THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130634
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 151 lines
As a child, Yael Fischman sat in rapt attention through hours of Hebrew prayers at weekly Shabbat services, while her friends fled to play games in other rooms of the small synagogue in Pittsburgh.
She shivered in delight at the soaring tenor of the cantor, the man who led the congregation in song. She, too, had a beautiful voice but barely dreamed of such a job. Women were not accepted for leadership positions in the Conservative branch of Judaism.
At Fischman's bat mitzvah - a ceremony marking the passage of a 13-year-old into adult standing in the religious community - the rabbi who had taught her remarked to her parents: ``Too bad she wasn't born a boy. She could have gone really far.''
Standing nearby, his pupil accidentally overheard. ``I tucked it away and tried to figure out what to do with my life,'' she says. ``Women were not equal in his world view.''
Seventeen years later, she has proved the rabbi's prediction, and disproved his prejudice. Fischman, the new cantor at Temple Israel on Granby Street, is one of only 34 female cantors in the nation's 474-member group for Conservative cantors. In her new job, she follows Cantor Isaac Danker, who retired this summer after 20 years.
The 30-year-old's mezzo-soprano voice - listeners say she reminds them of folk singer Judy Collins - is a striking departure from Danker's baritone. The acoustic system in the synagogue's sanctuary has been completely readjusted to suit her range.
Her voice is likely to tweak traditional expectations about the sound of Jewish melodies. ``I've had some people remark that on an aesthetic level, they're more comfortable with a baritone or tenor,'' said Temple Israel's rabbi, Michael Panitz. ``But less familiar is not necessarily less comfortable. There are those that find it less familiar, but refreshingly so.''
For a few, the change is unacceptable. Two of the 550 families at Temple Israel quit in protest at the decision to hire a woman, he said. But 200 people came for her debut on a sweltering Saturday morning earlier this month - twice the usual attendance.
Fischman's presence at the front of the congregation is recognition of a decade-long growth in women's leadership in the Conservative movement, the largest of the three main branches of Judaism. There are an estimated 5.6 million Jews in America; 41 percent of those affiliated with synagogues identify themselves as Conservative. Of the approximately 18,000 Jews in Hampton Roads, 57 percent are Conservatives.
In 1985, the Conservative movement began ordaining women as rabbis, the spiritual and scholarly leaders of congregations. Women were not so quickly accepted as cantors, although for many decades men and women had sung together in choirs at Conservative synagogues.
The following year, when Fischman started her five-year graduate program at the Jewish Theological Seminary, women were still unwelcome in the Cantors' Assembly, the Conservative cantors' New York-based professional association. Even at the seminary, some professors were dismissive. ``They would grudgingly teach us,'' she said. ``Every now and then, there would be snide remarks and a paternalistic attitude.''
Panitz, long an advocate of ordaining women, says that female leaders bring a necessary spirit of equality to Jewish tradition. ``It's a matter of simple justice,'' he said. ``If we train our boys and girls for participation in the religious community, it shouldn't stop at the pulpit.''
Fischman's education in equality was instilled by her mother, a fighter against Jewish patriarchal tradition.
As a teenager in the late 1940s, her mother went to the ``cheder,'' or Jewish religious school for boys, and begged the rabbi to give her lessons, Fischman said. The rabbi - strongly opposed to the idea - sat her apart from the boys and allowed her to study from an old, beat-up book.
Then a tragic accident changed his thinking: His daughter, an ardent Zionist, was killed in an uprising during the founding of the state of Israel. Fischman's mother challenged the grief-stricken man: ``Your daughter died for her religion, why can't you teach me?''
He wept, and did it. Those lessons were passed on to her musically gifted daughter. No matter how busy Fischman got with musical activities, from violin lessons to choir practice, she was always in her seat for Sabbath services on Friday nights and Saturday mornings.
While her talent was evident at her bat mitzvah, she says a mystical experience at age 14 gave her a conviction about her purpose in life. One morning, after the service, Fischman lagged behind to sit alone in the sanctuary's silence.
``I felt this warm, gentle touch on my shoulder. There was no one there. I sat very still,'' she said. ``It was very weird. . . I kept asking myself, did I hallucinate this? But I had this feeling that I would be a leader.''
She was chubby, shy and unpopular - not, she says, a likely candidate for leadership. But she remembered stories of Biblical leaders, such as Moses, who protested to God that his slow speech made him a poor choice to lead the Jews.
Around that time, Fischman heard a woman cantor at a Reform synagogue, a branch of Judaism which puts less emphasis on rituals and long-held customs. It was something new and inspiring, Fischman said. ``She could be up there, just as impressive as the rabbi was.''
At Indiana University, she studied music and designed her own course of study which culminated in a thesis comparing mystical traditions of major religions, including Judaism, Buddhism and Taoism.
She entered the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1986, one year after the seminary began allowing women to obtain the diploma of ``chazzan,'' the Hebrew title for a cantor. Only a few are admitted for the rigorous five-year course of study: There were 40 students in the entire school. Of the seven in her class, three were women.
The training combines a study of age-old prayers and music, the heart of the cantor's role in the community, with an extensive grounding in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and Jewish law and commentary. Over the years, the cantor's role has evolved beyond musical duties to include a partnership with the synagogue's rabbi for religious education of children and adults.
After graduation, Fischman went to B'nai Emet Synagogue in Minneapolis, which was created from the merger of three different congregations. Some of the members were Orthodox Jews, who strictly adhere to Jewish law and object to being led in prayer by a woman.
To Fischman, it was a call to teach. In 1994, she produced the first all-female cantorial concert in Minneapolis, bringing together seven cantors from across the country.
Their singing styles, which ranged from folksy to operatic, got the reaction she hoped for. Afterward, one man who had once been vigorously opposed to the notion of women cantors told her that she ``had forever changed his way of thinking.''
But the synagogue's financial instability put her back on the job market. Her move to Norfolk came after a chat between Temple Israel's Panitz and Fischman's father-in-law, Rabbi Marim Charry, at a rabbinical convention. Charry, who served as a rabbi at Norfolk's Temple Beth El in the late 1960s, suggested her after Panitz said his synagogue was starting a search for a new cantor.
Her first visit in March couldn't have been more timely. Cantor Danker had laryngitis, and Fischman ended up leading Shabbat services and helping officiate at a wedding. She returned for a second visit in April, and officially started this month.
Her voice enlivens the daily morning services at 7:30 a.m., and soars from the window of her upstairs study as she practices prayers for the Jewish tradition's most holy observances, Rosh Hoshana and Yom Kipper, which start this year in September.
She is sticking with the synagogue's traditional melodies this year, but hopes gradually to introduce new tunes to the congregation. ``People gravitate to the folk idioms of the day,'' she said. ``If they see the synagogue reaching out to that, it makes them feel that the synagogue isn't some moldy institution.''
Even as she takes the congregation across new thresholds, she senses the presence of cantors from the past, watching over her shoulder.
``I see myself in a line of cantors stretching back in time to the Levitical choir,'' she said. ``It's a funny, shivery feeling it gives you to know that you are carrying on that tradition.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
VICKI CRONIS/Staff
Yael Fischman is Temple Israel's first female cantor.
by CNB