Beyond The Stained-Glass Ceiling: Gender and the Modern Cantorate

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n the bright, airy sanctuary of a Massachusetts synagogue, eighty women and a few men have gathered for the weekday Shacharit service. Their voices rise in harmony, decorating the words of the Hebrew liturgy as cantors have done for centuries. The Women Cantors’ Network (WCN), founded in 1982 by Deborah Katchko-Gray, is having its annual conference. Members have gathered to sing, to pray, and to learn from one another how to deepen and improve their work in Jewish music.

When Barbara Ostfeld received her ordination from Hebrew Union College (HUC) in 1975, the scene depicted in the photograph above would have been unimaginable. Ostfeld’s historic ordination signified the institutional approval of women in the cantorate. Two generations later, with women’s place in the cantorial hierarchy secure, the institution of the cantorate itself has changed.

Although the cantor’s role has traditionally been fluid, women and—more recently—nonbinary individuals have inspired significant changes in the cantorate. By establishing themselves within the existing structure of Jewish religious leadership, women cantors have achieved a significant goal of the second-wave feminist movement. Women serve as sole and senior cantors in large congregations in North America and Europe, and occupy leading positions in cantorial schools and professional organizations such as the American Conference of Cantors (ACC) and the Cantors Assembly (CA). Nevertheless, inequities persist. This essay explores how contemporary female and nonbinary cantors address these challenges with creativity, musicality and a deep love for the music of Jewish prayer, developing new visions for the future of the cantorate.

L'Dor Vador

Although Barbara Ostfeld was not the first woman to serve a congregation as cantor, the half-century since her ordination reveals the impact of multiple generations of women cantors and, more recently, trans and nonbinary clergy. Cantor Audrey Klein acknowledges the “work that was done by my foremothers,” citing the HUC-trained woman cantor in her own childhood synagogue as an inspiration. As the woman who broke this institutional barrier, Ostfeld is an important member of this group of cantorial foremothers, whose influence extends beyond the individuals they personally inspired.

Cantors Deborah Katchko-Gray and Kochava Munro followed their fathers into the cantorate, roughly forty years apart. Katchko-Gray was inspired by her grandfather, Cantor Adolph Katchko (1886–1958), and writes of her father, Cantor Theodore Katchko (1927–1997) that he was “the real hero in my cantorial training and tradition.” Munro recalls, “I grew up surrounded by Jewish music and going to synagogue, and I fell in love with the prayers and the Jewish community.” Both Katchko-Gray and Munro took inspiration and instruction from their fathers and began leading services at a young age. However, the difference of forty years is reflected in the options that were available after each decided to pursue the cantorate seriously.

Members of the WCN are called to support each other for a group aliyah during the Torah service at the annual WCN conference in 2024.

When Katchko-Gray began her journey in the late 1970s, the Jewish Theological Seminary did not yet offer cantorial ordination to women. She studied with her father and with private teachers, and described the rabbi who hired her as cantor in Connecticut in 1981 as “very brave.” When Munro decided to pursue professional training after serving for two years as a cantorial soloist, her options were much more varied. She chose Hebrew College out of several cantorial schools open to her and found a job easily upon graduation. In this job, she succeeded a female friend who had served as a cantorial intern and who had recommended her for the position. Where Katchko-Gray’s choice to become a cantor in the 1980s was a radical act, unsupported by a professional cantorial association, Munro’s identical choice in the 2010s was entirely normal.

The recent generations of women in the cantorate have changed cantorial training. Women aspiring to be cantors learn from and are inspired by other women cantors. Some receive their first experiences with sacred Jewish music through women cantors in their own synagogues. Others learn from institutional role models.

The visibility of women cantors in positions of leadership is a powerful source of insight and influence to other young women. Mindy Escobar-Leanse, musical and religious school coordinator at her synagogue, notes how changing social roles for women can redefine the concept of womanhood. Facing what she described as her own “internal misogyny,” she reflected:

I didn’t see a whole lot of female leadership, especially clergy, growing up . . . I’ve had to unknot the biases that I have for myself, and the pressure that I put on myself to be something other than me . . . So, I've found that I’m kind of redefining what it means to be a woman—both for myself and as a professional.

