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Chazante
Traditionally, Jewish law has not allowed women to lead the prayer service in the synagogue. Even the Reform movement did not train female cantors until the early 1970s.HUC-JIR celebrates the jubilee anniversary of the School of Sacred Music
A chazante is a woman performing cantoral music outside the synagogue. The word is a declension of '' chazan'' (Hebrew and Yiddish for cantor), to the feminine. Chazantes generally performed cantorial music outside the synagogue. Famous chazantes in the mid 20th century include: ...
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Betty Robbins
Betty Robbins (born Berta Abramson, April 9, 1924 – February 19, 2004) was a notable cantor. She was one of the first female cantors. She was the first woman appointed as a cantor in the 20th century. Career Robbins began singing while in 1932 at the age of 8 while living in Poland. She was not allowed to sing in the all-male choir in synagogue and instead sat opposite the boys and sang so loudly the cantor relented. She cut her hair short to fit in and later was the soloist in the choir of the German synagogue in Danzig, Poland for six years prior to fleeing the Nazis. Robbins is sometimes reported to be the first female cantor, although the unofficial cantor Julie Rosewald preceded her. Robbins was appointed cantor of the Reform Temple Avodah in Oceanside, New York, in 1955, when she was 31 and the temple was without a cantor for the High Holidays. Her appointment was reported on the front page of ''The New York Times''. In addition to her cantorial work, Robbins taught re ...
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Jean Gornish
Jean Gornish (1916–1981), known as "Sheindele di Chazante", was a chazante, a female performer of Jewish cantorial and liturgical music. She is often called the first female chazan. Life Gornish was born in 1916 in Philadelphia. As a child, she was run over by a garbage truck, but survived unhurt. Despite offers of work as a nightclub singer after her high school graduation, by 1936 she had committed herself exclusively to cantorial music. She took the stage name "Sheindele di Chazante". Gorlish's manager, Ben Gottleib, arranged for her to perform regularly on the radio on Sundays after the news broadcast. She was unable to perform in orthodox synagogues, which prohibited female performers. By the early 1940s, Sheindele's had signed an exclusive contract with the Planters Peanut Company, which allowed her to organize a touring schedule and radio programs in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, performing in theaters such as the 3,000-seat Orchestra Hall in Chicago and ...
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Partnership Minyan
Partnership minyan (pl. partnership minyanim) is a religious Jewish prayer group that seeks to maximize women's participation in services within the confines of Jewish law as understood by Orthodox Judaism. This includes enabling women to lead parts of service, read from the Torah, serve in lay leadership positions, sit in a more gender-balanced format, and in some cases count as part of a minyan ("quorum") of ten men and ten women. Partnership minyanim began in 2002 simultaneously in New York and Jerusalem, and have now spread to over 30 communities in at least five different countries around the world. Definition JOFA defines a partnership minyan as: : prayer group that is both committed to maintaining halakhic standards and practices and also committed to including women in ritual leadership roles to the fullest extent possible within the boundaries of Jewish Law. This means that the minyan is made up of 10 men, men and women are separated by a mechitzah, and the traditional li ...
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Halakha
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandments ('' mitzvot''), subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic laws, and the customs and traditions which were compiled in the many books such as the ''Shulchan Aruch''. ''Halakha'' is often translated as "Jewish law", although a more literal translation of it might be "the way to behave" or "the way of walking". The word is derived from the root which means "to behave" (also "to go" or "to walk"). ''Halakha'' not only guides religious practices and beliefs, it also guides numerous aspects of day-to-day life. Historically, in the Jewish diaspora, ''halakha'' served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of law – both civil and religious, since no differentiation of them exists in classical Judaism. Since the Jewish Enlightenment (''Hask ...
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Jewish Music
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originate in biblical times, differences of rhythm and sound can be found among later Jewish communities that have been musically influenced by location. In the nineteenth century, religious reform led to composition of ecclesiastic music in the styles of classical music. At the same period, academics began to treat the topic in the light of ethnomusicology. Edward Seroussi has written, "What is known as 'Jewish music' today is thus the result of complex historical processes". A number of modern Jewish composers have been aware of and influenced by the different traditions of Jewish music. Religious Jewish music Religious Jewish music in the biblical period The history of religious Jewish music spans the evolution of cantorial, synagogal, and ...
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Jewish Law And Rituals
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, the practice of Jewish (religious) la ...
