The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor

Judah M. Cohen

Description

Modernity and tradition in the training of American Jewish cantors

The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor provides an unprecedented look into the meaning of attaining musical authority among American Reform Jews at the turn of the 21st century. How do aspiring cantors adapt traditional musical forms to the practices of contemporary American congregations? What is the cantor's role in American Jewish religious life today? Cohen follows cantorial students at the School of Sacred Music, Hebrew Union College, over the course of their training, as they prepare to become modern Jewish musical leaders. Opening a window on the practical, social, and cultural aspects of aspiring to musical authority, this book provides unusual insights into issues of musical tradition, identity, gender, community, and high and low musical culture.

Acknowledgments and Attributions
Note on Transliteration
Introduction: A Moment of Transformation
1. To Fashion a Cantor
2. Seeking the Tradition
3. Constructing a Tradition
4. Through the Prism of the Practicum
5. A Prism of Cantorial Sound
6. A Prism of Cantorial Identity
Conclusion: Cantors in Israel and the Structure of Musical Authority
Appendix A: Ashkenazic and Sephardic Pronunciation Table
Appendix B: URJ Transliteration Guidelines and Master Word List
Bibliography
Index
List of Selections on Compact Disc

Sujets

• Jewish Studies
• Jewish
• Religious
• Religión
• MUSIC
• América
• Jews
• Multiple signal classification
• Reform
• Ethnomusicology
• Musicology
• Judaism
• Education
• Religion
• American
• United States

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 20 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253045485
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor
The Making
OF A
Reform Jewish Cantor
Musical Authority, Cultural Investment