This power of gendered role models continues to grow. Cantor Jenna Pearsall speaks with excitement of the inclusion of transgender and nonbinary individuals in the clergy:

I think the presence of trans and nonbinary folks in the rabbinate and the cantorate is a marker of the here and now, and that it is going to grow in the future. We need them, their voices, their guidance, their wisdom.  

Cantor Ze’evi Tovlev, who came out as nonbinary while in cantorial school, also sees a future for gender diversity in the cantorate:

As we continue to, God willing, ordain more queer and trans cantors, we’ll be able to adapt liturgy and ritual in increasingly deep ways to serve the types of Jews who do not yet see themselves in Jewish liturgy and ritual. 

The visibility of a diverse cantorate allows all community members to see themselves accepted and represented by Jewish leadership.

A Changing Cantorial World

As women cantors have become more visible and broadened the Jewish liturgical imagination, the institutions of the professional cantorate have changed. There are multiple options and opportunities for training, both for cantors who wish to attend accredited cantorial schools and for those who do not or cannot. Hebrew Union College’s cantorial school continues to train an increasing number of women cantors, with some classes being entirely female. The Jewish Theological Seminary also trains cantors, though its program has shrunk in recent years, and although Hebrew College suspended its cantorial program in 2024, it retains its combined rav-hazzan program. Newer programs, such as the pluralistic Academy for Jewish Religion in New York, are drawing students attracted to their flexible study plans. Some cantorial programs, such as Jewish Renewal’s ALEPH ordination program and the Academy for Jewish Religion in California, use remote instruction to attract students who might not otherwise be able to attend cantorial school. 

Some women choose to pursue training through more traditional methods of apprenticeship, either in place of or in addition to cantorial school. Star Wahnon, who uses the Sephardi title of Reverend, attended AJR for a few years, but had to study Sephardi nusaḥ privately, as North American cantorial schools focus largely on Ashkenazi nusaḥ. Other women choose their style of training for reasons involving family makeup or life situations.

In response, the cantorial world has found ways to accommodate both ordained and apprentice-trained cantors. The WCN has long provided a professional home for Jewish musicians and prayer leaders across movements, both with and without official ordination. And in 2005, the CA founded the Cantorial Interns of the Cantors Assembly (CICA) program, designed to help apprentice-trained cantors study with a mentor to receive both the formal title of Hazzan and membership in the CA. All of these options provide greater support and collegiality, expanding access to the cantorate for a wider range of voices.

The cantors who emerge from this training have changed as much as the institutions that train them. Cantors now view their position as being equal and similar to that of a rabbi. As many cantors observe, the daily work of a cantor and a rabbi can be quite similar; however, the roles differ in focus. Cantor Klein observes that “a rabbi’s area of study and focus is Jewish law and rabbinic text. A cantor’s area of study is the liturgy and the chanting and the music that goes along with the liturgy.” Cantor Jenni Asher adds that cantors can do most of the daily work that rabbis do. “We can officiate weddings and funerals, we can lead services, we can do baby namings. But our role in the synagogue tends to be that we are in charge of liturgy. We are the keepers of it.” And Cantor Vera Broekhuysen describes a cantor as “a Jewish clergyperson who has taken on the language of Jewish music as their primary, but not exclusive, means of Jewish spiritual leadership. We do text, we do lifecycle, we do pedagogy throughout the life cycle and throughout the age spectrum, we do theology...But I don’t know anybody who came to the cantorate without a core love of music and liturgy.” 

While many cantors affirm equality with rabbis in congregational leadership, they are also reevaluating the nature of their own leadership. The rise in popularity of congregational singing, and the explosion of participatory, folk-style congregational melodies, have led some cantors to redefine the relationship between the sh’li’aḥ tzibbur, the congregation’s representative in prayer, and the congregation itself. Asher contrasts the contemporary cantorate with the idealized, nostalgic model of the early 20th century:

The Golden Age of the cantorate was very ‘I sing, you listen.’ Or, ‘I sing, you respond.’ ... Over the last few decades, that’s really shifted to ‘we sing together.’ You might be leading us, but we are all singing together. The cantorate has become communal.

Cantorial Soloist Jenni Asher sings B’simcha Tamid by Cantor Jacqueline Rafii with her congregation.

