also filled just a few years later by Josephine Jacoby (1875-1948). A contralto born in Brooklyn and musically trained in New York, Jacoby was an opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera. Jacoby served as a vocal soloist for Temple Emanu-El in New York. She was called upon as a soloist and choral singer not only to sing in religious services, but to represent Temple Emanu-El at numerous interfaith concerts, at special occasions, and at major events, yet another important aspect of the growing role of the cantor in America. One especially important event where Jacoby represented the congregation was when she sang at the funeral of Isaac Mayer Wise in 1900.

Frederick Kitziger’s, Oh, What is Man, an adaption of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, was sung by Jacoby at Wise’s funeral. This modern rendition was recorded for the Milken Archive in 1991. 

Cantorial Music as Entertainment in Early 20th Century

In the first decades of the 20th century, the rise of recordings and radio allowed for both the preservation and wide dissemination of female voices. Jewish women singers turned their talents toward liturgical music in many performance venues, were often recorded, and were heard on radio. These women came to be called the “khazntes,” or women who straightforwardly sang cantorial music outside of the synagogue. The term ‘khaznte’ in Yiddish had meant a cantor’s wife, but they changed the meaning, implying instead, a woman cantor. Most of these khazntes came from cantorial or Yiddish theater families, or were otherwise steeped in Jewish culture and hazzanut.

While not allowed to lead services in traditional synagogues due to kol isha restrictions, they nevertheless used their voices and progressive attitudes to sing liturgical music, often donning cantorial robes and even mitres in concerts. These women sang in the Ashkenazi cantorial tradition in imitation of the men, and were decidedly not involved with changing the nature, style or content of the music itself. The pieces they sang came directly from Eastern European Ashkenazi synagogue worship.

Khazntes usually sang in the lower vocal registers, in the chest, imitating the prevailing style of male cantors. Among the most famous of these women, were Lady Cantor Madam Sophie Kurtzer (1896-1974), Bernice Kanefsky Hausman (known as Bas Sheva, 1925-1960), Jean Gornish (known as Shaindele di Khaznte, 1915-1981), Perele Feig (known as the Hungarian Khaznte, 1910-1987), Goldie Malavsky (1923-1995), and Fraydele Oysher (1913-2003). Bas Sheva even sang cantorial music on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Bas Sheva singing Habet, from the 1953 recording, “Soul of a People” on Capitol Records.

In what became known as the “golden age of hazzanut,” cantorial concerts drew large crowds and recordings sold well. There developed ‘gray lines’ between sacred and secular Jewish music to some extent. The renditions of the khazntes were considered entertainment, often with lush accompaniments and arrangements. Yet some of the khazntes crossed boundaries into sacred spaces, singing with male cantors for High Holidays, Passover and other holidays at hotel services, for example. These blurred lines continued when some khazntes sang for congregations.

Each of these women contributed in numerous and significant ways to the changing aesthetics and perceptions in the Jewish community of women singing sacred Jewish music. Recordings of many of the khazntes are still widely available. While the phenomenon of the khazntes is generally considered to be confined the first half of the 20th century, some women’s careers extended into the 1990s.

Bernice Kanefsky Hausman (known as Bas Sheva, 1925-1960) in the Catskills.

Setting Precedent: Congregational Recognition

Congregations preceded cantorial institutions in recognizing women as sacred singers. Many congregations hired women to be their cantors before any women were officially recognized as cantors by the Reform or Conservative movements. The impetus toward the acceptance of women in leadership roles came initially from the people rather than the academic or institutional leadership of Jewish life.

One woman whose career morphed from one akin to a khaznte to actually becoming a cantor in a synagogue was Doris Cohen, a Brooklyn-born soprano trained in opera and art song. Cohen grew up with a thorough grounding in cantorial music. At her synagogue, she taught all the b’nai mitzvot and was paid for her singing but was not called a cantor. She sang with Moshe Ganchoff at weddings and later worked closely with Sholom Secunda, singing at the Concord Hotel for High Holiday and Passover services. She recalled singing with opera star Richard Tucker and not missing a Shavuot service there for 25 years. She also sang on the WEVD Forward Hour with many of the top cantorial stars of the day. After serving as a music director in Lynbrook, NY, she went to Temple Israel of Canarsie and served for twenty-eight years as cantor. Cohen was president of the Women Cantors’ Network from 1988 to 1994.

