Let’s hear it for the chazan
Simon Rocker dips into a new encyclopedia which pays homage to the traditions of synagogue music
DURING THE dark days of lockdown, Alby Chait’s voice lifted spirits and touched hearts. The young minister from Leeds, who can range from the high style of classical chazanut to settings of Sabbath songs to Beatles tunes, reached far and wide with his popular pre- and post-Shabbat broadcasts. On one occasion, 20,000 people from across the world watched a Chanukah lighting last December, streamed from the hallowed turf of the city’s football team, Elland Road.
When he was inducted two years ago at the United Hebrew Congregation, he enjoyed the distinction then of being, so far as anyone knows, the only chazan, rather than a rabbi, to lead a major community in the UK (although one or two rabbis have a cantorial diploma as well). Now he has become Rabbi Chait, having received semichah just a few weeks ago.
But he is one of a diminishing band. “In 2021, the UK had not a single full-time chazan”— that is, employed beside a rabbi— according to a new publication.
A homage to the role of music in synagogue services that took a more than a decade to compile, The Encyclopaedia of British Jewish Cantors, Chazanim, Ministers and Synagogue Musicians: their History and Culture is the handiwork of retired GP Michael Jolles, co-editor of the Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Running to a massive 875 pages, its 2,000 entries include one on Rabbi Chait, as well as on his late father Henry and his two brothers.
While Dr Jolles has printed a few dozen copies for major libraries, he has generously made the book available free online from the website of the European Cantors Association. It is intended to be “a living document”, updated as more information comes in, says David Prager, recently enlisted as co-editor along with Yehuda Marx, the chazan of Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester.
Apart from profiles of synagogue musicians spanning more than three centuries, the encylopedia contains a wealth of background material on liturgy, nusach — the appropriate mode in which prayers should be recited — the cantillation of the Torah and synagogue decorum. In the mid19th century, congregational singing was noted to “have a good effect on decorum, even if the quality of singing was poor,” the encyclopedia records.
It recalls a time when congregants could be fined for talking during the service and even that one synagogue suspended the Amidah for some years because the chatter got so bad. It explains such obscure terms as cheironomy — assisting the Torah reader by hand-signalling the notes in advance. It recollects episodes such as the dispute between one chazan and his synagogue over what day in the autumn festivals to stop reciting Psalm 27 , which ended up in the High Court.
As well as chazanim and ministers, it covers choirs, arrangers and composers such as the 19thcentury Julius Mombach, whose tunes for Hodo Al- eretz and Havu (Psalm 29) are still sung by many congregations today on Shabbat morning when returning the Sefer Torah to the Ark, part of that heritage we know as minhag Anglia.
At the launch last month, Dr Jolles said that whereas a history of chazanut had been published in the USA nearly a century ago, here the subject had largely been ignored. The more entries there were, the better. “If some individuals left only a tiny trace of their lives, they are certainly still included. All of their lives must be memorialised,” he said.
“After all, this is the equivalent of rescue archaeology. Certain traditions of chazanut are fast disappearing. Over recent years, Eastern European musical tradition has been squeezed out by preference for congregational singing, resulting in specialised nusach being lost.”
Over the past few decades, singalong melodies of one kind or another, which make it easy for the congregation to join in, have replaced set-piece chazanut in many synagogues.
But David Prager, a devotee of chazanut since his childhood— he collected albums from Yossele Rosenblatt and Pierre Pinchik when peers bought the Beatles and Rolling Stones — disputes one argument often deployed against it. “The claim that cantors prolong services is countered by the fact that in old Anglo- Jewry the cantor/choir picked one or two items to sing in Musaph and the service typically finished at noon,” he says.
Other trends have conspired to deplete the cantorial ranks. The move towards steibls has reduced the size of many more established congregations, Mr Prager observes, leaving it harder for these to afford more than one minister, whereas it was once the norm to employ a rabbi and a chazan. “The economic battle of synagogue clergy has been well and truly won by the rabbinate,” he says.
And when synagogues have the money to
engage more than a rabbi, more commonly they opt for a youth or community rabbi rather than a chazan.
Stricter halachic interpretation has also constrained musical practice, for instance ruling out the use of tuning forks on Shabbat or prohibiting repetition of words in a prayer.
For all the challenges, efforts are being made to invest in synagogue music. The ECA sent seven young men for a year to the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute last year. Two Reform congregations in this country now have full-time cantors, both women.
But Mr Prager is doubtful of the efficacy of one idea, to send in chazanim to train Jewish school choirs in nusach. They are no substitute for synagogue choirs, which were the musical nursery of many of the great chazanim.
Just as once there were maggidim, itinerant preachers who went from congregation to congregation, perhaps we need a team of travelling cantors who can bring the inimitable glories of chazanut to communities at least once in a while.