In response to this shift, cantors describe their roles as much in relationship to the congregation as to the text and liturgy they sing. Reverend Wahnon believes that the cantor’s job is “to help the congregant connect their inner voice to their outer voice.” Moving beyond voice and music, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who is also an ordained cantor, suggests that:

The primary role of the cantor is an energy worker. You’re not performing. You’re not even just eliciting participation, although you do all of those things, also. You’re actually really reading the energy of a room and understanding and being fully present to what is needed in the moment.

In emphasizing communal, congregational prayer over individualized performance, cantors explicitly place themselves among their congregants rather than above them. Cantor Marina Shemesh sums up this philosophy. “I want to be a cantor who not just sings beautifully and engages congregations in singing and bringing ruach to the services, but also being very much on the same level with people—to be human.” Connecting with congregants horizontally rather than vertically is a priority for almost all contemporary cantors in the liberal movements, even if they have a personal taste for more performative repertoire.

Some cantors serve as the sole spiritual leaders of their congregations, a role known as kol bo, from the Hebrew meaning “all in one.” Because of the historic inequality between the rabbi and cantor, most congregations see nothing unusual about a synagogue that has a rabbi but no cantor. Indeed, if a synagogue’s budget can only accommodate one clergy member, the tradition has been to hire a rabbi and expect that rabbi to sing. But an increasing number of synagogues have begun to choose cantors as their spiritual leaders. In 2023, representatives of the CA and the ACC told The Forward that they counted twenty-four cantors serving as sole spiritual leaders in Conservative synagogues and thirteen serving in Reform synagogues. More cantors serve as kol bo in smaller congregations that are either affiliated with smaller movements such as Jewish Renewal or entirely unaffiliated.

The responsibility of serving as kol bo is heavy, but there are significant rewards as well. In a panel discussion on being a kol bo held at the WCN conference in 2024, and then again in a private interview, Cantor Stephanie Weishaar compared the role to being a single parent, saying “everybody’s coming to you for everything.” She describes the duties of a kol bo as “holding the pastoral piece, holding the tefillah – the prayer leading piece – the education piece, a little bit of the engagement coordination." The position also allows her congregation to see the work that she does as a spiritual leader in its complete context, rather than viewing her simply as “a push-button musician.” 

Cantor Broekhuysen, who also served as kol bo before moving to her current position as part of a clergy team with a rabbi, observes that this list of duties for a single Jewish clergy person is not unusual. What is still considered unusual is for the clergy person doing them to be a cantor and not a rabbi. “That is something also that’s peculiar to the cantorate,” she says. “That is, the expectation that your leadership is, by nature, in partnership with another clergy leader.” Indeed, the term kol bo itself signifies a change in the position of the cantor rather than the rabbi as there is no particular word for a rabbi who serves as the sole spiritual leader of a congregation. 

Challenges

In the world of the synagogue, as in the broader social world, sex and gender discrimination presents obstacles to cantors who do not fit the traditional mold of a cisgender man. Though these barriers are subtler than they were when Ostfeld was ordained, they have not yet disappeared. As long as women have been cantors, they have had to be conscious of their dress, their hair, and even their makeup. In her 2019 memoir, Ostfeld recalls how her congregants commented on her clothing, shoes and hairstyle and even offered to take her shopping. Fifty years later, many female and feminine-presenting cantors report that some congregants still feel free to comment on their appearance. Such comments reflect broader cultural difficulties understanding that feminine-presenting bodies and social leadership need not be mutually exclusive.

Despite decades of social progress, Jewish communities still present challenges to the person of the cantor, as well as to the position. Ze’evi Tovlev noted that there is an observable, though subtle, misogyny that runs through Jewish life, in which congregants do not necessarily take a woman cantor as seriously as a man. Tovlev’s coming out as nonbinary has given them a unique perspective on how congregants perceive the gendered body of the cantor:

I have found that there is a different way that people react to me when I’m wearing a tie than when I’m wearing a dress and heels. And there’s a certain respect that I’m given in a tie that I’m not given in a dress.

Cantors’ interactions with congregants also reveal a subtle ageism that affects many professionals in North America, and is especially notable when the professional is a vocalist. Female voices may change significantly as the body ages, and vocal professionals have only recently begun to understand how to care for an aging voice. Others have had to learn on their own how to adjust their singing as their voices change. Female cantors across a spectrum of ages have found that congregations may not trust their vocal leadership as much as men of the same age.