Betty Robbins (1924-2004)

In 1955, Betty Robbins, (née Bertha Abramson, 1924-2004), was appointed as cantor of Temple Avodah, a Reform congregation in Oceanside, New York. Born in Greece, raised and educated in Poland, she came to the US in 1944. Her historic appointment at Temple Avodah was a front-page item in the New York Times on August 3, 1955, which noted that the temple’s board voted unanimously in her favor, despite strenuous objection from HUC-JIR on grounds that she “lacked sufficient training.” Over the next several decades, as women’s roles in society changed, the practice of hiring women singers to lead services spread to other communities as well.

In October, 1975 amidst the majestic setting of the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, NH, a B’nai B’rith program for the entire New England area honored Jewish soldiers who were killed in defense of Israel during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. With attendance exceeding 2000, the service featured dignitaries, a state senator, a rabbi from Nashua, and Donna Goldfarb (1946-2024), who sang the liturgical selections. Just one month prior, Goldfarb had started as cantor for the High Holidays at Temple Beth Jacob in Concord, NH, which had previously employed a cantor but could no longer afford the expense. Goldfarb volunteered to lead the services, and continued for six or seven years without pay, singing every Friday night. Eventually the position became a paid one and expanded into a more full-fledged cantorial role.

Donna Goldfarb (1946-2024)

“In those days, it wasn’t easy to find soprano cantorial music, or people who would help me,” she recalled. “HUC was very dismissive.” But her community was supportive. As she explained it to a Concord Monitor reporter in 1982, “Technically I’m a temple musician or a cantorial soloist. I don’t have the training of a cantor. But, here in Concord, everyone has been so supportive. They call me cantor, and I’ve never heard anything but praise from the congregation for what I’m doing.” It was not only the congregation that recognized her cantorial role. In articles about her work, newspapers throughout the New England region referred to her as Cantor Goldfarb. Her career as a cantor lasted more than 20 years and extended to congregations throughout the northeast.

Like many women who became cantors, Julie JoHanna Engel (1922-1980), who served at Temple Judea in Howard Beach, NY, had trained to sing in the opera. After settling in Long Island, she joined choral groups and from 1964-1967 sang with the Long Island Opera Showcase. She joined the choir of Nassau Community Temple and soon became a lead singer. By the early 1970s, she had learned the entire service, leading many times as a substitute when the regular cantor was unavailable. Engel secured a position at Temple Judea in Howard Beach as its full-time cantor in 1977 and served for three years until her untimely death in 1980.

Julie JoHanna Engel (1922-1980)

Quite frequently, women who served as cantors didn’t realize there were others. Rita Shore thought she was the first when she started as a cantor at Temple Judea in Coral Gables, Florida, in 1968. She had studied voice and piano at Juilliard and started a career singing in concerts and recitals in the New York area. Her appointment as a cantor was met with resistance only on the outside; her congregation loved her. “I had found something meaningful and fulfilling to me,” she recalled. “I found my niche in liturgical music. That’s where I fit, and that’s where Judaism came alive for me.” Shore passed the tradition to her daughter, Stephanie, much as their male cantor counterparts did within their own families in the past. Similarly, Hilda Abrevaya believed she was a “first” when she was engaged by Temple Beth Sholom in Flushing, New York in 1971. In addition to leading services, Abrevaya directed a choir and taught music in the Sunday school, and presided over b’nai mitzvah and weddings. Susan Mandell served at Temple Emanu-El in Edison, New Jersey for fourteen years (1964–1978), similarly unaware of her contemporaries. Mandell came by the job when the temple’s rabbi attended one of her recitals and asked her to audition. After retiring from the pulpit, she remained active in Jewish organizational life and served as President of the Jewish Federation of Northern Middlesex County—its first female president.

Part II: Institutional Acceptance of Women as Cantors

Reform Movement

Until the 1970s, women who had studied liturgical music at the School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR were preparing to serve congregations as music teachers and choral leaders. Following the ordination of a female rabbi, Sally Priesand in 1972, the Reform Movement began to consider female music students for cantorial studies and formally recognized ordination.

