''A Cantor's Tale'' is a 2005 documentary by
Erik Greenberg Anjou. The film profiles Jacob Mendelson, a
practitioner of Jewish liturgical music (a cantor) who has dedicated his life to preserving the form's traditional vocal stylings.
Plot
Anjou follows Mendelson around
Borough Park, his old neighborhood in
Brooklyn. Mendelson, who carries a
tuning fork with him at all times, is prone to burst into song. During their journey through Borough Park, Anjou finds that the neighborhood has a fair number of
baker
A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.
History
Ancient history
Since grains ha ...
s with vocal talents as good as their
knishes.
Mendelson also recalls when cantors were as popular as baseball players. "They had groupies," he tells Anjou, a strong incentive for a chubby teenager in high school.
Mendelson's mother, who had been diagnosed with
bipolar disorder, was almost obsessed that her son become a cantor. The film reveals an interesting link to celebrity on the part of Mendelson's father: the older Mendelson once co-owned a truck with the father of
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
.
The movie's original title was ''Chazz'n'', after the profiled cantor's sobriquet "Chazzan Jack Mendelson." It has also been titled ''A Cantor's Story''.
Subject
Mendelson grew up in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. He was given the Hebrew name Yaakov Ben-Zion, after his
grandfather, the rabbi of Newark between the world wars.
He has opera and cantorial degrees from
Juilliard and
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 ...
(HUC) respectively. He has also taught at both HUC and
Jewish Theological Seminary.
In 1979, he married Fredda M. Rakusin, a fellow Juilliard graduate, cantor, and opera singer.
Mendelson was preceded in his profession by a number of relatives, including a paternal uncle, Nathan, who was cantor at Montreal's
Shaar Hashamayim for 35 years, an older brother Solomon "Tucky" Mendelson, and other members of the extended Mendelson family. Sol and Jacob were members of
Moshe Koussevitzky's children's choir at Beth-El, and both were later presidents of the
Cantors Assembly.
References
External links
Jeanette Catsoulis' review in The New York Times*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cantor's Tale, A
2005 films
Documentary films about Jews and Judaism in the United States
Documentary films about singers
Films about Orthodox and Hasidic Jews
2000s English-language films