In a gendered culture where a woman’s right to a career is conditioned on her also assuming the bulk of home and family care, women cantors must balance the responsibilities of caring for their families as well as their communities. Women in this position give credit to supportive partners who themselves have challenged gender-based family expectations to take on an equal share of home responsibilities. At the same time, congregations have become more inclusive of small children. Cantor Klein describes some synagogues in which women lead services while holding their small children, and notes that even some men have begun to include their children in this way.

Even so, the dual needs of families and congregations take their toll on women, many of whom struggle to find creative solutions to the dilemma. Angela Buchdahl, a rabbi and cantor, recalls the competing pressures to serve her congregation and to prepare home-cooked dinners for her family. She realized that, although the conventional expectation is dinner, breakfast could be just as physically and emotionally nourishing. “I feel like I got to get in that mothering that I really wanted to have,” she says. “It just wasn’t dinner. And that’s okay. We just have to make some choices and feel okay with them.” Buchdahl’s creativity shows how women cantors can model solutions to dilemmas that women in all professions face. As cantorial work changes, and as synagogues experiment with part-time and shared positions, women cantors can take the lead in changing working conditions so that all cantors and rabbis are able to care for their families as well as their congregations.

Growing Cantorial Diversity

The contemporary cantorate is also a breadth of growing diversity and respect in the Jewish world. The most visible form of this diversity is race. Jews of color have become more prominent in the 21st century, which has revealed layers of racism in North American synagogues. Rabbi and Cantor Buchdahl recalls being told, “You don’t look like a Jew. How can you be Jewish?”. Like sexism and ageism, racism in synagogues can take physical form. Jenni Asher observes that “as a Black woman, people talk about my hair pretty constantly. They ask me if they can touch it while they’re touching it.” The increasing number of Jews of color in leadership roles has inspired more solidarity organizations and networks. In 2021, Hazzan Sabrina Sojourner founded KHAZBAR, a network that raises the visibility of Jews of color and provides much-needed social and emotional support in their mission for racial justice.

While the majority of women cantors identify as Ashkenazi, some women of other traditions are beginning to claim their own ethnic identity as part of their cantorate. When Reverend Wahnon began to study Spanish-Portuguese nusaḥ, she joined her family’s long cantorial tradition, which includes her father, James Robert Wahnon, her grandfather Martin James Wahnon, and her great-grandfather James Mesod Wahnon, all prominent Sephardi cantors from a family that originated in Gibraltar. At the same time, her study represented a radical break with tradition, as it is still rare for women to lead prayer in Sephardi synagogues. Indeed, several of the women cantors who identify and work as Sephardi or Mizrahi cantors found their way into the cantorial world through Ashkenazi synagogues and introduce their own musical traditions in these settings. Reverend Wahnon teaches Sephardi nusaḥ to the largely Ashkenazi children of the two synagogues where she leads prayer in upstate New York and on Long Island. Cantor Jacqueline Rafii began to take an interest in her family’s Persian musical tradition upon hearing recordings of her cantor grandfather, Yehuda Rafii, made in Tehran in 1971. Like Reverend Wahnon, she studies the music of her non-Ashkenazi heritage, re-embodying it in her female voice for a new generation of diverse Jewish congregants.

Cantor Jacqueline Rafii sings a Persian melody for L'kha dodi, which she arranged from a version recorded by Issac Boudaie.

The Jewish perception of gender is changing as well, becoming more expansive along with the leading edge of liberal social trends. In 1975, women made the Jewish world realize that men were not the only people who could serve as cantors. Today, congregations are learning to understand and welcome transgender and nonbinary Jews into congregations and leadership positions. In 2006, HUC ordained Rabbi Elliot Kukla as the first transgender rabbi; in 2023, HUC ordained Jordan Goldstein, Kalix Jacobson, and Ze’evi Tovlev as the first nonbinary cantors. Tovlev’s senior recital and their subsequent work focuses on using the language of the Nonbinary Hebrew Project to create new visions of prayer that speak to and include Jews traditionally marginalized by gender. They challenge Jewish communities to consider the question, “How can we subtly shift the language in ways which have so much potential for affirmation in our community?” Their choice to compose new music speaks to their intent to help congregations evoke new, specific meanings for prayer. They explain that congregations need new music for this new language “in order to introduce this intentionally, as its own thing.” In this way, Tovlev and their congregants, friends, family, and supporters use the power of an increasingly diverse cantorate to help congregations move beyond the binary and welcome Jews who are as marginalized now as women were in 1975.