Barbara Ostfeld in 1978

In 1975, Barbara Ostfeld became the first woman to be ordained as a cantor at HUC-JIR. She received immediate pulpit placement following ordination and was inducted into the American Conference of Cantors. Early in life, Ostfeld had become interested in Jewish music, and she was active as a youngster in Reform temple activities in Oak Park, Illinois. She admired the teachings and social activism of her rabbi and cantor. After high school, Ostfeld moved to New York to begin studies at Hebrew Union College. Those studies included traditional as well as Reform liturgy and music. Ostfeld served in various student pulpits and after ordination, she served congregations in Great Neck, Rochester, and Buffalo, New York. Between 2002 and 2012, she served as the Placement Director of the American Conference of Cantors.

Sheila May Cline (1941-2020)

Ostfeld’s ordination was followed by Sheila May Cline (1941-2020) and Mimi Frishman in 1976. Cline, a Brookline, MA native, studied theater at Brandeis University and music at the New England Conservatory of Music, and also received degrees in education. She entered the School of Sacred Music a year after Ostfeld, although she had already served as a student cantor at Mount Neboah Congregation in Manhattan from 1972-75. The press referred to her as Cantor Cline even before her ordination. She was profiled by ABC-TV on “Women and the Temple” and was one of few women to don a formal cantor’s mitre. Cline continued to concertize throughout New England, entertaining with programs and “sermons-in-song.” After years as a pulpit cantor, she took her career toward a pastoral role, serving at the Coolidge Corner Convalescent Center in Brookline, MA where she had a dual role as cantor and chaplain.

Women’s enrollment in Reform cantorial training continued, and by 1986 fully a third of the ordained cantors attending the ACC convention were women. The first women to serve as Presidents of the ACC were Cantor/Rabbi Vicki Axe from 1991-1995 and Cantor Judith K. Rowland from 1995-1998 and again in 2000-2001. Subsequent female presidents include Kay Greenwald, (2007-2010) and Susan Caro (2010-2013), raising female leadership to a new level of significance.

Conservative Movement

Cantor Linda Rich

Linda Rich was born into an Orthodox four-generation cantorial family in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Growing up in San Francisco, she studied music at California State University, and hoped to be a concert pianist. Following college, she joined summer repertory theater, performed musicals, and studied voice. Initially, Rich was trained in hazzanut by assisting her father and conducting their synagogue choir. She also studied with Cantor Alan Michelson at the University of Judaism, as well as at HUC Los Angeles with Cantor William Sharlin.

While Rich has a three and a half octave range from “lyric soprano to contralto,” she often chooses to sing cantorial music in her low voice, since, “It’s closer to a man’s voice and is easier to accept.” After several temporary positions, she was hired at Temple Beth Zion in Los Angeles in 1978. At age 26, Rich was the first female cantor in a Conservative pulpit, though she was not officially ordained until 1996. Her appointment made the local press. “She has a stage presence, an ability to be entertaining, to be lively, to raise people’s spirits, to brighten the lives of people who listen to her voice,” relayed Rabbi Martin Levin to The Los Angeles Times when Rich became the first woman cantor to assist in religious services at the Olympic Games in 1984. Rich’s cantorial singing style is described as having, “…a grasp of the tradition and a creative flair for the modern.” Rich’s daughter Rachel also became a cantor and was engaged by Temple Rodeph Shalom in Redondo Beach, CA, making six consecutive generations of cantors in the family. In 1996, Rich was awarded the Diploma of Hazzan Minister from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) and accepted into the Cantors Assembly, almost two decades after working in her first pulpit.

Cantor Elaine Shapiro

Although Elaine Shapiro was the first woman with a degree in Sacred Music from JTS’s College of Music, she was denied ordination at the completion of studies. Her fellow students were all men. “It was kind of a mixed reaction with teachers as well as students. Some of them quietly supported my being there, others resented it,” she told a South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter in 1986. She served Bet Am Shalom Synagogue in White Plains while training. In 1979, she was invited to serve as cantor at Temple Beth-El in West Palm Beach, and later at the Reform Temple Sinai in Delray Beach, where she became a full-time cantor. Asked about her decision to pursue a career in the cantorate, Shapiro said, “It’s not a profession, it’s calling. It's something one must do to fulfill one’s life. It’s made me happy. It’s made my life meaningful.”