Judah M. Cohen
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published with the generous support of the Helen B. Schwartz Fund for New Scholarship in Jewish Studies of The Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program, Indiana University
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, IN 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
First paperback edition 2019
2009 by Judah M. Cohen
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The Library of Congress has catalogued the original edition as follows:
Cohen, Judah M.
The making of a Reform Jewish cantor : musical authority, cultural investment / Judah M. Cohen.
p. cm.-(A Helen B. Schwartz book in Jewish studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35365-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. New York Campus. School of Sacred Music. 2. Cantillation-Instruction and study. 3. Cantors (Judaism)-Education. 4. Reform Judaism. I. Title. MT4.N5H439 2009 296.4 62-dc22
2009012332
ISBN 978-0-253-04549-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-04547-8 (e-book)
1 2 3 4 5 24 23 22 21 20 19
For Rebecca, who has known the project from the start, and Rena (b. 2006), who witnessed its completion.
Contents
Acknowledgments and Attributions
Note on Transliteration and Transcription
INTRODUCTION : A Moment of Transformation
1. To Fashion a Cantor
2. Seeking the Tradition
3. Constructing a Tradition
4. Through the Prism of the Practicum
5. A Prism of Cantorial Sound
6. A Prism of Cantorial Identity
CONCLUSION : Cantors in Israel and the Structure of Musical Authority
Appendix A: Ashkenazic and Sephardic Pronunciation Table
Appendix B: Notes on Audiovisual Materials
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments and Attributions
As with any major undertaking, a book never results solely from the work of a single person. What appears on these pages (and accompanying materials) resulted from a lucky and benevolent confluence of individuals, all of whom devoted time and effort to see this project through. Without them, this work would have remained merely an intellectual adventure.
Kay Kaufman Shelemay guided my years of research with a steady hand and unending support. Her constant, positive involvement over the past years has influenced every page of this work. Thomas F. Kelly and Richard K. Wolf provided valuable and detailed comments, giving me the pleasure of mulling over my topic in numerous thoughtful and interesting ways.
In the field, I found a mentor, colleague, research associate, site advisor and academic sibling in Mark Kligman, who enthusiastically took me under his wing as I started exploring ideas about Jewish music in New York City. His insights, as a fellow Jewish music scholar, and as Hebrew Union College s resident ethnomusicologist, have been invaluable to my understanding of the School of Sacred Music and its environment. He has opened many doors for me, both in my research and in the professional academic world.
I am grateful to Cantor Bruce Ruben, the current director of the School of Sacred Music, for generously sharing of his own researches and resources on the School of Sacred Music s history. Dr. Gary Zola and Eleanor Lawhorn, at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, also provided enthusiastic assistance in helping me locate and access material on this and several other fronts.
For facilitating my fieldwork in Israel, I owe much gratitude to Cantor Eliyahu Schleifer and Rabbis Michael Marmur and Shaul Feinberg. They graciously granted my requests to spend time at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion campus in Jerusalem, and let me sit in on classes, record religious events, and take part in every facet of campus life. Eliezer and Chava Shaykevitz, distant relatives but close friends, opened their home and offered to serve as my embassy as I learned to function within a new environment.
In New York, Cantor Israel Goldstein, director of the School of Sacred Music during my research, looked kindly on my project and took a chance by allowing a stranger into School life with little introduction. Thank you also to Cantors Robert Abelson, Richard Botton, Andrew Edison, Martha Novick, David Lefkowitz, Jacob Mendelson, Noah Schall, Benjie Ellen Schiller and Faith Steinsnyder-all master cantors and first rate mentors, who became my teachers in more ways than they know. Joyce Rosenzweig and Allen Sever, both extraordinary musicians, were equally helpful in their interest and assistance with my research.
My wife Rebecca has been a fellow traveler on this journey, constantly serving as a model of efficiency for me to follow. Thank you for your love, your companionship, your welcome distractions and your encouragement-not to mention your patience and insight into my theoretical rantings. Our daughter Rena, born in 2006, napped diligently as I worked on completing this book, and was probably keenly aware of my attempts to puzzle out another phrase or paragraph in my head as we played in the park or watched Sesame Street together.
My parents, Richard and Treasure Cohen cultivated in me the inquisitive, enthusiastic and deep-thinking spirit that led me to this pursuit, and continued to challenge me all the way through the process. Their support and love over the years instilled in me the confidence to strike out on my own path, even in the face of difficult times and long odds. Thank you also to Stanley and Edna Nash, who not only had enough faith in me to let me marry their daughter, but also have been supportive and caring in-laws, rejoicing in my successes and counseling me in times of hardship.
For helping to fund my research and travel, I am grateful to have received a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a John Knowles Paine Travelling Fellowship, and an Edward H. Kavinoky Summer Fellowship. Early in the writing stage, fellowships from the Whiting Foundation and Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture offered important support, allowing me to pursue my endeavors full time; and summer faculty fellowships from Indiana University allowed me to concentrate on completing my manuscript. At the publication stage, I received generous assistance from the Helen B. Schwartz Fund for New Scholarship in Jewish Studies and the Faculty Fund of the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program.
I am also grateful to my music and Jewish studies colleagues at New York University and Indiana University, including my compatriots in NYU s Working Group on Jews and Media (especially its conveners, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler). They all have given me the gift of a rich intellectual environment in which I could continue my work over the past six years. Both directly and indirectly, their conversations have helped shape my ideas for this and many future projects.
Janet Rabinowitch, my editor at the Indiana University Press, has been a steady force in moving this project along. Thank you also to Katherine Baber and Brian Herrmann, whose able hands and organizational prowess helped this manuscript (and this author) negotiate the complex publication process. Ruth Stone and Alan Burdette, moreover, have been instrumental in encouraging me to extend this project beyond the written word; as part of a connected initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation, I have been able to deposit and notate video relating to this book in the Ethnomusicological Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital Archive (EVIADA). I am grateful to Indiana University Press for its support of this new direction, which has rich implications for the future; users can access my material via a link on the IU Press website.
Most importantly, I wish to thank the School of Sacred Music graduating classes of 2000-2003, whose members graciously included me in so many of their activities, somehow managed to fit long interviews into their insanely busy schedules, and generously allowed me to record and observe their every move throughout the educational process: David, Margaret, Jonathan, Brad, Ilana, Amy, David, Daniel, Sergei, Diane, Michel, Susan, Rosalie, Lisa, Rebecca, Hollis, Wendy, Kari, Jeff, Seth, Alison, Jason, Jill, Larisa, Adina, Kim, Regina, Erin, Miriam, Sally, Galina, Tanya, Gabi, Mark, David, Jeff, Tracey, Kerith, Rosalie, Irena, and Leon. Their voices serve as the heart of this work, and their active engagement with this project as students, and later as established professionals, has been the greatest gift a researcher could have. Throughout, they trusted me with their personal opinions, aspirations, and concerns about the cantorial training process, and allowed me to be a part of their lives. I can only hope that I have given their words, and their experiences of cantorial training, justice.
Writing about the lives of developing musical figures holds significant challenge, particularly when, years later, those same people become prominent public authorities and representatives of their art. Few people are comfortable having others chronicle their formative experiences. I therefore offer my gratitude to a community that has endowed me with the generosity and trust to do just that. At the same time, in order to honor that trust, I h