Cantor Ze’evi Tovlev and friends sing Tovlev’s setting of Isaiah 54:10, December 2021.

Looking Ahead

In recent years, the cantorial world has exploded with creativity, changing the structure of liturgical hierarchy and expanding the vision of the synagogue to include a growing number of marginalized Jews. Today, cantors pursue goals of liberation and equality, establishing themselves as colleagues, collaborators and spiritual leaders. The institution of the cantorate has become more flexible and more open. Women who trained in accredited cantorial schools share roles with women who trained as apprentices, and cantorial training programs have adapted to offer further education to those apprentice-trained cantors who want it, while still honoring and incorporating their particular vocal backgrounds and ways of relating to congregants.

In 2019, the WCN published Kol Isha, a songbook showcasing its members’ compositions.

Looking to the future, cantors envision a world in which congregations see collaborative clergy teams, with some specializing in law and others in music and prayer. They look for ways to guide congregants into deeper spiritual realms with new music that supports the emotion of prayer and allows a range of Jewish voices to be heard. In 2019, the WCN published a songbook entitled Kol Isha, presenting new liturgical music composed by its members for women’s voices. The songbook is grounded in familiar liturgy, but also highlights women’s perspectives, presence and spiritual needs. Each piece in the book reflects a moment in which a woman cantor saw an opportunity to serve congregants or a community that needed her voice and creativity.

Cantors also hope that increasing their visibility as clergy partners, musicians,teachers and spiritual leaders will help congregants to become more familiar with the position and come to embrace having both cantors and rabbis serve congregations. Escobar-Leanse believes this will bring greater equality to the synagogue. “I project, optimistically, that it becomes something that is seen as an equally valuable, equally respectable position of leadership,” she says. “And that a cantor can do everything that another clergy member is doing. They just do it musically, with joy in music!”

Contemporary cantors lead their congregations from the floor as much as from the bimah, singing and celebrating with congregants rather than simply on their behalf. They offer meaningful spiritual fulfillment, bringing new sounds to familiar liturgy and breaking new ritual ground to meet congregational needs.

This article is part of our Voices of Change: 50 Years of Women in the American Cantorate series.

Read More About the Series

About the Author

Dr. Rachel Adelstein is an ethnomusicologist, and a Hebrew Tutor at the Marlene Meyerson JCC.  She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2013, with a dissertation entitled “Braided Voices:  Women Cantors in Non-Orthodox Judaism.”  Between 2014 and 2017, she was the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Junior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge.  Her published and forthcoming work addresses women’s music and agency in Jewish sacred spaces, the music of British Reform, Liberal, and Masorti synagogues, the role of music in Jewish memorial work, and the history and meaning of congregational melodies in Jewish life.

Bibliography

Adelstein, Rachel. 2024. “Sisters in Song: Women Cantors and Musical Creativity in Progressive Jewish Worship.” In. The Routledge Companion to Women and Musical Leadership: The Nineteenth Century and Beyond, eds. Laura Hamer and Helen Julia Minors. New York: Routledge. 451 – 463.

Colin, Susan, Emily Howard Meyer, and Anita Schubert, eds. 2019. Kol Isha: Songs and Settings of Prayers Composed by members of the Women Cantors’ Network. Natick, MA: Women Cantors’ Network.

Heskes, Irene, and Judith S. Pinnolis. 2021. “Cantors: American Jewish Women.” Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Jewish Women’s Archive. Available at https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/cantors-american-jewish-women. Accessed 28 October, 2024.

Ostfeld, Barbara. 2009. “The Ascent of the Woman Cantor: Shir Hamaalot.” In New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future, ed. Elyse Goldstein. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing. 133 – 143.

Ostfeld, Barbara. 2019. Catbird: The Ballad of Barbi Prim. Buffalo, NY: Erva Press.

American Conference of Cantors: https://www.accantors.org

Cantors Assembly: https://www.cantors.org

Hebrew Union College: https://huc.edu

KHAZBAR: https://www.khazbar.org

Nonbinary Hebrew Project: https://www.nonbinaryhebrew.com

Women Cantors’ Network: https://womencantors.net/