Though born into a cantorial family, it was Deborah Katchko-Gray’s studies with Elie Weisel at Boston University that convinced her to continue in her family’s tradition. Granddaughter of the eminent European cantor, Adolph Katchko, whose compositions were the backbone of cantorial education, she trained privately with her father, Cantor Theodore Katchko, and became the first female cantor to lead a religious service in Boston (for the Boston University Hillel’s High Holidays) in 1976. In 1981, she began serving Congregation Beth El in Norwalk, CT. With a small group of women, including Elaine Shapiro and Doris Siegel Cohen, she founded the Women Cantors’ Network in 1982, and served as its President until 1988. Katchko-Gray was the first recipient of the Debbie Friedman Miriam Award in 2020.

Deborah Katchko-Gray

While women had been attending classes at the College of Jewish Music at JTS since the late 1950s, and some had earned formal degrees in sacred music, it was in 1984 that two of those students, Erica (‘Riki’) Lipitz and Marla Rosenfeld Barugel, applied and were permitted to prepare for ordination as hazzan. Rabbi Joel Roth, then at JTS, had written an influential responsum supporting the ordination of women as rabbis by JTS in 1983. Roth examined the issue through two major areas and wrote:

The question of the ordination of women can be analyzed halakhically either narrowly or broadly. A narrow analysis would confine itself to the issue of ordination per se, while a broad analysis would consider as well the ancillary issues which might be involved. One who undertakes a broad analysis of the question must deal with two crucial ancillary issues: (1) the status of women vis-à-vis mitzvot from which they are legally exempt, and (2) the status of women as witnesses. These issues are crucial because they involve matters which are widely considered to be either necessary or common functions of the modern rabbinate. These two issues apply to all women, not only to those who might seek ordination.

One key finding of this responsum was:

Be that as it may, this responsum deduces the right of women to observe the time-bound mitzvot from the very principle which the mishnah uses to designate the general category of mitzvot from which they are exempt. The principle implies exemption, not proscription….

Furthermore, since the blessings are integral to the mitzvot, there can be no justification for denying them the right to recite the appropriate blessings as they perform the mitzvot.

This finding was followed by the certification of Amy Eilberg as a rabbi in 1985. The final ruling was one of “researched precedents and painstaking interpretations.” The rabbis struggled because there were more Jewish legal difficulties in granting a woman a leadership role in singing than in teaching. In supporting the ordination of women as cantors, Roth had concluded it was merely a logical extension of that precedent that allowed women to become rabbis in the Conservative movement. This type of academic and Jewish legal approach helped pave the way for women to be cantors by outlining ways Jewish law could support the change.

Many established cantors also championed the cause of women’s investiture, including Sam Rosenbaum (1919-1997), Max Wohlberg (1907-1996), Pinchas Spiro (1922-2008), Jacob Mendelsohn and Nathan Lam. Consequently, based on a ruling in their third year by Chancellor of JTS Ismar Schorsch, the two women were ordained in 1987.

Cantor Erica (Riki) Jan Lipitz

Erica (Riki) Jan Lipitz grew up in Chicago attending both Conservative and Reform congregations, including Anshe Emet on Chicago’s North Side. In high school, she attended a one-year program through the EIE (Eisendreth International Exchange) to spend a year in Israel living in Haifa and attending Leo Baeck High School in 1972. These were the heady days before the Yom Kippur War, and Israel was teaming with creative music and excitement. Riki started leading services for High Holidays and Shabbat as an unpaid side job while in high school. She studied music therapy at the University of Michigan and went on to Brandeis for a Masters in Jewish Communal Service. After graduating from Brandeis, she returned to Chicago to be director of the Hillel at Loyola University, and also became the part-time cantorial soloist at Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL. When she entered JTS in 1983 to study Jewish music formally the Seminary only granted diplomas. It was not until the following year that her course of study could lead to ordination.