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Religious Jewish Music
This article describes the principal types of religious Jewish music from the days of the Temple to modern times. History of religious Jewish music The history of religious Jewish music is about the cantorial, synagogal, and the Temple music from Biblical to Modern times. The earliest synagogal music was based on the same system as that used in the Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Mishnah, the regular Temple orchestra consisted of twelve instruments, and the choir of twelve male singers. A number of additional instruments were known to the ancient Hebrews, though they were not included in the regular orchestra of the Temple: the '' uggav'' (small flute), the '' abbuv'' (a reed flute or oboe-like instrument). After the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent diaspora of the Jewish people, music was initially banned. Later, these restrictions would relax, save for the Jews of Yemen who maintained strict adherence to Talmudic and Maimonidean halakha and "instead of d ...
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Jewish Feminism
Jewish feminism is a movement that seeks to make the religious, legal, and social status of Jewish women equal to that of Jewish men in Judaism. Feminist movements, with varying approaches and successes, have opened up within all major branches of the Jewish religion. In its modern form, the Jewish feminist movement can be traced to the early 1970s in the United States. According to Judith Plaskow, the main grievances of early Jewish feminists were women's exclusion from the all-male prayer group or ''minyan'', women's exemption from positive time-bound '' mitzvot'' (mitzvot meaning the 613 commandments given in the Torah at Mount Sinai and the seven rabbinic commandments instituted later, for a total of 620), and women's inability to function as witnesses and to initiate divorce in Jewish religious courts.Plaskow, Judith. "Jewish Feminist Thought" in Frank, Daniel H. & Leaman, Oliver. ''History of Jewish Philosophy'', Routledge, first published 1997; this edition 2003. Acco ...
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Role Of Women In Judaism
The role of women in Judaism is determined by the Hebrew Bible, the Oral Law (the corpus of rabbinic literature), by custom, and by cultural factors. Although the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature mention various female role models, religious law treats women differently in various circumstances. According to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Center, women are slightly more numerous among worldwide Jewish population (52%). Gender has a bearing on familial lines: In traditional Judaism, Jewishness is passed down through the mother, although the father's name is used to describe sons and daughters in the Torah, e. g., "Dinah, daughter of Jacob". The status of Levi is only given to a Jewish male descended patrilineally from Levi; likewise a Kohen descends from Aharon, the first Kohen. A Bat-Kohen or Bat-Levi has that status from her Jewish father with the corresponding HaKohen/HaLevi title. Biblical times Compared to men, relatively few women are mentioned in the Bible by na ...
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Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and faithfully transmitted ever since. Orthodox Judaism, therefore, advocates a strict observance of Jewish law, or ''halakha'', which is to be interpreted and determined exclusively according to traditional methods and in adherence to the continuum of received precedent through the ages. It regards the entire ''halakhic'' system as ultimately grounded in immutable revelation, and beyond external influence. Key practices are observing the Sabbath, eating kosher, and Torah study. Key doctrines include a future Messiah who will restore Jewish practice by building the temple in Jerusalem and gathering all the Jews to Israel, belief in a future bodily resurrection of the dead, divine reward and punishment for the righteous and ...
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Hebrew Union College
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved throughout history as the main liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken today, and serves as the only truly successful example of a dead language that has been revived. It is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still in use, with the other being Aramaic. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as '' Lashon Hakodesh'' (, ) since an ...
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Barbara Ostfeld-Horowitz
Barbara Jean Ostfeld, formerly known as Barbara Ostfeld-Horowitz, is the first ordained female cantor in Jewish history, and an American feminist, mental health advocate, and author. Early life and education Barbara Jean Ostfeld was born in 1952 in St. Louis, Missouri and grew up in Elmhurst, Illinois. Her mother, Ruth Vogel Ostfeld, was an occupational therapist, a cellist, a vice president of the League of Women Voters of Connecticut and president of Congregation Mishkan Israel (1994-1996). Her father, Adrian M. Ostfeld, was the Anna M. R. Lauder Professor of Public Health at Yale University, and was internationally known for his research on the epidemiology of coronary heart disease, stroke, and aging. All of her grandparents immigrated to the United States between 1903 and 1925. Her maternal grandparents were born in Austria-Hungary and eventually bought a dry goods store in South Bend, Indiana. Her paternal grandparents were both from Bucharest, Romania. Her father's m ...
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