Of her experiences with studying at JTS to obtain ordination as hazzan, Lipitz recalls:

“The part of the story of women coming into the cantorate that I think is not amplified enough is this: In many professions where women wanted to participate, people in those professions cared more about keeping women out than they cared about the needs of the profession itself. To their credit, the faculty at JTS, and the cantorial faculty specifically, what they cared about was that anyone who was going to be out there leading a service, do it with the right nusaḥ. Do it with the correct Torah trop. Teach with integrity, know your craft. That’s what they cared about…And I felt their support throughout…”

Riki found she had the same experience in the community: “What people cared about was the integrity of the profession. And if you could show as a woman that you cared just as deeply about nusaḥ as your male colleague, then you were an ally.” She trained with Cantor Henry Rosenbloom, and eventually took that pulpit at Oheb Shalom in South Orange, NJ in 1987, as one of the few Conservative egalitarian pulpits in the New York area at the time. She remained there for 34 years, during which she established a community chorus and received much recognition, including the Yehudah Mandel Humanitarian Award (2013), the Hazzan Moshe Nathanson Award for Conducting (2018), and the Yuval Award (2018).

Despite ordination by JTS beginning in 1984, women were not admitted to the Cantors Assembly (the professional organization for cantors in the Conservative movement) until 1990. Cantor Robert Kieval (1946–2022) among others, had been a tireless supporter of women’s admission to the CA. The timing had practical implications as well, as there was then a shortage of candidates for cantorial posts in the Conservative movement. For the prior two years, from the roughly 60 positions open, only 15 could be filled. Female membership in the Assembly boosted the membership, allowing women access not only to professional recognition, but financial and professional benefits. However, their salaries were significantly lower and remained so well into the 1990s. The first women to serve as President of the Cantors Assembly were Nancy Abramson (2013–2015) and Alisa Pomerantz-Boro (2017–2019).

Liberal Movements Across the US: Reconstructing Judaism, Renewal, and Others

Following the Reform and Conservative movements, many liberal movements and institutions began to welcome women as cantors, and there followed an entire roster of “firsts.” Cantorial training has taken a different path in some of the other liberal movements in the US, but institutions continue to train and produce women cantors. Part of this change in training has been due to the dramatic shift in congregational singing that happened from the late 1980s through to the turn of the century. There is less pressure on congregations to have a single solo singer leading worship. Nevertheless, a number of women have had roles as leaders of sacred music in many offshoots and denominations of Judaism.

The Academy for Jewish Religion ordained Leslie Friedlander as a cantor in 1993. Deborah Davis became the first cantor ordained in Humanistic Judaism in 2001, but the movement has since stopped graduating cantors. Sharon Hordes trained at Gratz College and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wynecote, PA. She was the first woman ordained as a cantor in the Reconstructionist Movement in 2002. Currently called the Reconstructing Judaism movement, those wishing to serve as cantors continue to study at partnering institutions, as there remains no specialized cantorial school.

The Jewish Renewal movement ordains cantors through their Alliance for Jewish Renewal (ALEPH) program. The first person ordained in Jewish Renewal as a cantor was Susan Wehle in 2006.

Again, the role of the solo sacred singers has taken a back seat in many of these congregations in favor of congregational singing and chanting. The most famous female musician of the Jewish Renewal movement is not a cantor but a rabbi. Shefa Gold combines Jewish liturgical texts and music with chants based on Buddhist, Sufi and Native American practice rather than Jewish musical traditions. There is little to no concern for traditional nusaḥ in many of these congregations. In some congregations, this extends to lack of traditional Torah trop as well. Her newly created Jewish chanting has spread significantly throughout the United States and has impacted synagogue practices in other movements. She now leads formal training programs in chant leading, most of which has no musical basis in traditional Jewish practice. She has produced numerous musical recordings, written new liturgical texts, and written several books including The Magic of Hebrew Chant: Healing the Spirit, Transforming the Mind, Deepening Love (2013).

Other “firsts” might be viewed in the arena of the growth of diversity and inclusion that has entered into the cantorate as in other aspects of Jewish life. Mindy Jacobsen was the first blind woman to be ordained by HUC in 1978. A native of Miami, Mindy worked at the Jewish Braille Institute in New York. One day, she wound up being a last-minute replacement singer for a special concert. Following this, she was offered a scholarship to HUC, with Cantor Paul Kwartin acting as her sponsor. As an HUC student, Mindy became a kind of cantor-ambassador, traveling across the country giving concerts, conducting services and teaching. Some congregations were fearful of having a blind cantor, concerned with issues of insurance and liability, but her determination demonstrated that her work could be done. Her first pulpit was in West Hempstead, New York and she remained there for nine years.

Angela Warnick Buchdahl

The cantorate continues to diversify. Angela Warnick Buchdahl is a highly acclaimed Reform rabbi, born in Seoul, South Korea, who became the first Asian-American female cantor in 1999.

She has said of this experience:

Well, I used to be the poster child, right? I struggled with this because on the one hand I didn’t want to be the token Asian. I wanted to be known for who I am. At the same time, I grew up in a Jewish world where I never, ever saw myself represented in any Jewish book, in any Jewish magazine, or on a bimah… I never saw myself represented, ever. And it was extremely hard to feel like I was the only one. I am really appreciative that there’s a real effort that people are making to say, “you’re not the only one.”

Buchdahl found her way into a more committed Jewish life through music: 

Music was my Jewish vocabulary and I found that it resonated with me much more than some of the traditional prayers I would hear in my Reform synagogue. We didn’t have a cantor, so there wasn’t a lot of music. I ended up becoming a song leader at Camp Swig [now Camp Newman]. That experience blew my mind. I loved Jewish summer camp.

Today Buchdahl is a celebrated rabbi, named one of “most influential” rabbis in 2011 and one of the “top 50 rabbis” in 2012. She became senior cantor at Central Synagogue, a large Reform congregation of over 7,000 in New York in 2006, and Senior Rabbi in 2013—the first woman to serve in that role.

Jalda Rebling, a Dutch descendant of Holocaust survivors and well-known Yiddish singer in Europe, is the first openly lesbian cantor, ordained in the Renewal movement in 2007, and serves a pulpit in Berlin. Since that time, it has been easier for other members of the LGBTQ+ community to be open in the profession. To date, HUC has ordained three non-binary cantors.

Orthodox and Traditional Synagogues

In modern Orthodox and other more traditional communities, there are women’s minyans where women may serve as a sh’liach tzibbur (lit. messenger of the congregation). Often women’s minyans are offered in a separate room or section of a building, seemingly reminiscent of, or indeed harking back to, traditions from the earlier years of the zogerin leading worship in a weibershul. To date, no women have been admitted to the Orthodox cantorial training at Yeshiva University. However, some Orthodox women sing religiously inspired pieces outside the synagogue in all-female venues in non-service events, as well as on recordings and online.

In traditional Sephardi communities, para-liturgical music by women has continued to play a major role in everyday life as it has for years. Today, some women with Sephardi heritage can lead as cantors, but not always in Sephardi synagogues. Star Wahnon, who has studied Spanish-Portuguese nusaḥ and joined her family’s long cantorial tradition, works in an Ashkenazi synagogue, as does Cantor Jacqueline Rafii with her family’s Persian traditions.

Associations and Training for Cantors in the US

The American Jewish community began to establish institutions of Jewish learning for cantors, originally exclusively for men. Among those were the School of Sacred Music at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (now the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, DFSSM at HUC-JIR, founded 1948), the Cantors Institute and College of Liturgical Music of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (now the H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music, founded 1952), and the Cantorial Training Institute at Yeshiva University (now the Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music, founded 1964). Along with these three schools for cantorial studies, three professional denominational cantorial associations were also formed: the Reform-based American Conference of Certified Cantors (now the American Conference of Cantors, ACC, 1952); the Conservative-based Cantors Assembly of America (CA, 1947); and the Orthodox-based Cantorial Council of America (CCA, 1960). Additionally, the Jewish Ministers Cantors Association of America and Canada (also known as the Chazzanim Farband) founded in 1897, continued to serve as a type of cantor’s union and support organization.

Notably, the Women Cantors’ Network (WCN), now with a membership of over 300, provides support, continuing education opportunities, and a forum for discussion of practical issues pertaining to women in the cantorate. Before women were admitted to the CA, many women cantors joined this organization for connection and professional networking. Many women have felt the organization provides welcome and comfort for all those women with or without official degrees. In addition to WCN’s annual study conferences, the organization has produced a regular newsletter since 1983 and began commissioning new musical compositions in 1997. In 2019, WCN published a songbook of members’ compositions called Kol Isha: Songs and Settings of Prayers.

Along with the cantorial associations, there are affiliated organizations presently involved with the roles of women in synagogue music. Founded in 1896 as both an educational and service organization, the American Guild of Organists has a mixed constituency of liturgical musicians, not only men and women, but also Jews and non-Jews. In 1987, the ACC established the Guild of Temple Musicians, which represented accompanists, conductors, composers, music directors and soloists.

Impacts of Women Cantors on American Jewish Music

Women cantors have been part of an expanding role for cantors in America, both as cantor-educators, in pastoral care, and as cantor-composers and singer-songwriters.

Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller

Among the most prominent of the cantor-composers is Benjie Ellen Schiller, who became the first fulltime female faculty member of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR in New York in 1987, where she is now in a named professorship of Liturgy, Worship and Ritual as well as of Cantorial Arts. Cantor Faith Steinsnyder is the first woman to teach traditional hazzanut and cantorial repertoire at HUC-JIR, JTS, and at the Academy for Jewish Religion. She is known widely for concertizing the classics of hazzanut. Deborah Katchko-Gray produced the first publication in which traditional hazzanut was made available in female-friendly vocal ranges with guitar chords.

The presence of cantors who are singer-songwriters has increased exponentially in recent years. Linda Hirshhorn, a singer-songwriter who sang as a teen in Zamir Chorale in New York and became leader of the ensemble Vocolot, was officially invested as a cantor and served congregations in California.

Cantor-Rabbi Rachelle Nelson is well known throughout the United States as a composer of Jewish music and, in 1984, became the first female cantor in Miami-Dade and Broward counties at Temple Beth Am. Receiving additional training at the Rabbinical Academy in New York, she received rabbinical s’micha in June 2015. She has been recognized with numerous awards including the Weizmann Institute of Science “Woman of Valor” (2005), and the Glass Ceiling Award from the Jewish Museum of Florida (2010). Currently, Cantor-Rabbi Nelson hosts The Jewish Voice, by live stream, where she features musicians of contemporary Jewish music. She has published music with Transcontinental Music including “Bless Our Days” and “Songs for the Cycle of Life” composed with Rabbi Terry Bookman. 

Other cantor-composers are Cantor Natalie Young, whose music can be found in numerous publications and has been performed widely at Jewish music festivals and conferences. Many, such as Rosalie Boxt, current Director of Worship at the URJ, marry contemporary Jewish music with community singing. Boxt is known for encouraging new compositions of Jewish worship music.

It is common for cantors today in liberal movements to combine song leading in worship with instruments such as guitar, drums and other instruments. Rabbinic Pastor/Cantor Lisa Levine is one who combines cantorial arts with composition, drumming and meditation practices. Many women cantors sing new Jewish music that blends with other American styles and genres, such as that of Beth Styles, who uses gospel, pop and Jewish song blended in creative ways. The advent of women as composers as well as cantors reflects older practices of male cantors who often composed as well as freely improvised. Today, many women cantors serve as composers and song leaders, blending their roles as well as their voices with their congregations.

It is remarkable to note that today—just fifty years after the first ordination of a female cantor—there are more women serving as cantors in liberal North American congregations than there are men. Some serve the largest congregations in the country, such as Cantor Emma Lutz at Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles, Cantor Lori Corrsin (emerita)  at Congregation Emanu-El in New York, and Cantor Roslyn Barak, who served at Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco for twenty-eight years until her retirement in 2015. Much that women achieved in years prior to the first official ordination continues to this day, but the prevalence of women in cantorial leadership roles in the United States is unprecedented. There are more women in leadership roles as sacred singers than ever before, and their many services to the Jewish community continue to expand: as the traditional shaliach tzibbur worship leaders, to song leaders, choral conductors, musical event planners, to b’nai mitzvah teachers, to pastoral care professionals, to educators at every level, to co-clergy with rabbis and solo practitioners.

In reflecting upon the role of women in sacred music, we can see a long history that many women have helped to write. Their participation has been steady, but the methods have changed over the years. Women have altered the way that Jewish prayer is heard, and their influence will continue long into the future.

This article is part of our Voices of Change: 50 Years of Women in the American Cantorate series.

Read More About the Series

*This article has been adapted and extended from the following entry in the Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women:

Heskes, Irene, updated and revised by Judith Pinnolis. “Cantors: American Jewish Women.” Shalvi/Hymn Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 2021. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/cantors-american-jewish-women

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